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→Misconceptions about Courage
It is not courage and nobility to accept these things [false perversions] as the law of your nature, nor is it meanness and cowardice to aspire to a higher Truth and try to act according to it and make that the law of your nature. <ref>https://incarnateword.in/cwsa/31/vigilance-resolution-will-and-the-divine-help#p43</ref>
The Chinese, for example, have an extremely tamasic vital and an insensate physical: its sensation is totally blunted—they are the ones who invented the most frightful forms of torture. It is because they need something extreme in order to feel, otherwise they don't feel. There was a Chinese who had a sort of anthrax, I think, in the middle of the back (generally an extremely sensitive spot, it seems), and because of his heart they couldn't put him to sleep to operate on him, so they were a bit worried. They operated without anesthesia—he was awake, he didn't move, didn't shout, didn't say anything, they were filled with admiration for his courage; then they asked him what he had felt: "Oh, yes, I felt some scraping in my back"! That's how it is. That's what creates the necessity of catastrophes—of unexpected catastrophes: the thing that gives you a shock to wake you up. <ref>http://incarnateword.in/agenda/06/july-24-1965#p8</ref>
===The Two Sides of Our Nature===