I started this chapter mentioning that humans are born with emotions unlike thoughts. The same is true for other living beings such as animals, plants etc.. There must be a purpose of providing of emotions to us by nature. 

Fear is a negative emotion and its counterpart is courage. Imagine you are in a forest and suddenly you find your self in front of a lion, now what would you do? You have two options either you fight or flight. If you are scared you will run, and if you are courageous enough you will fight. In both the cases you need extra-ordinary energy. Psychologists call it fight or flight syndrome. Whenever humans feel threatened, physiological changes are bound to happen. Your nervous system becomes active. Your heart beats faster and digestion slows down. The brain sends message to adrenaline glands. Thus begins a process, involving a number of hormones including adrenaline, whose purpose is to prepare the body for vigorous emergency action. A number of changes follow, to make muscles as strong as possible, because threat (presence of lion) is for real, so whether you like it or not, you need extra energy. 

But where are we wrong? We tend to invent the threat with in ourselves even though there is no threat at all for us in the outside world. We tend to see smaller issues with bigger prospective. There are numerous issue which can be solved at the thought level but we involve our emotions in the situation, which makes the matters worst. 

There is brilliant example of the same in Pachtantra, which gives a third kind of message. This story is about a Lion and a Rabbit. The lion was very powerful and ruled his kingdom of forest. Everyday he used to set out for hunt and used to kill anybody he wants to. He used to kill more prey than he could eat. All the animals in his kingdom were tired of his this habit. Then one day they decided to take up this matter to the lion. They went to him and proposed to him that they will supply him with one animal a day, this way at least the innocent victims will be spared. The lion readily agreed to this. As he was growing old, he will have to hunt no more. It was a win-win situation for both the parties. As per the contract the animals used to send a prey every day for the lion to eat. It was a rabbit’s turn that day. He got out of his house and started for the lion’s den. It was a beautiful morning; cool breeze was flowing, which made the rabbit happier. He was so happy that he forgot to go to the lion, and as expected he reached late in the lion’s den. 

On the other hand the lion became impatient waiting for his daily meal. He was very angry. His anger was increasing with the fire in his belly. When he saw the rabbit coming to his den jumping in joy, he became more furious. He scolded the rabbit and asked the reason for his late arrival. The rabbit in fit of his joy was oblivious of his late arrival. He immediately thought of a plan. He explained “my lord while I was coming to your den I met another lion, who was eager to eat me too.” Listening to this the lion roared with anger. Considering the situation the rabbit said “I tried to persuade this lion that I am visiting the king of this jungle but he did not understand. I had to dodge him to reach here.” The lion started shivering with anger. He considered himself in threat by another lion. The Lion said “I am the king of this forest and nobody can take over from me. Show me that lion, I will teach him a good lesson right now.” The rabbit had already chalked out a plan for this. He took the lion to a well and said “here your honor in this well lives the other lion.” The lion reached at the corner of the well and saw his own image in the well. Considering his image as another lion he roared and the roar came back twice more audible than his own. He became more furious and without giving a thought he jumped in the well to kill the other lion. The lion was killed, and rabbit joyfully reached back his home. 

This story seems simple as it is, to tell your children but the depth is so deep that it remained existed for centuries. As per the fight or flight syndrome if an external threat comes to you than something is bound to happen on your emotional level. Nature has provided us with some sort of power which activates for our survival and aggravates the energy in us. This extra energy helps us to fight if we want to and helps us to run if we want to. If we have a look at the story again it gives us a message that the threat for the rabbit was real. After all what could be bigger threat than a life threatening situation. Here rabbit represents stability on emotional level. He is fearless and courageous. On one hand is the rabbit who is emotionally stable which makes his thought level stable. If the thought level is stable the actions would be positive and the solutions pertaining to the situations would be positive. On the other hand the lion represents instability on emotional level, which breeds instability on thought level as well. Negative emotions like anger take over and destabilize the emotions and the thought level is bound to be destabilized, and the action taken at this time would be disastrous. 

The point here is that we have to find out the ways and means to stabilize ourselves on emotional level. I think that the fear is one such emotion which activates the most of the times in humans. On the other hand courage is one powerful and positive emotion which resides in very few people. All the powerful and successful people had this common factor in them. You must have heard that in share market the people who can make a balance in fear and courage, are known as successful traders. Of course one who can counter his negative emotion like greed with positive emotion like courage can only make money in share market. 

Conclusion: Emotion is the fountainhead of success.