One morning before daybreak in North Calcutta, a teenage boy was bathing in the Ganges when he saw something floating near him. Some people on the shore saw it too, and shouted: “Crocodile! Crocodile! Come out quickly!” The boy immediately rushed towards the shore; but he stopped while still standing in the kneedeep water and thought to himself: “What are you doing? You repeat day and night, ‘Soham! Soham!’ [I am He! I am He!] And now all of a sudden you forget your ideal and think that you are the body! Shame on you!” He immediately went back into the deep water and continued his bathing. Fortunately, the crocodile had left. (Source: God Lived with Them)
Vedanta says that a knower of Brahman becomes fearless. Fear originates from duality. Because an illumined soul experiences the nondual Brahman, he can never fear anyone. Once while in the Himalayan region in Tihiri-Garhwal, Turiyananda was living in a thatched hut that had a broken door. One night he heard the villagers cry, “Tiger! Tiger!” He immediately put some bricks behind the door to protect himself. Just then he remembered a passage from the Taittiriya Upanishad that declares that even at the command of Brahman the god of death does his duty like a slave. His awareness of the Atman awakened, and defeated the body idea. He kicked the piles of brick away from the entrance, and sat for meditation. Fortunately, the tiger did not show up. (Source: God Lived with Them)
One early morning Turiyanada went out for his morning ablutions. He saw a big tiger seated above a rock looking around. From a distance they looked at each other, and then after a while the tiger left. Turiyananda’s burning renunciation made him fearless. Hunger and thirst, disease and death, cannot overpower a knower of Brahman. (Source: God Lived with Them)
In later years Turiyananda underwent several surgeries, but he never allowed the doctors to use chloroform. He simply withdrew his mind from the body like a yogi; he showed no sign of pain during surgery.