Facing the danger does not mean to rush rashly into the whirlpool of forces. Nor does it mean entering the field of confusion to see what is going on there. What it means rather is to look at things calmly for their real worth. Next it means to look not only outside but more importantly within, to see what really is determining our responses? Finally it means to look carefully and see what a certain set of given circumstances are trying to communicate. Situations and circumstances in which we find ourselves are in fact a clumsy way of expressing something that we have failed to notice. It is the way nature teaches us. Her classroom is the world-wide universe. Her book is the book of life itself as it unfolds before our eyes in the form of various events and the idea-forces that push them. Day and night are the pages of her book. Her method is experience through which we learn. Her teachers are pain and suffering.
Our learning is completed when we have gathered Wisdom. That is the degree she confers upon those who have earned her lesson and passed her tests arranged in real-time. The most trivial of circumstances, the seemingly most insignificant of situation, a passing remark, a little act and its effect upon consciousness, a seemingly innocuous comment are her means and tools that she uses to teach and to test us until we have graduated from her primary school of learning. The sign that we have gathered pearls of wisdom and turned raw material into ingots of pure gold is the experience of immutable peace and joy that stays with us regardless of the ever-changing appearances. Until that happens very steadily we must go on learning our lessons that nature is teaching us.
We also need to understand that each life is only one short or long chapter that remains incomplete and ill-understood unless we connect it with the great thread that binds countless lives. This thread is the central aspiration that we must find in our core. Once we discover this thread of aspiration that is burning as a flame within this house of flesh then we understand the real significance of all the happenings in and around us. Then our values change for we often rejoice in what is normally regarded as suffering and feel stifled and jailed when surrounded with pleasures and comforts. We may even discover that certain short chapters were packed with knowledge and growth of power within us whereas many long chapters were merely a wasted effort of nature to teach us since we were slow and poor learners. We also discover that the quality of our life does not depend upon the number of years we have lived or the amount of outer things we have acquired but on how far we travelled on the trail of our aspiration. Therefore let us catch this inner thread and follow this flame leading us towards the House of shadowless Light rather than busy ourselves with ever-changing appearances mistaking them for reality and Truth.
