There are two ways of facing a challenging situation. The first and unfortunately more common is to simply give up on ourselves and seek help from outside. We are as if paralysed or overwhelmed by the situation or the circumstance. We have as if already lost the battle without even facing, let alone fighting it.
But there is another way, a way more worthy of our manhood. It is to look at the danger straight in the face. But here too we may look at it with physical eyes that see only the stark frontal appearance and not the reality that all physical phenomenon embody. But there is another set of eyes within us which we have thus far not cultivated. It is the eyes of the soul that see behind the flow and flux of ever-changing circumstances the Truth that is trying to express Itself however clumsily through the shock and the struggle. If we would rather collaborate and allow the hidden Reality underlying all things to emerge without resisting or struggling against it, then we shall see that the appearances that bore the mask of terror dissolve as if a thing unreal. The dreadful shape that covered the face of Truth crumbles as if it were non-existent.
That is why the wise have always advised that instead of concentrating upon appearances that are ever-changing we should concentrate our thoughts and will on the unchanging eternal essence, the sole Reality, the single Truth of which all things and worlds and creatures are a mask. Some masks may seem to our limited vision and personal preferences beautiful whereas others may seem ugly from our immediate individual standpoint and personal interests. Yet behind all these there is the One. It is this One Self on which we should concentrate. It is this One Self that must occupy our thoughts and engage our will. Then slowly the beauty of things will emerge from within and in each element of creation we shall comprehend a thought of God and in each evil a good in the making. Then death itself will no more terrify us since we shall see in Death itself the seeds of a new beginning.
