Face the Brutes!
BY JANANI RAVIKUMAR
As a wandering monk, Swami Vivekananda was coming out of the temple of Mother Durga, when he was surrounded by a large number of chattering monkeys. They seemed to be threatening him. Swamiji did not want them to catch hold of him, so he started to run away. But the monkeys chased him. An old sannyasin was there, watching the monkeys. He called out to Swamiji, ‘Stop! Face the brutes!’. Swamiji stopped. He turned around and faced the monkeys. At once, they ran away.
‘Face the Brutes’ – That is a lesson for all life – face the terrible, face it boldly. Like the monkeys, the hardships of life fall back when we cease to flee before them’. -Swami Vivekananda”
What causes you anxiety or fear? It could be your exams or a particular subject, performing on the stage, or talking the truth to someone. Your heart beats fast and your stomach tightens in fear. But the more we give in to these fears, the more menacing they become. The ghost of the fear looms larger and larger and finally threatens to consume us in its fire. The more we fear them and try to avoid or run away from these situations, the more they seem to chase us, in one form or the other. And then we are so consumed by anxiety or worry that we lose our peace, our sleep, our heart quivers and our body trembles. We lose confidence in ourselves and think of ourselves as good-for-nothings. We feel very small in front of our large fears. Have you ever experienced this?
Let us now try a different way. Let us simply turn around and face these fears. What is it that you fear? What is it you are trying to avoid? Can you try to turn and face that thing? For instance, if you fear Maths, instead of avoiding the subject altogether, make a resolve to excel in Maths, practice with full effort and if required get a good Maths tutor who can guide you in it. Something is difficult does not mean you are not good at it. It just means you need more practice and effort. Every day after waking up in the morning, visualise yourself scoring a hundred in Maths and your teacher praises you in front of the class. Your parents hug you when they see your marks. You feel so good and proud of yourself. Now with this picture in mind, put your full effort at it, and you are bound to succeed. Of course, your mind will keep telling you negative things, ‘You are never good at it.’, ‘You are never going to make it’. Simply ignore, imagine it is an old grumpy woman muttering all the time. The solution is to ignore and keep going at it. The road ahead is difficult but not impossible. Nothing is ever impossible for the determined.
Or let’s say you want to perform on the stage, but are too frightened to face people, so you avoid it mostly. Now, lets change our approach and visualise in full detail – the rosy picture of you giving a great performance on the stage and the audience loves it and appreciates you by clapping non-stop. How about that? Visualise this again and again until you really believe it is true. Now, go on stage and deliver your best performance ever! Where has the fear gone? Face the brutes!