Face the difficulties boldly!

Here is an incident from Swami Vivekananda's life.


The following incident took place during swami Vivekananda's wandering days when he was staying at Varanasi. One day when he was returning from visiting  the Durga temple, a troop of monkeys chased him. To save himself, Swamiji at  first started running, but the monkeys ran still faster and and grew increasingly aggressive. At this time, an old monk who happened to witness the scene called out to him: 'Stop running. Face the brutes!' Swamiji heard his call and turned to 'face the brutes.' Then the monkeys stopped harassing him.


Swamiji drew a great lesson from this apparently simple incident. He said, 'I learnt that one should not run away when faced with with danger or difficulty; instead one must face it boldly. Like the monkeys, the hardship of life fall back when we cease to flee before them. If we are ever to gain freedom, it must be by conquering nature, never by running away. Cowards never win victories. We have to face fear and troubles and ignorance if we expect them to flee before us.'