Face What You Must Face

A beautiful story from Mahabharata.

Face What You Must Face

I am just reminded of a small story, an episode from Mahabharata – where Krishna & Balarama are going to the forest & by then the sun had already set and it was dark.

It was the time when we did not have forest resorts for people to stay.

So it seems Krishna came up with a proposal to Balarama, I will go to sleep & you keep watching me. Whenever you feel sleepy, you wake me up & I’ll keep watching & you can go to sleep.

Krishna went to sleep, Balarama who kept moving to and fro, encountered a monster in the forest,

& the monster screamed at the Balarama. And Balarama who was shaken up by the monster shrank in size and the monster became bigger than Balarama.

The monster screamed one more time, Balarama shrank even further and the monster became even bigger.

One last attempt, the Monster screamed at Balarama, unable to take the might of the monster Balarama screamed “Krishna” & he fainted. Hearing the call “Krishna,” Krishna woke up.

Though Balarama had fainted, he miss took Balarama to be sleeping and Krishna started walking to and fro.

So the monster which had seen now a new person standing there screamed at him one more time.

And it seems that Krishna instead of being perturbed, stared at the monster and asked: “What do you want?”

The Courage of Krishna made the Krishna expand and Monster Shrink. The monster once again screamed at Krishna, Krishna again asked the Monster “what do you want?”

The monster shrank even further. And Krishna expanded even more. One last attempt, Monster screamed at Krishna, and Krishna again asked the monster “what do you want?” And the monster shrunk in size.

The Epic goes, Krishna takes the Monster and ties the knot at the end of his Dhoti and places the Monster inside.

The Sun did rise and Balarama and Krishna began to walk. And as they were walking, Balarama told Krishna – you don’t know what happened last night. “A monster came and it was threatening us so much.”

Krishna gently took the monster out of his Dhoti and showed it to Balarama and asked – “Are you talking about this?”

Immediately Balarama says but when I saw it, it was so big but now it has become so small.

And the Veda Vyasa through the voice of Krishna says – When you avoid what you must face in life, it becomes bigger than you and takes control over you. When you face what you must face, you become bigger than it and you take control over it.

The monster here is all the challenges we face in life. If you keep avoiding what you must face, these challenges become monstrous and take control over you.

Instead of, face what you must face and you become larger than it and gain control over it.

Always remember, challenges are been given to you for a purpose – for you to become what you can become.