The art of extricating oneself from a maze of webs

The art of extricating oneself from a maze of webs is not a skill of escape, but of awareness. Are these webs threads of attachment, fear, and expectation? The maze is not outside but within, designed by one’s own thoughts and desires. One must learn which threads to untie and which to let be. In that understanding, the webs dissolve, and one finds not a way out, but a way through.

The first time I experienced mental pain was when my father fell on a familiar street and was badly hurt. He was bleeding profusely, so much that I felt sick. I was literally feeling his pain. He kept himself calm, so that we would not feel his suffering. My elder brother took him to the hospital. The doctors attended to him immediately. He did not panic; he behaved as if everything was normal. I was very young then, and in time, life returned to normal.

I did not understand it then, but gradually I realised that fighting with pain helps. I used to suffer from headaches. When they came, I endured them, sometimes silently, sometimes restlessly. Then one day, I decided to fight the pain. I said to it, if you come, be prepared, I will fight you by ignoring your existence. This practice helped me to alleviate my suffering.

Many pains emerge from within, whatever their external manifestations. It is the inner self that must learn to face them sternly, and in that firmness, the threads of pain begin to loosen.