How
many times a day we change our face: whether we are in our home or office, in the market
or a cultural gathering, congregation or solitude, we wear a different face in different
situations and environments. While talking to our near and dear ones in our homes, to our
officers or the peons in our office, to the shopkeepers or the customers in a bazar, to a
literary person in the meeting or to a spiritual soul in a spiritual gathering, we put on
a different face. In short, we change our face according to the situation or the
impression we intend to give about ourselves.
The
question arises: Why do we change our face so frequently? Why are we unable to show our
real face—what we really are? Isn’t it that in trying to project ourselves as
great beings or imitating great people, we forget our real self and thus by changing our
face, we hide the truth and reality? May be we forget what we really are and what our real
face is. Nursing hatred in our hearts, we may be pretending to love; concealing
beastliness in us, we may be talking about God. Just as an ugly man deceives by covering
himself in gorgeous clothes, in the same way, we may be inwardly evil but outwardly
projecting a handsome image. We may be deceiving by covering our weaknesses and evils
under the garbs of morality and civilization. However, we may conceal hatred, beastliness
and wickedness from others but we cannot hide the same from ourselves; we can conceal
nothing from ourselves because to our soul, we are stark naked as a new born baby. Hence,
isn’t this self-deceit, an escape from the realities of life and isn’t it a
symptom of lack of courage and confidence?
If
there is hatred and malice in our heart, why do we conceal it? If there is beastliness
hidden in ourselves, why do not we admit it? If we are evil within, why do we deceive
ourselves by pleasant appearance? To hide the facts and realities of life, why do we need
the mask of false image and false morality? And what is morality? What culture and
civilization demand of us? Instead of wasting our time and energy in pretending to be
moral and civilized, we should change our way of thinking and try to understand what the
reality is and what we really are. By pretending to be moral, we cannot change the
realities of life, though we may temporarily become oblivious of facts. The facts remain
facts. The facts in themselves are neither good nor bad. They are facts. As such, instead
of covering the facts with the veil of civilization and culture, if we face them as they
are, we can turn a new leaf in our life. So long as we do not face the facts, — the
naked truth —, we cannot see our real face and maintain our real image.