STRESS

Today I am going to talk about stress. Before I talk about stress, I want to talk about something we all have which we call will power. Every human being got will power. Without will power we cannot do anything. You cannot move, cannot get up. Now when you want to get up, you just get up without thinking but a practitioner of mindful meditation, before they get up they say “I want to get up.” A lot of things that we do, we don’t think about it and that is why our mind is weak. Most human beings have weak mind because their mind is not where it is at that point in time. Eckhart Tolle says “be in the present, be in the now.” In the mindful mediation it is about being mindful about what we do. Before you get up, you say I am going to get up, before you walk, you say I am going to walk. So your mind is focus at the point in time where you are doing something. The more you practice this, the more focus you mind is, the more powerful your mind is.

We eat food to make our body strong and exercise our body but very few exercise the mind. The mind too needs exercise. If the mind did not exercise, it will grow weak and when you grow old you get dementia, you forget this and that. So your mind needs exercise and you exercise by mindful meditation or awareness meditation. In its simplicity mindfulness meditation is about being aware of what you do. Being mindful of what you do is an exercise of the mind. You may have seen some monks doing walking meditation, this is mindful meditation where their mind is focus on each step they take.

When you are doing something, your mind is wondering on food, thinking about football, wondering all over the world and that is not good. The stronger you want your mind to be, you got to be mindful of what you do. Why I am tell you this is because this will help you to address the question of stress. The weaker your mind is, you are more prone to auto suggestion. You will easily believe what other says. This has nothing to do with intelligence or education but purely due to a weak mind. The more you strengthened your mind through the power of meditation, through exercising by being in the now, the more you will be able to handle stress.

Now what is stress? Many years ago, when I was young, there was no such thing has stress. Stress is a new word invented by some psychologist. In those days stress is means to measure the strength of concrete where they put pressure on it until in cracks. This is call stress load test. How much load the concrete can take before it cracks. Now the psychologist and psychiatrist says how much stress your mind can take before you get a nerves breakdown. Stress is where the persons mind gets hook on to it and engage to an event that is over and cannot let go. Say for example, today something happen to you and that event is only an action, maybe you fall in to a drain but the action has already taken place and is finished and cannot be changed. Although it is over, you are still thinking about it now. That adds on to the mind, where you are thinking “why did fell into the drain, why did it happen, maybe I am being punish by God. Why? Why?” See the mind is hook on to this event that is over. That action results in a series of energy changes in you, in your heart chakra and in your mind charka and it stays with you until you decide to let go. The stronger your mind is the stronger you can leave the action behind and do something else. Focus on something else, something nice, harmonious and good. Weaker mind cannot let go but hook on to it and think about it and then the stress builds up. When some other action happens, it gets hook on and put on top of this thinking and on and on. In the end what happens is that you have to go and see a psychologist because of nerves breakdown.

So the thing is, letting go is something which we must meditate on. To let go is where you put your mind in the present moment. As you sit here listening to me, the events of the past two or three days ago are gone. If you have fallen into a drain and cut your leg, you see doctor. That is the action you take to recover and that is over. Some people lives stress in the future, before it happens. Tomorrow you have an exam, today already stress thinking about it. So stress can happen thinking about the past or the future. Thinking about what if, what if it rains tomorrow, what if the bus is late tomorrow, why worry about all this unnecessary things. If you believe in the power of now, if you believe in the surrendering to God then leave it to Him. Say I have done my best, whether it rains or shines, or the bus is late, just leave it.

So two ways you can relieve stress, one is letting go. Letting go is very important, if you don’t let go, the stress begins to build up one after another. The mind can crack if the stress is not release. The best way you can relieve stress is to make sure that your mind is strong. Second is to take the path of surrender. To be able to take the path of surrender, you must develop this relationship with God. No intermediaries, no middle man, build this relationship between you and God. Any problems, talk to Him and surrender it. When you have this relationship the problem disappears. You know He listens but how fast He wants to take action is again up to your relationship Him. Sometimes it is slow because for our own good. We want something to happen very fast but it may takes longer than expected for our own good. It is meant to be this way. So two things, firstly, don’t leave in the “If” situation, the future and don’t leave in the past situation.

Your mind is very powerful, it can be good to you or harmful to you. It is how you use it. Make use of it to do good for you. Don’t cling on to past and worry about it because worry will not do anything for you. If you have a problem, take positive step to do something about it and then surrender to Him. Future too leave it to Him. You plan for the future, for children this you do, for their education, good school but you don’t worry whether they can make or not. Don’t worry about whether they can be a doctor one day or whatever it is. Just ensure that the opportunity is there for them to make it into a good school and education.

So coming back to this stress, classic phrase which Swami says is “The past is buried in time. The future is in the womb of time.” Be in the now. Our Guru says learn from the past, let the present be a time of right action so that your future can be glorious. It means learn from the past but don’t live in the past. We learn from the past so that our present action can be correct, right action and so your future will be glorious. If you constantly make mistakes because you have not learn from the past then no one is to be blamed except yourself. So no need to see psychologist to de-stress. It is a simple procedure. The choice is yours, there are many methods. Mindfulness meditation is one method. Listening to meditation music is another.