“Take it easy (kavalayai pattri kavalai padaade)”

Take it easy (kavalayai pattri kavalai padaade)

The Manipuraka charka lies just above the navel. You will not be able to find it if you open your stomach, it is only a metaphysical representation. This charka makes the stomach function. It is locked by undue worry and depression. When clarity in thought prevails, it unlocks.

What is worry? Either of the 2 things happens all the time in us – Speaking outside as in a conversation or speaking inside us that is thoughts. Some of these thoughts irritate or dis-ease us. This is a worry. If the cause for the worry lies outside, there should be at least one man free from worry. One man says “I am worried because I am not blessed with a child” while another man says “I am worried because of my child”! Each one cites a reason for worry. If the reason for worry lies outside, there should be at least one man who has beaten all these reasons and is therefore free from worry? It doesn’t seem to be so. Worry seems to be a universal quality in man. A survey was conducted on the internet to determine the most commonly found disease of this century. The results showed that the disease was not cancer or aids but was depression or worry. Anything from outside can be said as the quantity of your life while anything from inside is the quality of your life.

The chatter that goes on inside you sometimes disturbs you and this is worry. The ‘uneasiness’ due to some of these words inside you becomes a ‘disease’ in you. A merchant invests in a shop and faces heavy loss for the first time and the second time. He starts thinking and telling himself hopeless things about himself. These words will set inside him and become worries. In order to change our worries, we need to change our inner selves. No one can satisfy our causes for worry. We can satisfy all the people’s needs but not a single person’s desires. By trying to change the reasons for worry, we cannot change the state of worry. If you look directly into the worry inside us, it is nothing but the suppressed chatter inside us. Worry is that which makes us into 2 halves. Your low thoughts are like a recorded system and keep surfacing before you start anything.

If your worries are based on true concern for others, it is quite alright. Most of the time, our worries are based on concern towards ourselves! The first case is very rare and doesn’t really attract disease; the second is the disease giver. Sympathy is different from Empathy.

You are able to control the words that you speak outside is it not? If you don’t control your words, society will control them! Why then are we not able to control the words spoken inside us? When words that have volume can be controlled why cant words without volume be controlled? If you tell yourself that nothing can be done about the worries in you, it is again another set of words spoken inside you which becomes a worry.

If you take a handful of soil and do research on it, it’s chemical, biological and physical maps will become clear to you. You will automatically be able to understand any type of soil thereafter. In the same way, if you take a handful of your worries and ask questions such as ‘Why?’, ‘Because of whom?’, ‘What?’ etc., we will be able to clearly understand all our worries. We can therefore conclude that these words of no volume can be changed. You can change worries.

How to change worries is the question now. When you speak non-sense outside, society will not tolerate it and hence you watch your words. The same words, you don’t hesitate to speak inside you because you do not have self-respect for yourself. You simply say what you wish, inside you. We don’t throw garbage on a plate of food but throw it in a garbage can. You treat others like a plate of food and yourself like a garbage can; you therefore become indigested. When you ponder over a problem, you tend to say ‘I cant digest it’; this expression appears in almost all languages. This is because there is a very close connection between worry and our stomach. Worry is to do with the manipuraka chakra which is on the navel. When worry or depression attacks, the stomach is affected first. Purely because of lack of self-respect for ourselves, we fill ourselves with rubbish. If you eat rubbish, only your stomach will get disturbed; if you harbour thoughts that are rubbish, your mind and stomach get disturbed.

You can change this in 2 ways. One way is to practice a certain meditation technique everyday. The other is to adopt a practice every single moment. The former is what we will be doing now. The latter is very easy and very effective and is as follows: Watch the words that you speak inside yourself. Whenever the same words don’t seem appropriate enough to be spoken outside, simply break them and throw them apart. Every time you remember this technique, start practicing it that very moment!

Words are very powerful. When I utter the word ‘cow’, immediately, a figure with 4 legs, 2 horns and one tail appears in your mind. A simple 3-letter word can bring to your mind a whole image. Words are that powerful. When we don’t respect words and use them wrongly, the manipuraka chakra gets locked. When we learn to use words properly, this chakra opens; the inner chatter starts from this chakra. As explained in the technique above, if you keep breaking the words, the words will stop rising after 10-15 days and a new system will get recorded inside; that’s all!

Inside you, you should use only that language which you will use outside with others; that’s why the saying goes “Love thy neighbor as you love yourself”. It is important to love your neighbor. If you have 2 minds, then you can use one to deal with yourself and one to deal with others. But we all have only one mind. When you start to scream at a servant with fierce words, break them immediately and speak kinder words. Whatever words you use outside will be used inside also. Words are like a knife. They will pierce either outwards or inwards. Your depression is because of the words that you use on others. Those words spoken by you will not take 10 years to come back to you, they will come immediately! Is there anyone here who says “Swamiji, when I talk, I talk in English but when I chatter inside, it is in French” No! In the same way, whatever language you use outside is used inside also. When we consciously shape the words spoken outside, the words inside get automatically shaped and we become free from worries. When we have no respect for ourselves, how can we respect our neighbors? We care so much about what goes into our stomach as food but don’t care about what goes on inside us as thoughts. Like how no one will desire you if you speak rubbish, you too hate yourself because you speak rubbish inside you. The former state is a physical state while the latter is a mental state. You simply kill yourself with a knife - that is words. Now, go one step further and shape these words. The rubbish inside you is ‘karma vinai’.

Christianity gives a beautiful technique to bring out the rubbish inside you; it is called ‘confession’. All the rubbish sediment takes shape and comes out as words; a relaxation spreads over the body and mind. St.Francis of Assisi has developed this technique further to give a meditation technique. Once you empty out the rubbish, you can shape your thoughts better.

Alright, we now conclude that we need to empty out our stomach. For this, you will have to be on an empty stomach else you might throw up. The words in us have to be spilt out. What are these words? They are the languages that you know. Your mind is nothing but the languages that you know. This technique is nothing but talking in the language that you don’t know. This will then break the depression and thoughts in you. Imagine there is a pond with moss floating on top beneath which there is clear water. All you have to do is to move the moss and the water sparkles beneath it. You will be able to see your face sparkling in the water! In the same way, our mind is a clear pond on which our thoughts or languages float as moss. If you move them, you can see the image of your Atman or the face of the Lord in it.

When tears come, they come as either grief or as happiness. Labeling them as grief or as happiness is our thoughts or languages. If we don’t stamp them, they remain as just tears. In reality, pain and bliss are the same. Our mind looks at it as either pain or as bliss. Out total dukkha or sorrow has its root in languages. A baby does not have any sorrow but cries. Out true worries are actually ‘worrying about worries!’ If a child cries for a biscuit, you give it a biscuit and it stops after that not worrying about it any further. We are not like that. We record it in vengefully our system that the person did not give us a biscuit. It starts there. For recording, you need a language. When we break this mental recording by breaking the words or languages, clear water beneath the moss can be seen. If we live beyond languages even for a second, we will realize how blissful it is. Siddhas have reached a stage that is beyond languages and mind. The road of continuous traffic is there only in us, no where else in the world! If we show a red signal for a short while, we will see the difference. This red signal is the meditation technique.

In your home, sit quietly in a chair and put down on paper the traffic that goes on inside you. There will be no cogency in it! One moment you will be in Madurai, the next moment you will be talking to someone in Salem and so on! If you read the paper, you will know that you are running a mad-house inside you. When you see a hospital for lunatics, you think that they have collected all the mad men and built a wall around them. Actually, the difference between them and us is that they are unmanageable mad men while we are manageable mad men, that’s all! We observe social etiquette while they don’t, that’s all.

Do not think that I am making you mad! I am trying to bring out the madman already inside you. During this meditation technique, if you don’t empty your garbage, others’ garbage will fall on you! So be careful. Initially, it might be difficult but later on, all the depression and emotions will come out and the fire in your manipuraka chakra will burn out.