“How is stress created in our being and how do we avoid it?”

How is stress created in our being and how do we avoid it?

Stress is nothing but handling too much information without the capacity to be able to do so. When we don't know how to handle the large amount of information that we are constantly receiving, we miss it and mess up the whole thing! Studies of the brain have found that the brain receives and processes about 400 billion bits of information per second, but we are aware of only 2000 bits of that information, which means we only integrate a tiny fraction of the information received.

Let me present a diagram on how we process information and I will explain using that diagram how stress is created. These are great truths discovered by ancient masters, and it belongs to the whole world, not one religion or community. For example, just because Edison discovered light, it doesn't mean that light belongs to him and to his particular community. Similarly, these are great truths discovered in inner world, and once discovered it belongs to the whole world; it is nobody's property, it is beyond religion.

Here is a simple example of how we receive information and how stress starts building up. Consider as an example, you receive some information from the eye, say you are seeing me now. The information from the eye goes to something called chakshu, which is like a Digital Signal Processor or DSP. The moment you see me, the visual information is sent to chakshu where it is converted into digital signals. Next, the data is taken to memory or chitta, which starts analyzing the data; it identifies through exclusion, i.e. it decides that the data is not an animal, it is not a plant, it is not a stone, etc. The chitta says "this is not, this is not". Then, the whole file goes to the mind or manas which starts asserting the truth about what you are seeing. It says "this is a man, he is a Swami, he is teaching meditation", and so on. Mind does positive identification of "this is it, this is it". Finally, the file takes a quantum leap and goes to ego. The ego does the analyses of - "what's in it for me, how will it benefit me?" Between the mind and ego, many processes happen; you start analyzing your past experiences with people who were wearing saffron colored clothes. If you had had a good experience with them, you will decide to sit and listen to me, otherwise your ego will decide that you should get out of here. You decide based on this zone, I call it the unconscious zone. Unfortunately, at the conscious level only information processing is done, all decisions are made at unconscious level. That's why even though you know smoking is bad for your health, all the available data processed by your conscious mind points to it, you still decide to smoke. This is how our mind works.

How does stress happen? You don't receive information only through eyes, you also receive it through smell, touch, taste, and ears. Sometimes you don't even need information from outside; stored information from your memory (chitta) alone will start working. The unconscious space doesn't have enough capacity and energy to process all this information that you are receiving. If you can expand the unconscious zone and infuse silence in it, stress will be relieved because wherever you receive information from, the decision happens only in the unconscious zone. This unconscious is also called reactive mind. For example, if you had been hurt by someone wearing saffron colored clothes, when you see me you will suddenly get that memory and you won't feel like sitting here, because in the reactive mind the memory is still alive. The reactive mind is not conscious; if it were conscious you will realize that I'm not the same person who hurt you; you will not generalize. The problem is: when we think we generalize, but we have to live in a localized way; there is a big gap between your way of thinking and way of living.

We have too much load in our unconscious layer that creates stress. If you can reduce the load and infuse silence in that zone, then instead of stressing out, you will be creative and make strong decisions. A person who is stressed cannot be creative; one who is truly creative will be full of life, because creativity comes from deep silence. If you can infuse that silence into your being, not only will you be stress free, you will see one more dimension of your being - intuition! The unconscious can be used in three ways. If there is too much stress and not enough silence or patience to even receive information, you use the unconscious at instinct level; if you have a bit of silence, you use it at intellect level; if you have total silence, you use it at intuitive level and have what we call revelations.

All great revelations happened only to people who reached intuition; people like Albert Einstein, that's why he created such wonderful theories. The other day I had lunch with Dr. Charles Townes; he won the Nobel prize for LASER and MASER technology. He said: "It came to me as a revelation when I was totally relaxed. When silence was there in my unconscious, a revelation happened to me. I knew the conclusion, but not the steps! Later I had to work out the steps to present it to the public." Infusing silence into the unconscious is what I call meditation, prayer, whatever you may name it. Even prayer can infuse silence. There are so many methods and techniques to do this. With silence you can handle much more information in a much better way; the quantity and quality of information handled will be higher and you won't get stressed. Studies conducted on meditators and non-meditators, measuring and comparing their brain activities using PET scan have shown that more the person meditates, more coherently the brain seems to function, in addition to more parts of the brain working! On the other hand, If you just sit in one place and stress out you will have shoulder pain; you don't need to do anything physical! That clearly shows that stress disturbs you physically and mentally, as you already know. Infusing silence into the unconscious can transform your whole life. Let's analyze this concept with your questions.

Q and A:

Q: When is the best time to meditate? A: Usually, early morning is the best, but in the modern day we are so busy that according to me any time that is convenient for you is a good time. For good things, all the time is a good time!

Q: The silence in meditation is such a high, but lately due to a constant ringing in my ears which distracts me, I can't meditate anymore. What can I do about it? A: When I say meditate I don't mean concentrate, because the moment you try to concentrate there will be more distraction, and you will feel more disturbed than before! You don't have to control your mind, When I say meditate just allow the unconscious to be without any information for a few minutes. Even without outside information, the unconscious will already have information. Just relax till that evaporates; you need to have some patience until then. Allowing the unconscious to evaporate is also a meditation. Here is the master key for meditation - don't create a thought, don't support it with your attention, and don't destroy it. Just let it be. You will see that silence will simply be infused. The moment you start fighting you create more confusion and thoughts.

Q: Some people take out their stress by physical exercise; some don't really need to meditate. What are your comments on that?

A: When you do something physically also, without your knowledge you give rest for your mind; unconsciously you give rest to your unconscious. When you talk and engage yourself without the pressure to achieve something, you give rest to your unconscious. The unconscious is disturbed when you are under pressure to achieve. Whenever you do anything without expecting results it relaxes the unconscious. If you can consciously create that relaxation, it will be totally under your control. If you have to destress only by talking to others, you have to depend on others, Then it can be a problem to find someone who is willing to listen to you. Keep in mind that he also wants to unload; that is another problem because everybody wants to unload what's on their mind! [much laughter]

We need to understand an important thing - when someone talks we don't really listen; we are really preparing our reply. We are just waiting out of politeness so that he will allow us to talk [much laughter]. So it's very difficult to get people who will listen to us. Instead, it's better to learn a conscious method that will infuse that silence.

Q: Classical music relaxes me, how does that work?

A: Music is nothing but an expression and experience of meditation. You should understand these two things - at a deep being level it's an experience, when it comes out it's an expression. Not only music, anything that makes you deeply silent or comfortable, like beautiful scenery, can reduce stress. However, you are again dependent on something outside. Anything from outside can reduce stress only up to the level of memory; it cannot touch your whole being. Anything done from the inside alone can transform your whole being. So it is good, but not better than meditation, because meditation heals you to your core and transforms you.

Q: Would you consider journaling as a form of meditation?

A: Anything done with your being in the present moment can become meditation, even swimming, jogging, etc. Anything done without bothering about the results can give you silence and peace.

Q: How do you get to it instantly, like in a car?

A: Just as a car has a brake, you have a brake for your mind too. How long did you take to learn to drive the car? [Questioner answers: "one year"]. You don't even need a year, just give me one month! You took a year to learn how to apply the brake in your car, within just one month, 20 minutes a day of this meditation you will learn how to apply the brakes for your mind and learn how to drive your mind. Even a month is too much!

Q: Where does the breath come between mind and body?

A: Breath is the bridge between mind and body. Physical or gross level part of mind is breath; subtle part of breath is mind. Both are related. You can't get angry and keep your breath calm at the same time. If you breathe calmly, your anger will disappear automatically.

Q: How do we reduce stress and anxiety induced by certain bad memory?

A: You don't need to reduce the memory; you only need to reduce the emotional attachment to the memory, that's the real cause of disturbance. That again belongs to unconscious. The more you are attached to a particular memory, again and again you will replay and re-live it. Meditation will heal and integrate your being and the emotional attachment to memory will be cleared.

A small story: a man went to a nearby village on work and was returning home the next day. From a distance he suddenly saw that his house was on fire. He started weeping and shouting for help. His son came running to him and said, "Don't worry father, we sold the house yesterday". Then he was relieved and started laughing. Then another son came and told him, "we sold the house yesterday but don't have the money yet". Then, again he started weeping uncontrollably and shouting for help! After a few minutes, his wife came and told him that they got the money this morning and its safely in the bank, on hearing this he started laughing once more! Notice that it's the same scene, same person, and same situation, the difference was just attachment! His attachment was causing the suffering! It's not even memory, but emotional attachment to memory that is the problem. Only meditation can help because it's like fumigating, it will completely cleanse your being so that any amount of information sent in will be processed beautifully. Meditation is like widening the road.

Q: Does it help with physical pain and ailments? A: Of course it does, but apart from physical pain, the suffering is reduced. Suffering is the idea about physical pain. Here is a simple technique, you can try it. If you have knee pain, relax and put your awareness in that area and remove the word pain from your mind. Continuously in your inner chattering you will be uttering the words "pain, pain, pain". Just remove that word and be aware, just like a child looks at a rose with all curiosity and inquisitiveness, look at you knee with curiosity about what is happening in your knee? It sounds impractical, but try it a for a few days; not only will the pain disappear, you will start feeling pleasure in the same area. I can assure you from my experience of personally meeting a quarter million people individually that this technique works.

Q: Many elderly people develop frontal lobe damage in their brain. Does a lifetime of meditation prevent it?

A: Yes, it will surely prevent damage done not only to your mind, but also to many parts of your body. Our lifestyle is such that we abuse our body and mind so much that I sometimes wonder how it is still running! Falling sick is not surprising given how much we abuse our body, but the fact that it is still running despite all that is amazing!

Q: How are meditation and illness related? Is cancer a psychosomatic disease?

A: Thousands of studies have shown that stress is the main cause of all psychosomatic diseases. In my experience, cancer is psychosomatic. I see thousands of patients, and in Bharat we have thousands of testimonials and case studies. We are also trying to do research here in the US. I can say that psychosomatic disorders and stress play an important role in cancer. From my own study, I have concluded that whenever you feel someone else is beautiful and you are not happy with your body, that gap between your mind and body is the main reason for cancer. From talking to patients I have healed I have arrived at these conclusions, but I can't quantify it with figures. We heal through meditation in Bharat. We have more than 2,000 trained healers, doing healing as a service in 20 countries. Everyday 10,000 people are touched by our healers. From all this experience, I can tell you that stress is one of the important factors in most diseases.

Q; How do you explain cancer in young children?

A: I don’t know about that, but I can say from my studies that stress is a major factor in cancer.

Q: Can a young child be taught meditation?

A: If the children are at least seven years old they can be taught meditation. Before age seven they don't need meditation, they are already in meditation. By age seven we disturb them, then we have to give them meditation. Actually all our so-called bringing-up is really bringing-down! [laughter]

Q: Are you implying that the schools are actually bringing them down? I read an article about how schools make children come out of their intuitive state and how they become crippled, is that true?

A: [Swamiji laughs] I can't speak about all these things in public ma! [much laughter from audience]

Q: My daughter was extremely difficult to get along with, she was extremely restless. Even in sleep some part of her body would be moving.

A: How old is she? [Questioner says "five"]. That means it's just pure energy ma, we don't have to control it; why should we control it?

Q: These days people seem very busy whether they are 15 or 80 years old, is it really important for them to make time for meditation?

A: we always give appointments to everyone but not to ourselves. We must find some time to give appointment to ourselves, if at all we want to live happily.

Q: Does it mean anything when I see colors during meditation? I see a color purple when I meditate.

A: These are experiences that happen during meditation. Purple is supposed to be healing color, it means you are creating the silence in your being, you have grown to a certain level in meditation.

It's almost time to stop now. We will do a simple meditation technique. It is an option, it has nothing to do with religion; it is purely a technique to infuse silence in your unconscious so that we can become stress free. If someone is not interested in meditating, you can leave the room or just sit; you are welcome to do either.

[Swamiji gives instructions for mahamantra meditation, and the group meditates.]