How you can overcome stress and enjoy positive change.

Dear all,

 

Dealing with stress is a big problem for many because it seems we're living in an increasingly stressful world, which may sometimes feel like being tied to a runaway horse.  The stress may be due to work pressure, financial pressure or being stuck in a rut in your life without any idea how to make a positive change.

 

Stress may have been a good thing in our evolutionary past when it provided us with a shot of adrenaline to either fight the sabre-tooth tiger or run away as fast as we could. The 'fight or flight' instinct is still with us. However, in modern, civilized life, when faced with a stressful situation, we are unable to act on the 'fight or flight' urge so it's like being dressed for the party but with no where to go.

 

With all that useless adrenaline giving us a feeling of emergency all the time, this can begin to have a bad effect on mental, emotional and physical health. This is what the science says(see notes). Unfortunately, science is unable to provide a definitive solution to stress. Some people self-medicate and turn to alcohol amongst other things(see notes).

 

With the deeper understanding about yourself that your daily 10-minute sahaja yoga meditation gives you, it's possible to see for yourself that stress, as with other aspects of your life, all begins in the mind.

 

Although what's happening to you may seem real enough, it's your mind's reaction to it that forms your experience of the situation. If your reaction were different, your experience would be different. Sometimes, a change in perspective or seeing a situation differently is sufficient to provide a solution or relief from stress.

 

But how about no reaction at all.

 

On the sahaja yoga subtle system chart(below) you'll see that activity on the left and the right channels produce exhaust that fill out the balloons of the super-ego and ego in the brain. It's the super-ego and ego that form the mind. But super-ego and ego are plastic because they change all the time based on reactions to the environment. So the mind is not real.

 

When you meditate, your kundalini rises up the central channel taking your awareness through a passage way between ego and super-ego. So with regular practice of meditation your awareness is increasingly able to enter a state of 'no-mind'* or 'thoughtless awareness'. There's no reaction**.

 

The effect of entering that state even for a few seconds or a few minutes can be powerful. Stuff happens. You are the captain of your ship.

 

As the effects of your meditation begin to seep into your day-to-day life then stress won't be a problem and you can positively change things by overcoming your mental limitations.

 

See you at group meditation on Tuesday.

 

Regards

​

Notes:

* 'No Mind' -  also described as 'mental silence', which makes sahaja yoga meditation quite different, and in fact , opposite of mindfulness.

 

 ** No Reaction : the awakened kundalini can completely simplify and make effortlessly achieveable in a very short time certain ways of being talked about in Zen and Chinese philosophy eg. Wu wei 无为 or 'Going with the Flow' as the basis of success in everything.

Stress Hormones explained - Huffington Post article

Both alcohol and substance abuse are implicated in a new study by husband and wife Princeton University economists , Angus Deaton and Anne Case and reported in New York Times Nov. 2, 2015.