De-Stressing – Easier Than You Think

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

Stress is nothing but handling too much information without the capacity for it. When we don't know how to handle the large amount of information that we are constantly receiving, we miss 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. This means we integrate only a negligible fraction of the information received.

Let me present a diagram of how we process information and how stress is created. These are great truths discovered by ancient Masters, and they belong to the whole world, not to one religion or community. Thomas Alva Edison discovered the light bulb. It does not mean that light belongs to him and to his particular community. Similarly, these are great truths discovered in the inner world by great Masters. Once discovered, they belong to the whole world; they are nobody's property and they are beyond religion.

Here is a simple illustration of how we receive information and how stress begins to build up.

Consider, as an example, we receive some information from the eye; you are seeing me now. The information from the eye goes to something called the chakshu, which is like a Digital Signal Processor or DSP. The moment you see me, the visual information is sent to the chakshu, where it is converted into digital signals. Next, the data is taken to the 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. It identifies by saying, '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 Master; he is teaching meditation', and so on. Mind makes a positive identification of 'This is it; this is it.' Finally, the file takes a quantum leap and goes to the ego. The ego does the analyses of, 'What is in it for me? How will it benefit me?' And based on this, the final decision is made.

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 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 what happens in this zone. I call this the unconscious zone.

Unfortunately, at the conscious level, only information processing is done; all decisions are made at the unconscious level. That's why, even though you know smoking is bad for your health, and all the available data processed by your conscious mind points to it, you still decide to smoke. Suddenly, you discard all your conscious level guidance and pick up a cigarette.

How does stress happen? We not only receive information through the eyes; we also receive it through smell, touch, taste and sound. Sometimes, we don't even need information from outside; stored information from our memory (chitta) alone will start working. The unconscious space doesn't have enough capacity and energy to process all this information that we are receiving. So it gets clogged and gives out illogical and wrong decisions.

If we can expand the unconscious zone and infuse silence into it, the stored memories will get burnt out and the stress will be relieved, because decisions will be made not out of any chaotic memories but out of a superconscious or intuitive zone.

This unconscious zone which stores the chaotic memories is also called the reactive mind, because it only reacts; it does not respond. Reaction is almost like a reflex action, not coming from any reasonable logic. Responding is coming up with the right response to the input fed. For example, if you have 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 would realize that I'm not the same person who hurt you; you would not generalize.

The problem is, we keep generalizing. We have to live in a localized way, not in a generalized way. There is a big gap between reality and our way of living.

We have too much load on our unconscious layer and that creates stress. If we can reduce the load and infuse silence in that zone, then, instead of stressing out, we will be creative and make strong decisions with conviction. 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 zone can be used in three ways: at the instinct level, at the intellect level and at the intuitive level. If there is too much stress and not enough silence or patience to even receive information, we use the unconscious at the instinct level: for example, the decision to smoke. It is almost instinctive. If we have a bit of silence, we will apply our intellect and use it for decision-making. Then, the decision will be made after exhaustive logical thinking. When we have total silence in the unconscious, we use it at the intuitive level and experience what we call revelations.

All great revelations have happened to people who touched the intuitive plane for that moment.

I once met Dr. Charles Townes, Nobel Prize winner for LASER and MASER technology. He said to me, when discussing his discoveries, 'It came to me as a revelation when I was totally relaxed. Suddenly, 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 or 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 will never experience stress.

Studies conducted on meditators and non-meditators, to measure and compare their brain activity using PET scans, have shown that the more a person meditates, the more coherently the brain seems to function, in addition to getting 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! This clearly shows that stress disturbs you physically and mentally. Infusing silence into the unconscious can transform your whole life. Let us analyze this concept with your questions.