3. Drop Worry, pick up health

When you create more thoughts inside you through worry, the load on the navel region increases. It is from the navel region that thoughts or worries arise. When you create more and more thoughts, you feel the heaviness in your stomach. There is an energy center in the navel area called the manipuraka chakra* . This energy center starts shrinking with the heaviness of worry. This energy center responds directly to worry, and affects the stomach. That is why when you worry about something, your stomach starts becoming uneasy. Or when you hear shocking news you say, 'I can't digest it…' Any disturbing news causes your stomach to churn. The stomach is very sensitive to thoughts.

You may have observed that those who are very ambitious, and who are perfectionists, will end up with ulcers. Too much perfectionism leads to stomach troubles and ulcers. Such people worry too much. Ulcers are due to continuously suffering with worries.

When worry becomes a habit, it causes many psychosomatic diseases and even cancer. It doesn't affect only certain parts of the body. Worry can affect any part of the body. Psychosomatic diseases don't have any carrier. They happen purely due to the way the mind and body of a person interact. That is why worry needs to be addressed and removed from the system.

There was a doctor famous for his extraordinary and effective treatment of arthritis. He always had a waiting room full of people.

One day an old lady with her back badly bent entered the office, with the aid of a stick. When her turn came, she went into the doctor's room and amazingly, came out within five minutes, walking completely erect with her head high.

A woman in the waiting room ran to her and said, 'It's a miracle! You walked in bent and now you are walking erect! What did that doctor do?'

The old lady replied, 'He gave me a longer cane.'

Sometimes we are so used to living in a certain way that we can't see a better way to live. Worry is that habit that keeps us from living to our full potential and invites

Manipuraka chakra - Subtle energy center located near the navel region and associated with worry.

disease into the body. Disease starts in the mind.

There are extreme forms of worry that may become habitual and slow down the functioning of the individual. This form of worry is diagnosed as Generalized Anxiety Disorder, called GAD. It is much more than the normal anxiety people experience day to day. According to research done by the National Institute of Mental Health in the USA, GAD affects about 6.8 million adult Americans and about twice as many women as men.

Understanding brings the energy of insight into the flow of time, the laws of the universe, and cause and effect of the many things that happen in the universe. Out of this arises a deep peaceful acceptance and reverence for the universe and its ways. Once this understanding happens, you remain cheerful, come what may. You enter into life with laughter and bliss. A blissful person's life is so rich that there is no space or time for worry.

How meditation helps

Once worry happens, we visit psychiatrists. The cause of worry is in the mind, not outside. Then how will medicine alone help?

A large number of people in the world visit psychiatrists for the treatment of worry. Medication is all right, but for psychosomatic conditions like worry, meditation is also needed.

In places such as war-torn Iran, research groups have studied the * Transcendental Meditation-Sidhi program designed by Maharishi Mahesh Yogi* , a 20th century teacher from India. When meditators did the TM Sidhi program in high conflict area, the crime rates, violence, and anxiety all reduced and the quality of life around them improved dramatically!

Meditation softens you. When you soften, love and gratitude start happening in you. Then slowly, there is no room for worry. Worry is also a form of violence. It is a subtle form of violence. It is a disguised agitation in the system.

Meditation also tremendously increases awareness. When awareness increases, outwardly you might be completely involved in the outer world, but inwardly you will be untouched by anything that happens. That is the real worry-free life.

Meditation

Let me give you a simple meditation technique to drop worry and become

Maharishi Mahesh Yogi - Indian spiritual teacher and promoter of Transcendental Meditation TM.

pleasant all the time. This is a meditation to tune yourself to bliss. It can be practiced anywhere, any time, even continuously, twenty four hours a day.

Just continuously visualize that you are inhaling and exhaling bliss and light. Visualize prana* , the life giving energy, going in and out of you with each breath. Prana* is energy and bliss. It is the energy that enters and leaves us through air, which it uses as the vehicle for entry into our system. Air carries prana* into you. Life continues in you because of prana.

So whenever you inhale and exhale, visualize yourself inhaling and exhaling blissful light energy. Feel that your whole body is a beanbag filled with light. You automatically start radiating bliss instead of worry and irritation. Worry is dissolved. You start radiating love and bliss continuously.

Prana - Life energy or life force.

What is Stress?

Worry and stress are closely interrelated. They are like parent and child. One cannot exist without the other. What works for one works for the other as well. However, given that stress is considered the biggest destroyer of health in today's world, it is worth going into more depth on this subject.

Four hundred years ago Rene Descartes* declared, 'I think, therefore I exist.' This has formed the basis of modern thinking. Billions of people in this world have followed Descartes* for generations believing that unless each one outthinks the other they cannot succeed in this world.

Descartes* was right, and he was wrong. He was right in that that the human system does not know how to live without its mind, without thinking. As a result human beings become slaves to their minds. They live in bondage.

Many centuries before Descartes, a vedic* sage declared that man does not begin to exist till he stops thinking. Adi Shankara* , at the age of eight, faced his future master across the waters of the holy Tungabhadra river. The master asked him, 'Who are you?'

The confusion between our true nature and what we pretend is stress or tension.

In response Adi Shankara*

said, 'I am not the mind, I am not the intellect, I am not the ego and I am not the senses. I am beyond all that. I am pure consciousness.'

We are merely a bio-machine as long as we think we are mind and body. We are just a shade better than the animals we ascended from as long as we allow our senses to guide us. But the true potential of human beings is not merely to think and prove that we are superior to animals. The purpose of human life is to transcend the mind and ascend to a higher state of consciousness. In that state we are truly in the divinity that we descended from.

Till we reach that state of unity with what we truly are, we are in turmoil. This turmoil, this confusion between our true nature and what we pretend and strive to be is what we call stress or tension.

Rene Descartes - French philosopher scientist famous for his saying 'I think, therefore I am'.

Vedic - Referring to Veda or ancient scriptures.

Adi Shankara - Enlightened master from India. Greatest exponent of the doctrine of Advaita Vedanta or nondualism, whose movement restored glory to the declining vedic tradition and Hinduism during his period.

Mind is not a machine

According to vedic* psychology, we are not disturbed. We are indeed the source of that disturbance. Understand this well, you are not tensed but you are tension. You are not stressed but you are the source of stress. There is a big difference between the two. Let us look deeply into it. Then you will understand. You are not in tension. You are the tension. There is a very big difference between 'you are disturbed' and 'you are the disturbance'.

A group of reputed and experienced scientists, after doing research for many years, have now come up to say this. They say, we cannot make man responsible for his actions unless we teach him how to manage his emotions by managing what is happening inside him.

Whatever the vedic scriptures said five thousand years ago is the same thing that the modern scientists are saying now. These scriptures also provide the solution and answer for this age-old problem. They can bridge the gap between the Western psychology and the vedic psychology.

Western psychology continuously gives us the hope that we can be brought back to normalcy, retaining I as I. For example, if we are feeling hot in this room, we can fix the air conditioning and make it cool to be comfortable. But we forget an important factor. The moment we bring air conditioning into this room, we need to maintain it. That brings additional tension. That brings additional problems. Now we need electricity, we need to pay the bills and for all these facilities we need money. When you go out to work, you no longer enjoy this room. The room and its air conditioning exist, but you are elsewhere working to pay the bills for the air conditioner!

We forget an important factor. You as you are, is a disease. The concept of mind, according to Western psychology, is a machine. According to vedic psychology, it is a process. Mind is not a machine but a process. It is constantly happening. The word 'manas', which is the Sanskrit word for mind, means a constant happening, something that is not passive and dead but something that is dynamic and alive.

Western psychology insists on this one idea that the mind is a biomechanical machine. We all believe unconsciously that mind is matter, a thing or a machine. That is why constantly we connect all the past happenings of the mind as a chain, and start believing our mind is a solid thing.

Vedic - Referring to Veda or ancient scriptures.

Connecting the unconnected

Let me give you an example. The low mood that you experienced ten years ago, the low mood that you experienced nine years ago, the low mood that you experienced eight years ago, the low mood that you experienced seven years ago and the low mood that you experienced yesterday are completely unconnected and independent incidents. All these happened for different purposes, different reasons, at different times and situations. You connect all these unconnected incidents and say, 'My life itself is a depression.'

The low mood that you experienced years ago, months ago, weeks ago or days ago are all unconnected and independent incidents. Fifteen years ago, you would have felt the low mood and felt depressed because your toys were lost. Nine years ago, you would have felt depressed because your girlfriend was lost. Few years ago you would have felt depressed or disturbed because your son was not listening to you. The reasons were different, situations were different, and the causes were totally different. However, when you connect all these low moods and decide, 'My life is full of depression,' you have created hell for yourself!

The moment you start believing that your life is depressed, your life indeed becomes depression. Please understand that it is You are not in tension. You are the tension.

only what you believe to be your past that you will reproduce in the future. We all know that we can't fly from our past experience. How can we believe that we can start flying from tomorrow onwards? No, we can't. Whatever we believe to be our past, only that we will believe can be our future. So once we start believing that our past was filled with depression, we have created the unconscious faith that our future will also be depression.

When we believe that the mind is just a thing, a bio-machine, we have created hell for ourselves. Fortunately for us, the mind is not a thing. There is hope. The truth is that mind is not a thing as we all have been taught, it is a process. It is not a noun but a verb.

When we believe the mind is a thing, we create problems that do not exist.

A small story:

A man goes to a psychiatric doctor and says, 'Doctor, my life is full of problems'. The doctor says, 'Everybody's life is a problem. Don't worry. Every week we will have three sessions and you will be charged 100 dollars.'

The man says, 'Doctor, three sessions per week each at hundred dollars will

solve your problem. What about my problem!'

Understand, the moment we start believing that the mind is only a machine, we become helpless. No psychiatrist can help. No psychoanalyst can help. No other method can help, because the basic belief is wrong. The moment we bring a wrong belief, whatever is built on that has to go wrong. It cannot be the truth. We need to understand the basic truth that the mind is a process; we are not in tension but we are tension.

Identity gap

The identity that you project to the outer world is called ahankar* . The identity that you believe as you internally is called mamakar* . Again and again vedic psychology says that you are beyond these two. You are not just these two. According to Western psychology you are just these two. That is why so much of work is done to protect your identity. So much of attention and energy is given to hold on to your identity.

The reality, the real you, is much more than these two identities. You are beyond these two identities.

Above all, you need to understand that your mind is not a machine. It is not connected as you think. Because you do not experience the gap between two thoughts, you start believing it is connected. You go on repeating that you are disturbed and tensed. No. You are not disturbed. You are a disturbance. You need to understand the basic root where the problem starts, where the problem is created. The first basic root is you believing yourself to be a shaft or a thing. You are not a thing. Your idea about pleasure, your idea about pain, your idea about life, everything is built on that one lie, that you are a thing.

Mind is a process

You need to understand this one truth: you

Ahankar - The false identification of the pure inner self with the outer world. A form of ego that makes you project a false identity of you to the outer world.

Mamakar - Inner ego that constantly says that you are smaller than what you think you are.

are a process, and that by your very nature, your thoughts are unconnected, independent and unclutched.

Understand, by very nature, what you think as your identity is not required for you to run your life. You may say, 'No, if I am unclutched, unconnected, how will I plan for my future, how will I think of tomorrow? I have deadlines, project plans, so many things. How will I work? How will I submit my projects? How will I run my day-to-day life?' These are big questions that haunt you.

Understand this one example: when you are driving, do you plan every step? Do you plan how much you need to press the accelerator, when you need to press the brake, when you need to turn right, turn left? No. In the initial level when you are getting trained, you may plan but once you learn driving, you just sit. Many times you don't even remember what happened while driving. Am I right? You don't even remember you drove down to your office all the way. Only when you park your car in front of your office, suddenly you realize that you have been driving all this time and even reached your destination!

This is what we call prarabdha* , biomemory. You have an automatic intelligence to run, to maintain, to live and to expand your life. What I am saying is a very basic truth. Only if you What you think as your identity is not required for you to run your life.

have suffered enough in your life with your mind, you will understand what I am saying. Only if you come to the verge of suspecting your own identity, you can understand.

Mind is also an illusion

The doors of entry to our mind are our sense organs. Without the eyes, ears, nose, tongue and skin we will not be able to give any input to our mind. The sensory inputs are the foods that the mind thrives on.

We assume that all that we see and hear are authentic. We believe that the sights we see and the dialogues we hear are the way that things happened. A little reflection will show how untrue it is. How many times have you interpreted a scene to be very different from what it really was based on your own conditioning? For instance, the moment you see a man and woman in close proximity interacting emotionally with one another, perhaps hugging, you immediately jump to the conclusion that they are lovers! They could be friends, brother and sister, father and

Prarabdha - Mindset and desires that we bring into this world when we are born.

daughter or mother and son.

It is the conditioning that we carry in us that drives us to interpretations of what we perceive through our senses. That is why I say that we first decide on the judgment and then collect the evidence to support the judgment we have already made. We have made the judgment already. All we need is a few bits of data to support that conviction, that's all.

It is as if our mind is a projector. We have a number of slides we have gathered along the path of our life, some even from our past births. These slides are the projections with which we live our lives. Each time the slide is repeated it gets more powerful. The first few times it may have to be shown for several minutes for it to impact us. As the samskara* gets engraved deeper into our mind, all that is needed over time is having a quick glimpse and our mood changes and we decide based on that samskara* .

Molecular biology experiments have revealed a startling truth that each time we experience a powerful emotion, like anger for instance, new cellular transmitters and receptors for anger get activated in our body-mind system, not merely in the brain but everywhere in the body. The first few times the emotion happens in the system, it may be a brief drizzle. Once more and more cellular structures get built for this emotion, the drizzle turns into a shower, then into a storm and finally into a tsunami!

A man was stopped by a policeman on the highway for speeding. When the policeman questioned the man, he angrily replied that he was not speeding.

The policeman said he noted his speed at seventy miles per hour when the speed limit was fifty miles per hour. The man screamed that the policeman was lying. Now the policeman reached out for his pistol.

Just then, the man's wife leaned over and rolled down the window, 'Officer, don't argue with my husband when he has been drinking, he can become dangerous!'

All these incidents of road rage and other acts of passion and violence do not happen at one particular instant. The conditioning gets deeper and stronger at the cellular level. It is like cancer. Just like the malignant cells grow and kill, scientists have now discovered that emotional receptors multiply allowing emotions to flood us with no control from our part. In simple terms these emotions take over our behavior. To think that we control our mind

Samskara - Engrams or deeply engraved memories.

and we decide what we do is the biggest illusion we carry in our lives! This is the maya* that drives us.

How do we decide?

Only about ten percent of what we perceive through our senses gets recorded in our conscious mind. Everything else goes directly into our unconscious mind. This is why many times we do not even remember a place that we pass every day. So long as this sensory perception does not interest us in some way, it does not get recorded.

Let us now see what happens to those sensory perceptions that do get recorded in our conscious mind. These impressions are sorted out by parts of our mind and identified. Your conscious mind records whether the person you see in front of you is known to you or whether he is an unknown stranger. How you would like to interact with him is no longer a decision made at the conscious level. In case you know him, your attitude towards him and your action would be based on the engraved memories that are grooved in your mind. In case he is unknown to you also, the appearance of that person would

trigger
unconscious
responses.
Either way the
file moves into
your
unconscious for
             lives!

To think that we control our mind and we decide what we do is the biggest illusion we carry in our

a decision about what you should do.

For most of us, less than ten percent of the mind is conscious. Less than ten percent of what you perceive through your senses gets recorded consciously. It is possible that less than one percent of what you decide is a rational decision!

What do we do then? Do we continue to allow our unconscious mind to control us or can we do something to regain conscious control?

There are two ways in which we can regain control. The first is to reduce the conditioning that binds us. In our meditation programs, we work on the removal and dissolution of these samskaras* that bind us. The second way is to be in the present moment, in total awareness and control.

In our Life Bliss Programs we teach techniques for both these methods. In the superconscious meditative state it is

Maya - Literally 'That which is not'. It is the concept that life is but a dream, however real it may seem while being experienced.

Samskara - Engrams or deeply engraved memories.

possible to relive embedded memories so that they are relieved. This allows the inner space to be cleansed. One gains the skills to reach and stay in the present moment awareness.

Transcend time - be in the present

If you observe your thoughts carefully, you will understand two things. One is what we talked about earlier about thoughts being unconnected. All you need to do is to sit down and write down the thoughts that arise in your mind for ten minutes. You will realize that there is very little connection between your thoughts. They seem to jump from one to another.

The second point you will notice is your thoughts are always about your past or your future. You can only think about what happened in the past or what will happen in the future. Your thoughts of the past are usually regrets about what you did not do or guilt about what you did. Thoughts of the future are about what you wish to do.

Please understand, neither the past nor the future is real. The past is dead and gone. Most often we do not even learn from the past. All we try to do is use our past to steer the future. It is like driving a car looking only at the rear view mirror! You know for sure where you will end up!

The future is even more unreal. It has not happened. You have very little control over your future the way you are, because all your actions are steered by the unconscious mind. You are driven by the embedded memories of your past. Your thoughts are nothing but the movement of your mind between past and future. Your mind never wants to rest. If it rested you would know you could do without it!

If only you allowed the mind to rest or even persuaded your mind to rest, you will find that you reach a blissful state. That state is the present moment. All your future has to happen in this present moment. It is what you decide now in this present moment that makes your future. Once you take care of the present moment, once you live this present moment consciously, you no longer will have cause to regret your past or feel guilty about it.

You are oscillating at a high frequency most of the time. You are always excited, even when you think you are resting. This is why Buddha calls it the 'monkey mind'. As the thought frequency or thoughts per second or TPS comes down, you naturally rest into the present moment.

In the diagram, the shaft in the center represents 'time'. At any given time, the greater your TPS or Thoughts Per Second, the more far-flung you are from

consciousness of the present moment. You are simply worrying about the future thus allowing it to slip into the past, without ever getting a glimpse of the present.

When your TPS comes down, you enter more and more into the present and when this happens, you have a clearer vision of the past and the future. You may wonder what is there to be clear about the past. One can understand that the future may not be clear, but why the past? I have lived it, so why should it be unclear! You need to understand that what you now remember of the past is your When you are in the intuitive state, you are more in the present.

judgment of the past, not the way it happened. How many times do we talk about the golden past? How much has been written about the 'golden past'! There is nothing golden about the past. We just choose to remember the good parts, so it looks golden.

When you are in the intuitive state, for those few moments, your TPS has dropped and you are more in the present. When your TPS is zero, you can clearly see the entire past and future.

The point where the future meets the past is the present. This is where your thought frequency is zero and you are in a no-mind state. You have not merely controlled or suppressed the mind, which is impossible. You have transcended the mind, which is possible.

Not only can the mind not play its games on you anymore, but you also reach a state where you can play with the mind and make it do what you wish. We can choose to be in this state. This is the state of meditation. Meditation brings the mind to rest. Meditation disengages the mind so that the mind cannot play games.

We can also reach this state in the master's

Ninety percent of your worries never materialize.

presence. The master is always in a nomind state,

which is the zero TPS state. When you are in his awareness, whether physically or otherwise, your own TPS also drops. You can reach zero TPS just by being in the master's presence. The presence of the master is meditation. Awareness of the master is meditation.

Inner chatter

In our normal state we are constantly in chatter. Even if we do not talk out loud to another person, as many stressed people in fact do, we talk silently within. Not only is our mind not at rest, but the thoughts it generates also take shape as a monologue or dialogue within us.

This inner chatter is what we call worry. Worry is nothing but the constantly repetitive inner negative chatter. Again and again we refer to the past and project it to the future by connecting all the negative things that have happened to us in the past. We then visualize the same thing happening in the future.

Left to themselves ninety percent of your

worries will never materialize. I have shown this to people who have attended our courses. I tell them to write down their worries and review them six months later. All of them tell me that almost all of their worries never really happened. The ten percent that did happen was good for them!

Your strong visualization actually invites these worries to become true! If a worry constantly nags you, bring in the understanding that the worry itself is a creation of your mind. The mind itself is unreal. The connection that it makes with your thoughts is unreal. Therefore, the worry is also unreal! You can replace negative words with positive words and negative thoughts with positive thoughts. It is that easy. These words have power.

Words cause Stress

We do not realize how powerful our thoughts and words are. As we discussed earlier, various experiments like those on water by the Japanese scientist Masaru Emoto* , show clearly that even water responds clearly to our words, thoughts and feelings. Over seventy percent of our body is made up of water and seventy percent

Masaru Emoto - Japanese scientist and author of 'The Hidden Messages in Water' showing the effects of one's thoughts and words on water and therefore on living beings.

of planet earth is covered with water. So you can imagine the power of words!

These experiments established beyond doubt what the Eastern mystics said centuries ago: As are your thoughts, so is your will. As is your will, so is your action. As is your action, so you become.

Don't think that negative thoughts and words will only affect those against whom you express them. Understand clearly that these same thoughts and words will have an equal effect on you, the person who created them. Negativity does not merely affect others, it affects you first.

Physiological effects of Stress

We have looked at what the scriptures say and what I think about why stress is created. Let us now look at what science says.

We all have a part of our brain that controls our actions such as breathing, digestion and such activities that the body does automatically, involuntarily. Nature has designed a fail-safe system in a part of our brain called hypothalamus. This part of the brain also includes what biologists refer to as the reptilian brain.

Behavioral scientists often talk about the fight or flight response. When the bodymind system perceives a danger to our survival the hypothalamus is alerted by The life saving adrenalin can become a killer when it is produced without reason.

our unconscious mind. The unconscious mind functions at speeds a million times faster than the conscious mind. So even before we consciously become aware of danger, we instinctively become alert. The hypothalamus activates the pituitary gland, the master gland, which then activates the adrenalin glands that secrete the adrenalin hormone, which is pumped into our extremities, the hands and legs. We then get ready for the 'fight or flight' reaction – either the energy prepares us to fight the threat or to run away from the threat.

The unconscious reptilian brain takes the decision to release chemicals into our body to protect us. This worked very well in the days of the caveman when he faced lions and tigers. He had to be ready even without thinking to fight or run away.

To study the effect of adrenalin on human beings today, experiments were carried out on athletes. Sprinters were lined up at the starting block and moments before the pistol was raised to signal to them to start running, the umpire lowered his arm. So, the sprinters had to fall back and reposition themselves. This was repeated six times. Without even running a meter the

Stress is a killer, but it is in the mind.

sprinters collapsed at the starting

block! The adrenalin level in their bodies had become dangerously high. The life saving adrenalin can become a killer when it is produced without reason.

The chances of our meeting a tiger or a lion are quite slim these days. Nevertheless our unconscious mind keeps sending signals of such danger. I call them 'fear strokes'. Psychologists estimate that we face at least half a dozen such fear strokes every day. These fear strokes produce large quantities of adrenalin in us. It has been established that depression is a direct result of such adrenalin production. Depression in turn is considered to be the main cause of many chronic and fatal illnesses.

Medical research has found that many young people in rich countries, even teenagers, have arteries so badly blocked that their arteries are similar to sixty-yearold people! Doctors have established that the physical condition is only one part of the problem. A much larger part is the emotional condition. It is now fairly well established that an emotional trigger causes the immediate onset of a heart attack or stroke, even though the physical condition may have been present for a long time.

Nowadays, cardiac physicians routinely request people to fill in a questionnaire on stress factors in addition to conventional tests to determine how prone they are to cardiac problems.

Doctors have found that major traumas in life such as death of a loved one, loss of job, loss of money and even transfers in job and moving houses can be serious stress factors that can lead to heart attacks.

What is true of heart attacks is true of many non-life threatening but highly debilitating ailments such as backaches, migraines and ulcers. The underlying emotional or psychological factor is far more relevant than the superficial physiological causes.

Stress is a killer, but it is in the mind.

We create fear strokes through worry. We create them through conditioning. You can correct the situation temporarily through medicines. Unless the underlying cause is removed, no medicine can be effective in permanently curing the ailment.

Is Stress work related?

In an IT company the Chief Executive received an enquiry for a project. He sent it down for a proposal. The team that worked on such projects did a full review and said that they could do the job in six months at a cost of a million dollars.The manager in charge of the team reviewed this and said the team can do this in 4 months at a cost of three quarter million dollars.

The proposal went up to a General Manager. The General Manager called everyone, gave them a pep talk and said, 'We should be able to do this for half a million dollars in three months.' Then he sent this as his proposal to the Chief Executive.

The Chief Executive called the client and told him that his company will deliver the product in two months at a cost of half a million dollars.

People who work in corporations can relate with this incident. People who make decisions and commitments are often out of touch with ground reality. Once such decisions are made their egos are in play. Anything can be sacrificed but not the ego! A simple study of corporate history can show how many companies have failed because of the egos of the people who led them.

I am told by some of my disciples in the corporate field about something called Level 5 Leadership. This is about those corporate leaders who put themselves behind the needs of the company and the people who work for them rather than placing their own ego needs first. Research has shown that the Chief Executives of companies that have been commercially successful consistently are hardly known to the outside world! These leaders are so humble, and focused inwards.

In life, there are two categories of people: those who are stressed and those who are not. Those who are stressed are those who wish to control life. They like to mould life in the way they wish it to be. They are focused only on themselves. Those who have no stress are those who flow with life. They accept without complaint what life offers them. Their focus is about what they can do for others. You feel the stress when you flow against the current, not when you flow with it. You lose yourself when you flow with the current.

You can choose to get stressed just by staying at home. It is not necessary to go out and work. Research shows that the highest frequency of divorces happens between the ages of forty and fifty. People tend to divorce more when children grow up and leave home. Till then children have been the buffers between their parents. When children leave home, husband and wife do not know what to say to each other. Silence creates stress!

Stress at the workplace starts with our education system. We start ranking children from a very young age. When in a group three people are graded as heroes, the rest of the group feels useless. We are taught to compete from a very early age. This comparison continues into the workplace and converts it into a battlefield.

A small story:

A crow was sitting in a tree doing nothing all day. A rabbit passed by, watched the crow and became envious. The rabbit asked, 'Can I also sit like this doing nothing?'

The crow said, 'Of course, please do if you wish to.' So the rabbit sat under the tree and did nothing. Some time later, a fox came by and ate the rabbit.

The moral is: to be sitting and doing nothing, you must be sitting very, very high up.

The so-called Human Resource programs specify that people must be categorized. I am told that in many corporations it is necessary to show that ten or fifteen percent of the people are bad performers. People are reduced to statistics! In order to survive people are forced to make others victims. This is probably why they call these offices 'concrete jungles'!

As long as people are driven by fear and greed, they cannot be inspired. They can be controlled and made to perform routine tasks, but they cannot be inspired to do the impossible. This is the dilemma today's corporations face. They need people to perform, but their kit of motivational techniques is not enough. It contains the whip and the carrot, nothing more.

Human beings are not satisfied merely with material things. Psychologists in the field of management recognize this and say that salaries and perquisites are dissatisfiers and not satisfiers. What they mean is that if people are poorly paid they are unhappy, but they do not become happy by being paid well. They look for something more. They look for recognition.

A well-known psychologist built a model of how human beings move up in their desires. This is now named after him as Maslow's* hierarchy of needs. At the base of this pyramid are one's survival needs of food, shelter and other material essentials. People then look for fulfillment in the society they live in, such as building a network and so on. They then seek love and attention. Then they look for respect, name and fame. After all this they are still dissatisfied. They feel that there is something still missing in their lives.

That something is within. Maslow* called it self-actualization. This is the zone where we flow free of stress. This is the zone of

Maslow - American psychologist famous for his concept of the five layered hierarchy of needs.

inner realization. This is the zone where you know that you are one with the universal energy. Whether you work at home, in an office or factory, or you do not work at all, you still look forward to this state where you are centered.

This is what we teach in our basic Life Bliss Program courses. The five levels of the pyramid that Maslow* drew correspond to the seven levels of energy that we carry within us. These seven centers of energy are called chakras* in the vedic system. Each chakra* represents an emotional state as well as a state of desire. As we fulfill the needs of each chakra* we move up in energy till we reach a state of fulfillment. It is a process many thousands of people have gone through with remarkable effect. We have taught these programs in many corporations worldwide. I call this a 'Guaranteed Solution'.

I referred to the Level 5 Leadership concept earlier. If this concept is about developing people who are more concerned about what they can do to help others and the world and through that process themselves, then our Life Bliss Programs are a simple route to developing such Level 5 Leaders. Such leaders not only do not suffer from stress themselves, but they also do not induce stress in others.

Beyond Stress

To sum up, stress is an inevitable part of life. There can be no life without what we term 'stress'. It is just the mind-body response to what happens outside of us. It is not the disturbance outside that creates the trouble, the stress. It is the disturbance inside that does it. That is why we said earlier that we are the disturbance.

This is why, what causes stress in one person does not necessarily cause stress in another person. Someone said that the reverse of 'stressed' reads as 'desserts'! What is poison for one is nectar for another!

Stress is such an important issue in the corporate world. They estimate that trillions of dollars are wasted because of stress. As long as stress affects only people no one cares. The moment it affects what they call the bottom line, of course something must be done about it. Talking about stress and offering solutions that work temporarily at best is a huge business.

Maslow - American psychologist famous for his concept of the five layered hierarchy of needs.

Chakras - Energy centers in the body. Literally means 'wheel' based on the experience of mystics who perceived these energy centers as whirlpools of energy. There are seven major chakras along the spine: muladhara, swadhishthana, manipuraka, anahata, vishuddhi, ajna and sahasrara.

There is nothing that you can do about stress by playing with things outside, rather than fixing what is wrong within. How long can you run? From what will you run away?

What you can do is to change yourself. You can make yourself stress-proof. It is so simple. Choose not to be affected by what happens outside you. This is not impractical. This is a simple truth. It is your conditioning that makes you get affected by what happens to you through events that are beyond your control. Nothing is inherently good or bad except what we judge them to be.

Drop your judgment about yourself, people around you and situations. You will be free of stress. That is all it takes to be liberated from stress. Meditation can help you with this liberation. It helps you reach the restful mind state from which you can witness events around you without being touched by them.

You really have nothing to lose by trying, except your stress!

Meditation technique

This is a simple and yet a powerful technique to clear stress. We teach this technique in our Life Bliss Programs for unblocking the manipuraka chakra* or navel energy center, which is the seat of stress. This technique should always be practised before a meal, when the stomach is empty and a few hours before sleep.

While standing, shout, scream, rave and rant in a language that you do not know. If anyone is listening, it should also not make any sense to them. Be aggressive in letting out all your emotions and feelings that will start pouring out of you once you start. Cry if you so wish. Roll on the floor if your emotions drive you.

This technique is a powerful meditation. It unblocks your unconscious and allows all the negativities stored inside to dissolve. Typical psychoanalytical sessions when patients talk to their analysts or even throw things around for catharsis, are still conscious processes. Only ten percent of your stored memories will be released. Processes such as hypnosis are through the unconscious and you have no control. This technique is a superconscious process in which you retain awareness while cleansing yourself.

Practise this technique for twenty minutes. Then sit down and allow the energy to spread within you in silence for ten minutes. During this silence just be a witness to your thoughts. Do not suppress them or chase them.

Manipuraka chakra - Subtle energy center located near the navel region and associated with worry.

What is Fear?

Fear is a deeper dimension of worry. Worry can cause ulcers. Fear on the other hand can even destroy life. However, unlike worry without which life is possible, fear seems woven into our lives. It is possible to face fear without fear. A person who we call courageous is not one without fear, but one who has learnt to face fear without fear.

Fear is a form of energy inside us. That is why it cannot be destroyed. Energy can neither be created nor destroyed. It can only be changed from one form to another.

Understand, your fear is directly connected to your life energy. Whenever you are facing a survival threat, you will see your fear rising and the adrenalin release happening in your body. That adrenalin release gives you so much energy that you can almost fly. We call it the fight or flight response - either you face the fear and fight, or you run away. There will be so much energy in your body the moment you face a survival threat. Whenever that threat is real, the swadhishthana chakra* , the seat of life, gets completely shaken!

Big Bang and black hole inside you

When there is pure desire or pure greed in you without any object in particular, it becomes the overflowing energy of creation, expansion, or Big Bang* ! For no reason, you simply explode with energy. In the same way, when there is pure fear in you without any object in particular, it becomes contraction, black hole* .

Fear is your nature, but don't direct it towards any object. Having fear is natural. But connecting the fear to an object is societal. Pure fear helps in survival and it is spontaneous.

Enormous energy radiating from you for no reason is pure greed. If it is because of an object, it becomes ordinary greed. In the same way, energy settling back within you for no reason is pure fear. If it is because of an object, it becomes ordinary fear. Unless the black hole* happens, the Big Bang* cannot happen. It is part of life, part of the drama, part of the game. Pure fear means you are relaxing into yourself, settling inside you. That is what we call

Swadhishthana chakra– Spleen energy center between base of spine and navel. Blocked by fear.

Big Bang – Cosmological model of the universe where the universe is considered to have originated from a highly dense initial state at some time in the past, and continues to expand to this day.

Black hole - A theoretical region of space in which the gravitational field is so powerful that nothing, not even light can escape from it.

Fear is the fight between faith in oneself versus the negative idea about the future.

destruction. The birth of this cosmos is the Big Bang* , and

death is the black hole* . Birth of your being is big bang for you. Death of your being is black hole for you. The inhaling breath is pure desire. The exhaling breath is pure fear.

Prana, the life energy that enters along with the air, goes into you because of the Big Bang. Prana leaving your system with the outgoing air is the black hole. When you resist or fight with the Big Bang or black hole, you create disturbance in your system.

When fear happens, when the black hole happens, it means that you are turning towards peace or getting ready for the Big Bang. Whenever pure fear happens, you become rejuvenated with a tremendous relaxation which surges as courage and energy in you!

Fight between your potentiality and your negative approach

Whenever you are afraid of losing something that you have, or you fear you cannot achieve something that you want to have, there is a fight going on between your potentiality and your negative approach to the future.

If you are sure there is no possibility of achieving something, that you don't have the potentiality, you will not have fear. If you are sure that you can achieve something, then also, you don't have fear.

Fear is the fight between faith and belief in oneself on one hand, versus the negative idea or expectation you have about your future on the other hand. You are literally fighting with your own positive and negative energies.

If you are very sure you don't have the potentiality, that you can't achieve, then you won't have fear. If you are very confident you are going to achieve, then also you won't have fear. However, if there is something you want to achieve, but you are not sure that you can achieve it, then

Big Bang – Cosmological model of the universe where the universe is considered to have originated from a highly dense initial state at some time in the past, and continues to expand to this day.

Black hole - A theoretical region of space in which the gravitational field is so powerful that nothing, not even light can escape from it.

you will have fear. The fight between these two ideas, the dilemma is what we call fear.

You see, you are not afraid that you will never become the king of the universe. No! You are very clear you could never become that! But you are afraid that you will not become successful like your brother. You are afraid that you will not become or achieve that which is within your reach.

Possibility creates fear. It means fear is the root of life! Are you afraid that you can't live on the planet earth for more than three hundred years? No, because you know for sure you could never live that long anyway. But you are always afraid that you may not live for more than seventy or eighty years, that you may have a premature death. Anything you are clear is impossible for you to achieve will not create fear in you. Anything that you think is possible and that you want creates fear.

There are two ways to escape fear. One way is to block all possibility. This means you can die, then there won't be any more fear!

The second way to escape fear is to break the boundary of possibilities. If there is infinite possibility, if there is no boundary, if there is nothing that limits you, then you become fearless.

Either nothing is possible, so you won't have fear because there is nothing to be taken away from you. Or everything is possible, so you won't have fear because you feel all-powerful.

Just by having this understanding, something will click in you and so many fears will disappear from your being!

These two possibilities are actually used as techniques by masters. When masters say, 'Nothing can be done by you,' it is to create that deep surrender, a psychological death. You decide that there is no more possibility, nothing else can be done except relaxing. This is what Ramana Maharishi* calls atma sharanagati or self-surrender. You can go beyond fear in this way also, by closing all possibilities.

The second way to go beyond fear is by opening all possibilities. It is called atma gnana or self-realization.

There is a beautiful story:

One person wrote on the wall of a temple where the teachings are written, 'Soham' - 'I am That.' It means, 'Everything is possible by me.'

Another person came and wrote, 'Dasoham' - 'Nothing can be done by me. I am a slave.' Again that is also okay.

Ramana Maharishi – Enlightened master, based in Tiruvannamalai in South India. He taught the method of Self-inquiry, asking oneself, 'Who am I?', as the path to Self-realization.

If you are in tune with the idea, 'Nothing can be done by me,' you are a bhakti yogi - you surrender. If you think, 'Everything can be done by me,' you are a gnana yogi - you explore and experience.

A third person came and wrote, 'Sadasoham' - 'Always I am That.'

You can surrender yourself when you feel nothing can be done. You can

experience your power when you feel everything can be done. Both techniques can liberate you from fear.

If you are in tune with the idea, 'Nothing can be done by me,' you are a bhakti yogi* , you surrender. If you think, 'Everything can be done by me,' you are a gnana yogi* , you explore and experience. Whether you work in this path or in that path, going beyond fear is possible. But you should be completely connected to one ideology or the other. Either you should be ready to work with 'Everything is possible for me,' or you should be ready to work with 'Nothing is possible for me.'

Increased possibility for enlightenment

People come and say to me, 'I have too many fears. What can I do?'

I tell them, 'If you have too many fears, the possibility for enlightenment is more. So many doors are available to you!'

For a person who doesn't have too many fears, the possibility, the number of doors is also fewer because he leads a dull life. A person who leads a dull life will not have much fear. He has nothing much to lose, nothing much to decide. He is not taking many risks.

But a living being who is doing many things and making many decisions will experience fear. If you are experiencing too much fear, then so many doors are available for your enlightenment!

One more thing: only if you can open it can it be called a door. If you don't know how to open it, then it is more like a wall. If you are experiencing too many fears in your life and if you know the right technique, all those fears can become doors and you can be liberated. Otherwise all the fears are like walls, and it is as if you are caught in a big prison.

Bhakti yogi - A person who follows the path of devotion, bhakti yoga, as a means to enlightenment. Gnana yogi- - One who follows the path of knowledge for Self-Realization.

All you need to do is, every time you feel fear, do not disrespect yourself. Do not lose confidence or condemn yourself thinking, 'What kind of a being am I?' Actually people who can face their fears do not have so many problems. People who are afraid of their fears create more problems for themselves. When you brood too much about your fears, you start thinking you have problems.

If you understand the true nature of fear, it can be considered a blessing. If you are courageous enough to face the fear, it can lead you to liberation.

Sometimes, just by switching your attention to something else, you can come out of fear. But that is not fearlessness. Fearlessness means taking a quantum jump into the consciousness where you will never experience fear of losing anything!

The fears that you have about your life, be it fear of failure, fear of losing your near and dear ones, fear of losing your wealth, fear of the unknown - every fear can be used as a door to enlightenment.

Either you are filled with tension or you are filled with energy. If you are filled with tension, you are trying to take energy by force from the source within you that does not die, without knowing the technique.

Every fear can be used as a door to enlightenment.

There is a source of energy within

you that never dies, your atman* or Self. If you try to take energy by force from this source without knowing the right technique, it creates tension.

Whenever you try to create energy in you by remembering some desire or fantasy, it is like trying to kick the door in and take the energy from the other side. You want the energy but you don't have the patience to open the door. You can use the key to patiently open the door and allow that bliss and energy to come into your being. That key is called meditation.

Another important truth you should know:

There is something within you that never dies which is your source of energy. There is also something within you that dies, something that is actually never alive even now. The fear of death exists in you because you think there is something you have now that will be taken away from you. No! Anything that you have now, cannot be taken away. Anything that can be taken away, you never had in the first place. Anything that can die can never occupy your inner space.

Atman - soul, spirit, consciousness, etc., as referring to the individual imperishable energy that is a holographic image of the Cosmic Consciousness or Brahman.

Fearlessness is courage to face fear

You cannot conquer fear. Fearlessness means intelligence to live the intense fear without directing it towards any object. When there is no object to be afraid of, the intense fear will give such an intense relaxation and peace.

Fear is a powerful energy which gives a deep relaxation, a deep centeredness. The fear center is the rejuvenation center.

Fearlessness is not suppressing fear. For example, when you are afraid to cross a dark area in the night, you start thinking of and repeating god's name. Because of fear, god's name will be topmost in your mind! You feel that you don't have fear because your inner chatter is engaged in something else!

When you engage your inner chatter in something else, you feel that you are out of fear. But you have only diverted your attention, you haven't solved the problem completely.

There is a saying, 'When a cat drinks milk, it will close its eyes tight and think that the whole world has become dark, and therefore, nobody can see it!' Understand, you also do the same thing when you don't pay attention to the fear, and then believe that the fear has disappeared.

Fearlessness does not mean non-existence of fear. It means the fear is there, but you have tremendous energy or courage to live with it and face it. Fearlessness means having the energy or the courage to live even with the maximum fear. It is going beyond that fear and being neither attached to nor detached from the fear.

One more important thing you should know is fear is part of the nature of life.

People come and ask me, 'What should I do about my fear of the unknown?' I tell them, 'Fear is a good sign, it means you are alive! There is a possibility of losing something, and that is why you are afraid. If you don't have any possibility of loss, you will never be afraid.'

You can be fearless if you are already in your grave! Then there is no need to be afraid of anything because you have nothing to lose! If you have something to lose, you will have fear. That is the nature of life itself.

Fear does not exist when things are definite and known. Fear exists only when things are not definite, when they are mere possibilities and unknown in that sense. For example, death is a possibility. As an incident it is definite, but when and how it might happen is not clear. So there is always fear associated with it.

Fear of darkness

Your fear of darkness and fear of death are actually the same - fear of the unknown. Connecting with the darkness will remove this fear. Your fear of death, the fear of disappearing, will be completely healed.

I am reminded of a joke:

Once a little girl was asking her father, 'Daddy, are you afraid of darkness?' The father replied, 'Of course not.' The girl continued, 'Then are you afraid of snakes?' The father replied, 'No, not at all.' The little girl was very happy that she had discovered something new.

She said, 'Oh! So Daddy, you are not afraid of anything other than Mommy!'

Anyway, understand your fear of darkness is because of your ignorance, because you have not faced it clearly.

In tantra* , the first instruction that disciples are given to do for healing the inner self is to go and sit in a forest or empty space and gaze at the emptiness. All that the person has to do is to sit in the emptiness of the vast open sky, and one has to gaze at the sky the whole night. So many different fears and moods will come up. Whatever one has suppressed will come up.

In Zen tradition, they have a similar practice where the person is asked to sit facing a wall and gaze at the wall. The mind becomes empty and one with the emptiness outside.

One important thing to remember when you do this is that if you have suppressed your need for rest, that suppression that has become restlessness in you, and your desire to relax into silence, will also come up. It is like the whole system is getting cleaned. That opening up of your suppressed emotions is what you feel as fear. You feel, 'No, no! I don't want to look into this darkness!' You try to avoid it.

If you can just look into the darkness and the fear with awareness, you will live through it and get over it.

Wisdom through Fear

If a child is afraid of the dark, we say, 'Don't be afraid, you should be brave.' When you say this, you are teaching the child that the fear he is feeling should not be felt. But the child cannot do anything if the fear arises in him. So now he tries to force himself to feel brave by suppressing the fear. This is how the child learns to suppress the natural emotion of fear. His body is trembling with fear but he resists

Tantra – Ancient vedic tradition of achieving enlightenment through spiritual techniques or practices, meditations and ritual worship.

All our fears are actually fear of death under various disguises.

the fear in order to prove he is brave.

Instead, if you

allow the child to accept the fear and explore the darkness that is causing him fear, the child will go through the darkness and the fear completely. The fear will automatically drop from him because his own experience would have shown him that the fear has no solid existence.

Fear of losing identity

The biggest fear human beings have is the fear of losing their identity. Even the fear of losing one's life is not as great as the fear of losing the identity. The fear of losing your identity is much worse than the fear of death.

Fear of death

All our fears, be it fear of losing physical health, mental stability, wealth, name and fame, or loved ones, are actually fear of death under various disguises.

A small story:

A man had prepared thoroughly to deliver a speech at a public function. He suddenly went blank when he stepped on stage and took the microphone in hand. He was gripped by stage fright! He just stood speechless in front of the huge crowd for a few minutes.

Then suddenly, after some time, he said, 'The human mind is the most amazing thing in this world. It starts working from the moment you are born and never stops working until the moment you die – except when you have to make a speech!'

The social fear or fear of being rejected by society makes us do things to please society, even when it is not good for us. In this process, many times, we sacrifice what our being really wants to do. That fear of not being accepted by society is just another form of the fear of death. It is the death of the ego.

Every act of ours is unconsciously related to death and the fear of dying. Understanding death can change your entire perception of life. It can simply transform the way you handle all your fears. (A detailed understanding of death is provided in the chapter on 'Death'.)

Anger – The active form of Fear

Fear is what leads to anger. Fear is the passive form of the energy while anger is the active expression.

A small story:

A man rushed into the post office very angrily with a bunch of papers in hand, saying, 'How dare they send me threatening letters like this!' The official at the post office said, 'Yes, sending threatening letters is a legal offense. Do you know who has been sending you these letters?'

The man shouted back, 'Of course, I do! It is the Income Tax people!'

When you are angry, just look into the anger. At the root of it, you will find a deep fear.

Try this for yourself: if you are feeling fear, express anger at that time. Throw your hands, stamp your feet and express the energy. You will see that the fear disappears. You will see for yourself how fear can simply transform to anger. Similarly, fear can also transform to hate. You just need to be aware of yourself and witness how the emotions subtly change from one form to another. When you understand this play, you can easily get out of the game.

Fear strokes

Psychologists talk about fear strokes. For example, you are walking in the garden in the dark, and you see a coil of rope. You start shivering, imagining it to be a snake. That sudden shock you get before realizing it is just a rope and not a snake, is Fear is the passive form of the energy while anger is the active expression.

what is called a fear stroke. A fear stroke is like shaking a rose plant from its roots. If you keep shaking it long enough, it will die.

It is said that we undergo six to twelve fear strokes every day and night, both in dreams and also in wakefulness. Imagine what happens to our being! Fear strokes originate from unconsciousness. When they are viewed with awareness and consciousness, they can be substantially reduced.

At the time of the fear stroke, you may not have any time to go into awareness because it is just like a spike. But after the fear stroke passes, you can analyze the stroke and get a deeper understanding of your fears. This will help you to dissolve the whole idea of fear.

The intensity and frequency of fear strokes can be greatly reduced by reducing the intensity and depth of the basic level of fear in us. Only from this baseline fear, do the fear strokes arise. With deeper understanding and clarity, we can reduce the baseline fear, and the fear strokes will also reduce.

How to overcome Fear

Witnessing and acceptance

When you are faced with fear, don't try to resist it or suppress it. Just look at the fear, note the fear and accept it. Acceptance of the fear dissolves the fear. Allow the fear to shake you. If your body trembles, let it tremble. If your eyes water, let the tears come. Just be like a blade of grass in the wind, bending without resistance.

A small story:

On a dark night, a man was walking on a narrow path. Suddenly, his foot hit a rock and he stumbled and slipped down. He managed to catch hold of a branch hanging over the rock. It was completely dark. The man tightly held onto the branch. He shouted for help but the only response was his voice echoing back. Hearing the echo, the man was terrified that he might be at the mouth of a huge abyss.

The night seemed endless and the man was desperately holding on, hoping he could get some help. Finally dawn arrived. The man looked down to see how deep the abyss was, but there was no abyss; just two feet down was a big rock!

Your fears are exactly like his, you think it is an abyss but it is actually just a few feet. If you can face your fears, you see they have no depth. Because you magnify the fears, you imagine them to be an abyss. It is your choice – to let go of the branch and the fear, or to keep clinging onto it and torturing yourself.

Acceptance is the only way to conquer inevitable things. When you accept, suddenly you see the fear disappears. The moment you accept, fear loses its power to frighten you. When you don't fight with it, you will see fear as deep peace. When the fear stroke happens, just live it. That is the only way.

When you have an object connected to fear, accept it. That acceptance transforms. The more you fight, the more you empower fear. Diverting your attention away from the fear is also not the way because then the fear still remains with you. It does not mean that you are out of fear.

Allow the fear to take over itself. Go into the fear two to three times. Live the fear intensely without any reservations. Suddenly you will find that it doesn't touch you anymore!

Swadhishthana chakra - seat of life and death

Fear is associated with the swadhishthana chakra* , the subtle energy center two inches below the navel region.

This is an incident from my life when I was young:

I used to circumambulate the Arunachala hill every day. I would start early in the morning at around four am, and go around the hill, chanting and singing keertans* .*

One morning I started very early, soon after midnight. In those days there were no roads or lights on the path around the hill. It was a dense forest all the way. I was happily singing and walking with my eyes down. Suddenly, at a spot near a small river, I looked up and saw a pack of fierce-looking hyenas staring at me intensely ready to pounce on me!

In that sudden deep fear, I just let out a scream from the depths of my hara , the swadhishthana chakra* . It was a scream*

of pure fear that I Acceptance of the fear dissolves the fear.

had never

experienced before. It was so complete that never again did I feel shaken by fear in my life!

I felt a total surrender to Arunachala and a deep trust that Arunachala* would take care of me. Suddenly, from nowhere, an elderly sannyasi* appeared in front of me with a big stick, and chased away the hyenas. As soon as the animals ran away, the old man disappeared!*

With that primal scream, I found that my body had suddenly become much lighter. I was almost floating rather than walking, as if the frequency of my being had increased.

In modern psychiatric treatment, 'primal theory' is applied where patients scream as a catharsis, from the depths of their hara* , to relieve fear and other suppressed negative emotions.

Swadhishthana Chakra– Spleen energy center, between base of spine and navel. Blocked by fear.

Arunachala hill – Literally the unmoving red mountain in Tiruvannamalai in Tamilnadu in South India, this mystical hill is considered a representation of enlightened master Shiva.

Keertans– Devotional songs.

Hara – Seat of the soul in Japanese tradition, corresponds to swadhishthana chakra or subtle energy center related to fear, situated near the belly region.

Sannyasi– One who has renounced, a monk.

Visualization

A very powerful way of overcoming fear is to visualize going through that fear as clearly as you can. The beauty with this technique is that it can be used when you are not in the fear situation, when you are calm and able to handle yourself.

You can sit by yourself and visualize the situation that causes fear. Feel clearly the fear coming up in you, face the fear with deep awareness. If you suffer, if your body feels uncomfortable, it is fine. Don't suppress the fear, just allow it to happen. When you experience something completely, you stop the process.

Meditation techniques

1. Hamsa Mantra

This is a very powerful technique that can be used twenty-four hours a day. Whenever you are attacked by fear, just sit back and relax. Put your awareness only on your exhaling breath. Repeat the word 'sah' silently as you exhale, that is, with the outgoing breath. Exhaling is like relaxing and letting go anything that can die. While inhaling you will be constantly trying to hold on to something. Exhaling is like letting go. Focus on exhaling without bothering about inhaling. When you inhale, repeat 'ham' silently.

Place more awareness and energy on the exhalation. Help yourself exhale deeper. Let the inhalation happen automatically through the body. Place your energy, attention and effort only on exhaling.

It is a silent intonation of 'ham…sah…., ham…sah'. Silent intonation of this hamsa mantra* will suddenly take you into the awareness, the relaxation, that never dies. Whatever can die will leave your system, your inner space.

This technique can also be practiced at other times when you are not faced by fear, while you are sitting, talking, walking, eating, even while you are sleeping. It is a very powerful technique. Constantly, all twenty four hours, place your attention on exhaling and just intone the hamsa mantra* silently as 'hamsah', 'hamsah', 'hamsah'. When you inhale, intone 'ham' and when you exhale, intone 'sah'.

Understand, when constantly intoning this mantra, it will become ajapa japa* or chanting without effort. Chanting with

Hamsa mantra - Also called soham mantra, it is practised by intoning 'hmmm' while inhaling and 'sssooo' while exhaling.

Ajapa japa - Chanting a sacred chant involuntarily.

effort is called japa. Chanting without effort is ajapa* . It means that which goes on automatically in you. You just need to intone, that's all. Fall in tune, that's all. The whole day it will be resounding within you.

Whatever can die will leave your system, and you will realize that whatever can die can never be part of you. If you are identifying yourself with something that can die, that identification will be disconnected and you will be unclutched.

Whatever can never die, you will feel connected to that. Whatever cannot die is your very being. You will realize you are that which can never die, that which we call the Truth, enlightenment, Consciousness. If the intonation of the hamsa mantra* becomes ajapa* in you, you become a Paramahamsa* !

Try this technique for just three days. Whenever you remember, inhale with the silent intonation, 'ham'. Exhale with the silent intonation, 'sah'. Let your awareness be more on the exhalation. You will suddenly see that the fear of losing your wealth, parts of your body or your health, or your near and dear ones, or the fear of unknown and all the fears will disappear. Darkness is the fulfillment, the creative energy from which you took birth.

When your awareness is on exhaling, whatever is occupying your inner space as a part of you that can die, will simply leave your inner space. You will be liberated.

2. Darkness meditation

We are born out of darkness, the darkness that exists in the mother's womb. Darkness is not negative as we usually think. It is intense healing. It is a motherly, positive energy.

The darkness that exists in your mother's womb is an intense energy. It is not the empty darkness of the graveyard. It is the Whole, the energy from which you came. The darkness existing in your mother's womb is the energy from which your body was created. It is called the causal body, the karana sharira* . The darkness is the root cause for your body. Not only that, even

Hamsa mantra - Also called soham mantra, it is practised by silently intoning 'hmmm' while inhaling and 'sssaaa' while exhaling.

Ajapa japa - Chanting a sacred chant involuntarily.

Paramahamsa - Supreme Swan, title bestowed on enlightened beings.

Karana sharira - Causal layer, the fifth energy layer in us, corresponding to deep sleep. The source of conditioned memories or engrams.

the sky or the space is intense darkness. Space is not intense light but intense darkness.

The vedic scriptures say that at the beginning of creation, darkness was covered by darkness. That is the beginning, the source.

Darkness is the infinite base. When you board a flight and look outside the window at night, you can understand what I mean. The space is darkness. Darkness is the only thing that is. Anything else that is added comes and goes. Understand, darkness is not negative as you have been taught. Most of us are taught darkness is death, the emptiness that happens after your death. You never realize the emptiness that existed before your birth is also darkness! Now change the understanding. Darkness is not the emptiness that happens after your death. Darkness is the fulfillment, the creative energy before your birth, from which you took birth. This clarity can make you feel connected to darkness.

You need to first understand about darkness with more clarity and more positive understanding, only then you can do this meditation. If you are afraid of darkness, you can't enter into this meditation.

This technique can heal four things: chronic fatigue, insomnia, oversleeping and depression. All these can be straightaway addressed and healed just by this single technique.

Instructions:

Total Duration: 25 minutes

Close your eyes and sit. We all know how to close our eyelids but not our eyes. Closing the eyes means to completely stop seeing inside, behind the eyelids also. Usually when you close your eyes, you start seeing many things inside you. The inner television will never be switched off, it constantly goes on!

Now close your eyes and completely stop seeing inside. Turn off the inner television!

Then you will see the intense darkness from which you were born, the darkness in your mother's womb, the same darkness that you still carry in your inner space. Out of the same space energy in your mother's womb, the whole world has emerged. You came out of one bit of space energy from your mother's womb. When you came out from your mother's womb, you had already imbibed that darkness, that space energy, into your own inner space.

If you close your eyes and stop seeing things inside, you will see intense darkness. Just be with the intense darkness for at least twenty minutes. If your mind wanders, just come back and get centered. Be with the darkness.

After twenty minutes, open your eyes and

bring the same darkness outside for five minutes. With your eyes open, see the same scenes that you saw in the darkness. See the same thing with intensity. This may take up to a month of practice. But if you can see the same darkness inside and outside, you will see you are able to switch off your mind whenever you wish!

Understand, the ability to switch off your mind whenever you wish liberates you from all problems, all disorders related to the mind, whether it is insomnia, oversleeping, chronic fatigue or depression. All these things are related to the causal body or the fifth energy body in us. All diseases related to the causal body will be completely healed once you enter into the deep darkness inside and outside.

Physiologically and psychologically, this meditation will transform your life. This technique is not only for healing, but it can also directly open you to deeper and deeper levels of consciousness, to enlightenment.

3. Awareness of swadhishthana chakra

Step 1:

Remember the swadhishthana. Be aware intensely of the being center, two inches below the navel. Intensely chant the hoo kara* by producing the sound hoo, through the mouth as you exhale as loudly and as long as possible. This will create a vibration effect around your mouth. Allow any fear that comes up to come up. If you are trembling or shaking or feeling disturbed, it is ok. Intensely chant the hoo kara* mantra.

Step 2:

Relax in the being center.

Pure greed is intense bliss or excitement. Pure fear is intense peace.

Through bliss, you can achieve. Through peace also, you can achieve. Relax into the peace, and you will see that you are completely alive!

Hoo kara - 'Hoo' sound produced from the mouth during exhalation in meditation.

LIVING ENLIGHTENMENT

Often, fear manifests itself as pain. The most frightening thing in the world is pain.

All living beings are afraid of one thing, and that is pain. If you look deeply, you will find that people don't fear even death as much as they fear the pain and agony they will undergo at the time of death! Many are afraid of poverty, many of relationships, and many others fear disease. The root cause of all these fears is the pain that happens while going through these things. All these fears are because of the fear of pain.