4. There Is Nothing To Worry

We talked of love so far. Love is about our relationship with others. Love is also about our relationship with ourselves. Without loving ourselves we cannot love others. What prevents us from loving our own self is the constant worry or irritation that we generate within us. Whether things go right or wrong we worry. There is nothing more corrosive to our self-esteem than worry. What is this worry?

A small story:

A man walked into a bar looking worried and upset.

The bartender asked him, 'What's the matter? You look very worried about something.'

The man said, 'My wife and I had a fight and she told me that she wouldn't talk to me for a month.'

The bartender consoled him, 'It's okay. One month isn't that long.'

The man said, 'I know. The month is up today!'

Everyone has his or her own set of worries! If I ask you what you worry about, you will tell me, 'I don't have a job, that's my worry.' Your neighbor will say, 'My job is my main worry!' Someone else will say, 'My children are my worry.' Another person will say, 'I don't have children, that's my worry!' One person's dream is another person's worry! You will not find any logic in it at all.

Worry is the discrepancy between your expectations and reality.

What is meant by 'worry'? Worry arises whenever things are not happening as you want them to happen. It is the discrepancy between your expectations and reality. For example, you feel your son should stay at home with you, whereas he feels he should be by himself, away from you. You feel your salary should be a few thousand dollars more. Your boss feels otherwise. You want to finish your project by a certain time. But things are happening too slowly and it seems an impossible task. These are all causes for worry. What you want and expect does not match what others want and expect.

You continuously expect things to happen in a certain way. Whether it is as big as your career or as small as what time your husband should come home for a meal, you continuously impose your will upon what is happening and worry about it.

Worry takes root from your own thoughts or words. There are two things that

Even when something joyful happens, you remember only the moment when it ended.

continuously happen in you. The first is dialogue, and the second is

monologue or what I call 'inner chatter'. You either talk to people outside or you continuously chatter within you. In any case, words and thoughts are the 'building blocks' that make up worry.

When you speak to others, what you say is strictly governed by societal rules. You automatically don't use prohibited or 'politically incorrect' words. But what you say inside yourself, no one except you knows. The thoughts that you generate inside constitute your real worries.

Khalil Gibran, a Lebanese poet, beautifully says, 'You talk when you cease to be at peace with your thoughts!' and 'Our very verbalization is because we are not able to handle ourselves peacefully within us.'

It is like this: there is a continuous current of chatter happening in you twenty four hours a day, seven days a week. From this current a few spikes rise. These spikes are what you feel and express as worries. Worries are nothing but spikes in the current of thoughts constantly moving within you.

These thoughts are mostly negative. That's the problem. If I ask you to write your life story in a few pages, you will write a few incidents highlighting how and when you struggled. You will not highlight the many joyful incidents that happened in between. The mind is trained to record only negative things. Even when something joyful happens, you remember only the moment when it ended, never the moments when you felt joy. Because even when you are at the peak of joy, you are always worrying about when the joy will end! The mind is trained from a very young age to think that life moves from one worry to the other or from one pain to another, never from one joy to another.

In a classroom, the teacher found that one boy was sitting with a very sad face.

She asked him, 'What happened? Why do you look so worried?'

The boy said, 'It's my parents. My dad works all day to provide good clothes and an excellent education for me. He buys me anything I want. My mother cooks the best food for me and takes care of me from morning until I go to bed.'

The teacher asked, 'Then what is your problem? Why are you worried?'

Khalil Gibran - Lebanese American poet best known for his 'The Prophet'.

The boy replied, 'I am afraid they may run away.'

The mind has a clear identity only with pain, never with joy! That is why recalling even joyful moments becomes painful.

Joy never gets recorded as thoughts, but pain does. That's why our internal recordings are always negative thoughts. Joy is like a blank recording! For example, if your entire life is like a time shaft, on that shaft the joyful moments are simply empty spaces! There won't be any recording corresponding to it. But the moments of worry and suffering will be clearly recorded as black impressions.

On a beautiful white wall if there is a small black dot, and I ask you what you are able to see, what will you say? You will say you only see the black dot. You will not see the big white space surrounding it! That is how you conclude that your time shaft is only made up of worry and suffering.

Buddha* , an enlightened master, used the word tathata - seeing what is as it IS. It is seeing what is there as it is, without any judgment.

But most of the time we see things only through our worry. When we see The mind has a clear identity only with pain, never with joy. Joy never gets recorded as thoughts.

everything as it is, there is only joy, and when there is joy, no thoughts get recorded in you. There are only empty spaces. That is why when you are joyful you feel light, because nothing gets recorded. When you see everything through worry, more thoughts get recorded in you and you feel heavy.

There is a common saying, 'We don't see things as they are. We see things as we are.' If you feel there is something wrong with what you are seeing, then you should look back in at yourself because what you see outside is only a reflection of what is inside you. If you feel pure love inside, then you see only pure love outside. It always has to do with you, not with what you are seeing.

How can you keep thoughts away from what truly IS? How can you enjoy each moment all the time?

Try this small technique. When you see something, for example a person, or a situation, or a book, or anything, normally old thoughts and familiar reactions

Buddha - Enlightened master and founder of the religion of Buddhism.

If you understand that everything is auspiciousness, you will drop expectation.

immediately rise in you. Bring in the awareness that these

conditioned thoughts and memories cloud your judgment and visualize shattering those thoughts. Next, see the situation, or person, or object now with a fresh eye, as though you are seeing it for the first time! Suddenly you see how much you missed, because of your own worry and thoughts.

Even when you see your husband, wife, brother, or anyone, look at them as though you are seeing them for the first time. Suddenly, you realize that not only does worry not arise, but also that you start seeing everyone alike, whether they are strangers or familiar to you. That is the right way. No one is familiar or unchanging. Even your wife is not known to you. Everyone is constantly changing every moment along with Existence. Only your mind is trying to make them appear to be permanent.

Once you start seeing what is as it is, all your energy will integrate within you. There is no more worry, no more conflict. Worry arises because your thoughts resist what you see. Once the conflict disappears, all the energy invested in worry is released for you to integrate!

Some one asked J. Krishnamurti* , the famous Hindu philosopher, how to fall in tune with what IS. He beautifully says, 'Just don't name it, you will find you are in tune with it!'

Usually, when we see something, we either try to identify with it or we try to condemn it. For example, if you are told you are arrogant, you either accept it or you try not to be arrogant! You never understand or go beyond arrogance. You can only understand within your frame of reference, what you are familiar with. Because of this, you are caught in a limited view of possibilities. To really understand, you need to go beyond this limited point-ofview. To do that, you have to stop naming it arrogance, that's all! There will be no more arrogance. Only by naming it, you start the conflict. That is how you see what IS – by not naming it.

One man got onto a bus and sat down next to a young man. He could see that the man was a hippy. He was wearing only one shoe.

He asked him, 'You have lost one shoe?'

The young man replied, 'No, I have found one shoe.'

Stop naming any situation, person, or thing! Just see, that's all. Don't give room for condemning or accepting thoughts.

J. Krishnamurti - Renowned Hindu philosopher.

Initially there's a compulsion to pass judgment on anything that you see because that is your habit. But when you experience the great energy released in you by seeing what IS, you want to remain that way – free from thoughts, worry, and suffering.

When you see what is as it is, you are in heaven. When you want to see what you want to see, you are in hell. If you understand that everything is auspiciousness, you will drop expectation and see things as they are, because everything is auspiciousness.

A small story:

One disciple kept asking the master, 'Master, where is paradise?'

Finally one day, the master asked him, 'Do you really want to know?'

The disciple sat up and said, 'Yes!'

The master said, 'Alright, my first disciple Hemachandra is in paradise.' After saying these words the master closed his eyes and went into meditation.

The disciple knew it would be a long time before the master opened his eyes. So, he went and asked some of the disciples if they knew where Hemachandra lived. No one seemed to know.

Finally one disciple said, 'I know how to guide you there, but I have never been there myself. It is in a deep valley beyond a range of ice covered mountains.'

The disciple wrote down the directions carefully and went back to the master. He told him, 'Master, I wish to pay a visit to Hemachandra!'

The master was absorbed deeply in some work. Without even looking up he said, 'Go ahead.'

The disciple started on his journey. He walked for many days, passing through sun, rain, snow, and what not. He became exhausted, on the verge of death. It took him one hundred days to reach the valley. When he finally reached it he looked at the valley and thought, 'This valley doesn't look all that great. I have seen many more beautiful valleys. Why did the master call this paradise?'

He looked around and walked further and finally found Hemachandra's hut. Hemachandra was very pleased to see him. He served him food and asked how the master and other disciples were doing.

All along, the disciple was thinking to himself, 'Master called this place paradise? I can't believe it.'

After a week-long stay he left and returned to his master. It took him

Worry is an unwanted legacy passed down from grandparents to parents to children.

another one hundred days to return home.

He went straight to the

master and stated, 'You said that the place is paradise. But what I saw was the most ordinary place ever!'

The master said, 'Oh god! At the time of your enquiry, had you been more explicit about your intention, I would have told you the truth.'

The disciple asked, 'What is the truth?' The master replied, 'Hemachandra is not in paradise. Paradise is in him!'

When you live close to Existence, without any expectation, seeing what is as it is and finding the blessings in it, you will carry heaven in you! Heaven is not geographical, it is psychological. It is not physical, it is mental. If you decide, you can be in heaven right now.

Many people get worried about what they see in their dreams and come to me for interpretations. I tell them that we are unable to even accept what happens in reality, then why bother about what happens in our dreams?

One day, a man dreamt a strange dream and became very curious to know what the dream meant. He went to his master,

told him about the dream and asked for an explanation.

The master told him, 'Come to me with dreams that come to you in your wakeful state. We will work them out. The dreams of your sleep belong neither to my wisdom, nor to your imagination.'

If you are still worried about your dreams, you should know that dreams tell you about the state of your mind during the day. Learn from your dreams and think how to transform the mind during the daytime. For example, if you think too much about lust when you are awake, your dreams will be lustful. If you worry too much about passing with high grades, you will write exams in your dreams! If you worry too much about relationships, you will fight with someone in your dream. So wake up to what your dreams indicate to you. There is nothing more to interpret from your dreams. Wake up and see what is as it IS.

Worry is an unwanted legacy passed down from grandparents to parents to children. Children are like sponges. They simply absorb the body language and attitude of the parents. The parents are not even aware this is happening. For example, if a child hears the mother repeating a certain worry four or five times, the child simply internalizes the habit. He grows up repeating statements unnecessarily, which is one attribute of worry.

Ultimately he carries the worry with him into marriage and then both he and his wife must deal with it, even though it was originally his mother's concern. They will then hand it down to their children, unless they stop naming it and learn to live with what IS.

A man was pushing his baby in a pram. The baby was screaming at the top of his voice. All the while the man kept repeating quietly, 'Keep calm George. Don't scream. It will be okay.'

His wife told him to keep quiet.

A woman who was watching this said to the wife, 'Why are you so rude to him? He is really doing his best to pacify your son!'

*The wife looked at her with resentment, pointed to her husband and told her, '*He is George.'

When parents express constant worry, children grow up thinking life goes on only because of worry! Understand that life goes on not because of us, but in spite of us!

One man had just moved into a remote part of a village. One day, he was seen throwing handfuls of bread crumbs

around his house. It is possible to care without worrying.

His neighbor who was watching him asked him, 'What are you doing?'

The man replied, 'I am keeping the tigers away.'

The neighbor was surprised. He said, 'But there are no tigers in these parts!'

The man replied, 'That's right. Very effective, isn't it?'

This is how we are trained to worry! The other day, I read a survey about worries. It said that forty percent of the things we worry about never happen, thirty percent are in the past and can't be helped, twelve percent concern the affairs of others that are not our business, ten percent are about illnesses that are mostly imagined, eight percent are worth worrying about but they are also not worth the energy to worry. They can be overcome by simply putting faith into action. So really, zero percent of our worries are worth the effort!

People will believe anything that is said with statistics! So I am talking with statistics. Otherwise, just one line is enough: don't worry, just do. Things will happen as they should!

The problem is that parents expect their children to worry! If they don't worry, they brand them as uncaring. It is possible to care without worrying. Care is doing, worry is chattering. There is no use chattering. Chattering is like trying to cross a bridge before it comes.

A young boy was driving his mother to the neighboring village. They were nearing the village when they remembered a particular bridge that used to be very old and unusable.

The mother got very anxious and said, 'I will never cross that bridge by car.'

The son said, 'Let's see how it looks when we come to it.'

The mother said, 'I'm sure the bridge will break if we attempt to cross it.'

The son replied, 'Let's see how strong it is. We won't cross it without checking it carefully.'

The mother said, 'If something happens to you or me, your father will never forgive me.' She kept going on like this, becoming more and more upset.

Soon they reached the spot where the bridge stood. The bridge had been replaced with a new one!

There are two things to understand: chronological planning and psychological worry. Chronological planning is needed to set up a schedule for tasks or projects to be completed. For example, you decide, 'I will wake up at six a.m., do my meditation, then take a shower at seven a.m., and leave for the office by eight a.m. I'll finish work by five p.m. and return home by six p.m.'

This type of planning is perfectly alright. But before you come to each task on your list, you start creating anxiety about it. You think of the pros and cons of each, etc. This is called psychological worry! This is not needed. Chronological planning is fine, but psychological worry is not needed. It is like trying to cross a bridge before it comes.

So much energy is spent worrying, and it is all of no use. In the story I just narrated, it does not mean that the son does not care. He cares without worry, that's all. Why contemplate over the bridge even before it comes?

Understand that sensitivity is different from worry. You can be very sensitive to the moment, but not worry at all. If you see children, they are highly sensitive to you when you are sick. But they won't worry like you do. As long as your child is sensitive to others' needs, it is perfectly fine. He doesn't have to worry to show it. In fact, be happy he doesn't multiply the worries in the house!

You can clean the physical parts of your house like your carpets and floors, but what about the space inside your house? This space is the energy that circulates throughout your house. It captures all the thoughts you radiate. It sets the very mood of the house. Your worries rest like cobwebs in the space of your house. That is why when you enter your house, you experience a familiar pattern of worry. The patterns remaining in the space of your house grip you when you return to it. Understand that your mental setup settles into the space of your house.

By contaminating the space in your house, you subject others to the impure environment without their consent. That is the problem. Many people perform rituals in their homes to cleanse the energy, but that is not enough. After the ritual, you again start airing your negative thoughts in your space. Unless you break free from the mental setup or worry, there is no point in doing cleansing rituals in your home. Along with rituals, you must start airing positive thoughts, so the energy in your house will remain clean.

One man got up from deep sleep with a jolt. His friend asked him, 'What happened?'

He replied, 'I suddenly remembered that I forgot to take my sleeping pills.'

Worry is a deeply embedded pattern in us. It happens independently, without any solid, valid reason to justify it. It is an

Worry is a deeply embedded pattern in us.

addiction like smoking and drinking. I read about some recent research conducted at the American College of Chest Physicians. It said that the proportion of people classified as highly nicotine dependent has increased.

Any addiction happens because we want to maintain our patterns. The same is true with worry. You worry to maintain patterns. It becomes your nature.

Understand that the mind is like a piece of hardware programmed with the software called 'worry'. For example, let us say you experience depression, or worry, every morning at ten o'clock when thinking of all your unfinished office work. Ten o'clock gets recorded as a low mood time for you. Everyday at exactly ten o'clock you will experience a disturbance in your mood. Many of you might have experienced this. The same low mood happens on Sunday when there is no office to go to. Then you tell yourself, 'No, today is a Sunday. I don't need to go to the office. I don't need to think about those things.' Then you have relief but the mind goes back again and again to the same mood, because our mind is programmed hardware.

When the thoughts are different, the dilemma becomes different.

The stress of suffering or worrying becomes part of our being.

If the worry or stress is taken away from us, we feel lonely. We feel we are missing something. When we enter into old age, there won't be much to worry about because no one will expect us to solve any problems. If you watch elderly people, even if their children are married, and sometimes even their grandchildren are married, they will sit religiously every day and read the 'wanted bride and groom' column in the newspaper!

One more thing is that when we fall into this software, this worry, again and again, we often end up in dilemma.

What is a dilemma? It is moving back and forth when making a decision. The moving happens because there are so many thoughts inside you trying to put their signatures on your final decision! There is great conflict between these thoughts because they were recorded at different times and under different circumstances. So they conflict with each other when a decision has to be made. This conflict becomes your dilemma. For each person, the dilemma is different. There are no standards or rules for a dilemma.

A small story:

One friend said to the other, 'I am in love with two girls. One is very beautiful, but has no money. The other one is not that beautiful, but she has a lot of money. Whom should I marry?'

His friend replied, 'I am sure that you really love the beautiful girl, so I think you should marry her.'

The man was relieved. He said, 'Thank you very much!'

The friend asked, 'I wonder if you could give me the name and telephone number of the other girl!'

The crisis is different for every person because the mind is made up of a unique set of thoughts for each person. When the thoughts are different, the dilemma becomes different. The worry becomes different.

A blind man and his guide dog entered a hotel and sat down at a table. After ordering some food, he spoke loudly to the people there, 'Do you want to hear a blonde joke?'

The whole room fell silent. One man went up to him and told him, 'Before you tell that joke, you should know something. The hotel owner is blonde, the security guard is blonde, and I am a six foot tall, 200-pound blonde, with a black belt in karate. The lady to your

right is a blonde wrestler. Think about it seriously. Do you still want to tell that joke?'

The blind man said, 'No, not if I have to explain it five times.'

Each one's worry is different, according to one's own inner software!

The big problem is that you become so used to your inner software that you end up like an island that is cut off from the fragrance of the mainland. You are cut off from the fragrance of Existence because of your worries. You miss the miracles of Existence that are continuously happening around you. You forget to appreciate and remember only to complain. You forget laughter and remember only anxiety. You forget bliss and remember only stress. Remembering these negative things becomes a mere habit.

Another small story:

One day a dog entered a butcher's shop. The butcher tried to chase it away but the dog persisted and came back. Suddenly the butcher noticed a note in the dog's mouth. The butcher went near the dog and took the note. Someone had written the items to order on it.

The butcher then saw a ten-dollar bill tucked in the dog's collar. He took the money, put the ordered items in a bag, and placed it in the dog's mouth. He was completely in awe of the dog. He closed down his shop and decided to follow the dog wherever it went.

The dog walked down the street to the crosswalk. He put down the bag, jumped up and pressed the button. He waited patiently with the bag in his mouth for the green signal to appear. The moment it appeared, he crossed the road. The butcher also crossed the road along with him.

Then the dog came to a bus stop and looked at the timetable. He checked out the times and then sat on one of the benches waiting for the bus to come. Soon, a bus came. The dog jumped down, walked around to the front of the bus, looked at the number and went back to his seat and sat down.

Another bus came. Again the dog jumped down and went to look at the number. He saw that it was the right bus and climbed in. The butcher could not believe it. He also got on the bus.

After a few stops, the dog stood up and pushed the button for the bus to stop. He got down with the bag in his mouth and started walking. The butcher followed him.

The dog entered a gate and dropped the bag on the doorstep. He jumped up and rang the doorbell. There was no response. So, he jumped onto a windowsill and banged his head When we watch

worry with awareness, the worry starts to dissolve and clarity starts happening.

against the glass several times. He then waited at the door.

The butcher was watching

the whole thing.

A fat man came and opened the door. To the butcher's surprise, the man started abusing the dog. The butcher couldn't bear to see it. He ran to the door and asked him, 'Sir, what are you doing? The dog is a genius. He is helping you so much! Why are you abusing him?'

The man replied, 'You call him clever? This is the second time this week that he forgot to take his key!'

There are so many miracles happening around us! But all the time we are moving down the track of our own inner software, so we miss the miracles.

What is the solution to this distorted software of the mind?

Deep awareness is the solution. Deep awareness is like a benign virus, if such a thing exists! Once awareness enters your system, the more you work with the mind, the more the awareness gets into the worry software and destroys it!

Awareness is nothing but bringing our focus to exactly what is happening in and around us. It is witnessing. Anything that we watch with awareness will dissolve. That is the power of awareness, whether it is physical pain, mental pain, worry, or something else. When we watch with awareness, we stop the conflict somewhere within us. We start moving with the natural flow of things.

When we watch worry with awareness, we focus light on exactly how worry is created, how it exists. Once this happens, the worry starts to dissolve and clarity starts happening.

There is a small story about Buddha* and his disciples:

One day Buddha arrived for his usual morning discourse with his disciples. He had a knotted handkerchief in his hand. He showed the handkerchief to the disciples and asked if any of them could come up and untie the knot.

One disciple went up and tried to untie it. He pulled and pulled and the knot

tightened. Another disciple went up, he looked at the knot for a few seconds and easily untied it.

All he did was look at the knot and immediately he knew how the knot was made in the first place. So, he just reversed the whole thing and untied it! The knot itself taught him how to untie it.

In life worries are the knots in the handkerchief. If we look at them with awareness, we will know how to dissolve them. We will see exactly how the worry was created and then know how to 'untie' it. The worry itself will teach us how to release it.

First of all, there is no need to worry. Life itself holds all the solutions. It is a beautiful self-sustaining mechanism. We just need to allow it to function in its natural way. Then we will awaken to its higher intelligence and drop all our worries.

Not only that, when we witness, our mind slows down. Worry itself causes the mind to rush around in what you call anxiety. When awareness is brought in, the rushing slows down and things happen as they should.

There was a student who wanted to learn martial arts. He approached a teacher and asked, 'I wish to study martial arts. How long will it take me to master the art?'

The teacher replied, 'Ten years.'

The student became very sad and said, 'But I want to master it faster and I will work very hard. Even if you want me to practice more than ten hours a day, I am ready to do it. If I do so, how long will it take?'

The teacher said, 'Maybe twenty years.'

The teacher clearly means that hurrying is not going to help! When you are in a hurry, there is only anxiety. To really do something, you need only awareness, nothing else. When there is awareness, there is right action. When there is hurry, everything is blurred.

With awareness, anything becomes a blessing, including illness. Have you ever been joyful when you were sick? You can be if you become aware. There is no need to worry about sickness. Even sickness is a part of the flow of Existence. You can feel this if you become more aware of the bigger picture and what is happening at the cosmic level. Awareness simply relaxes you into deeper understanding.

Another major cause for worry is when we constantly try to conform to another's opinion of us. The funny thing is that while

Any task done with the energy of inspiration always turns out good results.

we are worried about others' opinions of us, they are

worried about our opinion of them!

Society conditions us to worry about others' opinions all the time. That is the problem.

When you are worried about what other people think, you unconsciously weaken your efforts in whatever it is you are doing. You divert a major part of your energy toward suffering and worry.

Why do you worry about others' appreciation? Don't bother. Just do anything totally and to the best of your ability. Leave it at that, that's all. Only then will what you do be the best that you are capable of. In the end, you are your only stronghold. You should be clear from the beginning that you are your only stronghold. Then there is no need to worry about what others think of you.

If you observe closely, you will see that goals always create worry in us. When we move toward any goal, we move only with the worry about the results.

Krishna, an enlightened master from ancient Bharat, beautifully says in the ancient Hindu scripture, the Bhagavad Gita* , 'The person who does not expect gain or loss from anything works happily with no need even for motivation.'

When you are worried about the results, the very worry affects the results. Because when you worry, your doing is affected. Work should always be done out of inspiration, never out of worry. The motivation for any work should be inspiration, not worry. Inspiration is an overflowing energy that expands your capacity to do things. It is completely energizing. Worry, on the other hand, is something that shrinks your capacity. It limits what you are capable of really doing because it takes away your energy.

When you work out of worry, you are always bothered about the results. When you work out of inspiration, you are not bothered about the results. You are bothered only about doing the task to the fullest. Any task done with the energy of inspiration always turns out good results. Even if it doesn't give the expected results, you won't feel bad about it because you

have received fulfillment simply by doing it. The 'doing' itself will fulfill you.

In today's world, everything is measured by productivity. Even in that context you see right away that worry is a waste of time. It is the most non-productive activity.

The problem is that today's world is so highly competitive. Everyone feels compelled to achieve. Everyone wants to be first. Everyone is worried that they might be last. Tell me, so what if you are last? Someone has to be last! You should worry only if you did not give it your best. If you gave your best, then there is nothing to feel bad about. In fact, if you can feel neutral about being last, you have achieved a much bigger thing than finishing in the first place. It is not a sign of failure, it is a sign of success at a different level.

When you live without expectation, you are already fulfilled. There is no space for worry or discontent to thrive. When you don't have worry, you see things as they are. You don't worry about what might be or might not be. Worry exists only if you give it space. The space for worry is the past or future. The present doesn't hold any space for it.

When you allow the mind to wander to

Worry exists only if you give it space.

the past or future, worry gets created. It includes what is and what is not, based on past experiences and future expectations. For example, if your friend loses his job, you worry about what might happen to your job. Why worry about that now? You already have a hundred other worries about your job. Then why add the hundred and first worry, about losing the job, when it has not even happened? That is the space in which we should never allow worry to reside.

A small story:

A mother was preparing a meal for her young son. She emptied a tin of beans into a saucepan and put them on the stove to cook. Just then the phone rang. She was expecting the call and wanted to take it, but she was concerned that her son would be left alone for those few minutes while she was out of the room.

She firmly told him, 'Stay here while I answer the phone. I'll be back soon. Don't misbehave, and whatever you do, don't put those beans up your nose...'

We always worry about what is happening and what might happen, also! The boy might not have even thought about putting beans up his nose! Now his mother has

Worry can never be hope. Worry is only like a hammock. It goes back and forth.

planted the idea in him. Worry infuses life into many things that

never existed in the first place. Now, when the boy puts the beans in his nose, her worry turns out to be true! She concludes that her worries were always right.

George MacDonald, a Scottish author and poet says, 'It is when tomorrow's burden is added to the burden of today that the weight is more than a man can bear.'

If you find yourself overloaded, at least remember this, it is your own doing, not god's. He begs you to leave the future to Him, and concern yourself only with the present.

When you take care of this moment alone, you enjoy the moment. You create a blissful future, because every moment takes birth only from the previous moment. When you are in the moment, you don't think, you only do. It is only when you think that you start creating worries. Worry needs space to think and time to move. Space is your mind and time is the idea that you have of the future and past.

Understand one thing, only those who are weak worry a lot. They feel so helpless that they hold tightly onto worry as their hope. Worry can never be hope. Worry is only like a hammock. It goes back and forth; nothing comes out of it.

When you stop worrying, you make correct decisions. There are some people who come to me asking me to make decisions for them. They see outside circumstances as the cause of their troubles. They use these influences as their reason for poor decision-making and see me as an influence in making any new decisions correctly. Sometimes they blame their parents for not educating them properly, for the lack of correct exposure, etc. Your parents did what they felt was right. Feel grateful to them for what they did. They might not have educated you in the right way, but they may have given you many other virtues that made you a good human being. So see the whole and move on. You only have the present under your control, so why waste time living in the past?

In the same way, the future is completely open. Anything can happen in the future. You can make the best happen. It is in your hands. It is only when you think of the past and worry about the future that you make the future a replication of the past. Otherwise the future is completely open. Just through your worry, you end up making the same mistakes in the future also.

If you look into worries, you will observe that they arise out of deep ignorance of the truth that Existence is running the whole show. If you look, you will see that all worries are mere illusion. You can understand this by observing what happens at the time of death. When you are alive, you may have one hundred worries, but suppose you are dying. At that moment, how many worries do you think will dominate you the way they did earlier? Surely only one worry will be foremost – that you are going to die. None of the earlier worries will exert any great influence. All the outer world situations remain the same, but still the worries disappear! Only loving thoughts remain for the people around you who are dear to you.

How is this possible? It is possible only because your worries were never a part of you in the first place. They were merely a part of your mind. They were nothing solid. If they were solid, they would definitely exert some amount of influence over you at the time of your death as well.

The nature of worry is such that it always goes behind something that is not present. If you have wealth, it will go after relationships. If you have relationships, it will go after education. If you have education it will go after good looks. If everything is present, it will suspect what IS!

A small story:

One man was slipping in and out of a coma for several months and yet his wife faithfully stayed by his bedside, day and night.

One night he opened his eyes and started talking to her. He told her in a soft voice, 'I was just thinking… you have been with me through all the bad times. When I got fired, you were there to support me. When my business failed, you were there. When we lost the house, you gave me support. When my health started failing, you were still by my side. You know what I think?'

The wife asked, 'What do you think?'

The man replied, 'I think you're bad luck.'

Worry is always trained to see the black spot on the white wall! That is the problem. Not only that, even our seemingly solid worries can easily be proven to be illusory.

Let me tell you another small story:

A disciple went to the master and said, 'Master, I am very keen to renounce the world. However, I am very worried about what will happen to my family. They will not be able to take it.'

The master listened to him and said, 'Alright, I will teach you a yogic secret

Surrendering to the laws of Existence is the greatest relaxation from worry.

that you can use to cause death.'

The disciple agreed and he went through

the process and died. His family members started crying and shouting.

The master walked in and saw the scene. He told them, 'I know the way to bring him back to life, but one of you has to be willing to die in his place. Which of you would like to volunteer?'

The disciple was shocked to see that not one of them volunteered, including the man's wife. They all simply gave some reason why they couldn't volunteer.

Finally they said, 'It's ok. We will manage without him.'

In reality if we track our worries, we will not be able to find any truth in them! That is the truth.

When you clearly understand that you are part of the grand plan of Existence, no worry can take root in you. Existence is a live energy being. It has tremendous intelligence with which it runs the whole show. We are all part of it. The same intelligence that conducts Existence is available to us too. If we tune in to it, our actions will be fluid and spontaneous like the happenings of Existence. If we don't tune into it, we will harbor worry and fear and remain closed.

There is so much to learn from Existence! Take animals, for example. Have you ever heard of worried sheep or cows? No! They conduct their lives like you. They are born, they reproduce, they find food, and they face death, just like human beings. You may say, 'They don't have to face the challenges that we have to face.' What about their other activities like reproduction, facing death, etc.? Are they worried about all that? No! But these things happen to them too. So understand that Existence is running this whole macrocosm. It can surely take care of you as well!

Surrendering to the laws of Existence is the greatest relaxation from worry. Once you surrender, you start seeing that everything that happens is auspicious! Nothing causes you any worry. You find blessings in everything. Either there is surrender or worry, never both. Once you surrender, you see that Existence plans even the small things beautifully, only we don't see it.

The Isavasya Upanishad* , an ancient vedic* text, says, 'The one who sees all living entities as spiritual sparks, can never have anxiety on any account!'

Everything that happens is a spark of Existence. That is the truth.

A small story:

Once a rich man met a Zen* master. He asked the master to write down something that would encourage happiness and prosperity in his family for years to come. He wanted something that the family could cherish.

The Zen* master took a large sheet of paper and wrote, 'Father dies, son dies, and grandson dies.'

When the man saw the master's writings, he became very angry. He said, 'I asked you to write something that would bring prosperity and happiness to my family, but you have written such things! Why?'

The master answered, 'If your son dies before you, it would bring unbearable grief and sadness to your family. If your grandson dies before your son, that would also bring great sorrow. If your family dies generations after generations in the order I have desc- ribed, it will be true happiness and prosperity.'

Worry is created out of ignorance, but sustained by ego. If worry is taken away, the ego suffers.

Whenever

your mind suffers with worry, immediately be aware that somewhere you are interpreting the ways of Existence with your own ignorant mental setup. You will then stop worrying and start doing.

If you seriously analyze every worry that arises in you, you will see that ninety nine percent of your worries are baseless. But the problem is that the ego is not willing to accept that. The ego has invested too much in worry. Worry can't be discarded just like that! Just try telling someone that his or her worries are not worth anything. They will get very offended. You would expect that a person would feel happy if you tell him his worries are not true. But it won't be so! He will feel offended. The ego feels offended whenever its worries are not acknowledged with due respect.

Our very worries become our comfort zone. We hide in them.

Chaitanya Mahaprabhu* says beautifully, 'When a

living entity forgets the constitutional nature of his relationship with god, he is at once overwhelmed with external energy. This is the cause of his false ego, his identification with his body-mind system!'

Ego comes into play only when you lose your connection with Existence. The ego is what sustains the worry. The worry is created out of ignorance, but sustained by ego. Worry becomes an axis around which the ego revolves. If worry is taken away, the ego suffers. The worry of work and the worry of responsibility are classic examples of this.

Understand that the idea of hard work itself is a myth. Hard work is really just worry plus a little work, that's all. Real hard work never causes worry. It simply rises and falls like a wave, with great dynamism and intensity. It will never dilute itself with worry.

An eight year old girl was very intelligent and somehow sensed that her mother would like a gift. She decided to buy her mother a birthday gift. The mother was very happy. She thought,

'At least my daughter appreciates my efforts. No one else does.'

The girl gave her mother the gift and told her, 'This is for you because you work so hard and no one appreciates it.' The mother replied, 'But dear, your father also works hard. Don't forget that.'

The girl said, 'Yes, but he doesn't make a fuss about it.'

The fuss is the worry. If you watch some people, they simply magnify their situation to prove that they have the greatest worries on planet earth! If you try to contradict them, they feel very hurt.

Even worrying about what others will say about us is a problem of the ego. The ego is constantly worried that its self-image might be spoiled by someone. It is because of the ego that we feel we want to be somebody special all the time. We spend considerable time just worrying about our self-image. Understand that the greatest blessing is being a nobody and yet being blissful. That is the greatest specialty. It is said that the most extraordinary thing about an enlightened being is that he thinks he is ordinary! So, understand that enlightenment itself is a journey to relax into yourself. You are someone special all

the time, only when you drop worry and ego.

If you really want to come out of your worries, you will come out right now, without trying to justify any of your worries.

The thing is, our very worries become our comfort zone. We hide in them. Hiding and merely talking about them helps us to remain lazy.

Someone asks Mahavira* , an enlightened Jain master from Bharat, 'Who is the one who has worries?' He beautifully replies, 'The person who is worried.'

They ask him, 'What is the cause of worry?' He replies, 'Laziness.'

Then they ask him, 'Who ends worries?' He replies, 'Man himself.'

They ask him, 'How can worry be ended?' He replies, 'By dropping laziness.'

If you drop laziness, you fall into right action. And when you fall into right action, you drop worry. Your comfort with worry can be understood even from the way you react to other people's worries. If you keenly watch, you will observe that whenever a person talks to you about his worries, you first tell them, 'What can you do… That's just the way it happens…' You never straightaway give a solution to them. When you do this, be very clear, you are not only encouraging them, but you are also encouraging yourself to remain comfortably in the worry zone.

Worry can never have an external cause. Externally, events happen. They continue to happen. But your inner space is what decides your response to them. If you choose to respond with worry, be very clear, somewhere within yourself, you are giving into the laziness of your comfort zone. This is where you can simply sit and worry without moving into action. Any external event can be handled with the right decision or action and handled immediately, or you can choose to speak endlessly about your worry. What you choose to focus on is purely in your hands.

We again and again seek out the same old worry! We love to worry and talk about it. It makes us feel that we are shouldering a lot of problems. It makes us feel important, like the world can't make it without us to take care of it.

Trying to change your impression to beat worry is like trying to change the screen to see a different scene.

A man and his wife were hurrying to their seats after a movie intermission. In a very concerned way, the man asked the lady at the end of a row, 'Did I step on your toes on the way out?' 'Yes you did,' the lady answered back angrily. The man said, 'Alright then, this is our row.'

Worry literally becomes 'our row'! You are very comfortable with it although you claim you suffer because of it. If you really want to come out of it, you will come out immediately! The question is whether you want to come out of it or remain in the problem.

In a university, there was a small department store where students could buy materials for their classes and personal use. There was a new person in charge of the store one particular day. A student went to him and asked, 'Can you give me a blank tape?' The man asked him, 'What language are you studying?' The student replied, 'French.' The man said, 'Sorry, we don't have any French blank tapes.' The student asked, 'Do you have any English blank tapes?' The man said, 'Yes, we have.' The student said, 'No problem. Give me one of those.'

When you see a problem, if you want a solution, you never dwell upon the problem even for a second. You simply switch to the solution, that's all! In the same way, for every worry there is an instant solution. You only have to want it.

Most of the time, you prefer to stay in the comfort zone of your worry. It keeps you settled. For example, let's say you are visiting your child at college. You see a few students keeping their rooms all messy or exchanging clothes and wearing them. You record the whole scene in your mind and assume that is the way of life in the dorm itself. You advise your child to keep her things neat and not to wear others' clothes. Even if she tells you her things are in order and that she doesn't wear others' clothes, you will not readily erase or reprogram your recording. You stick with the earlier recording of what you observed.

There probably were many other beautiful things to record in the dorm like the joy of the students, the campus itself, etc., but every time you think of your daughter, only this one recording comes up and you worry about her. Not only that, anyone you meet, you talk about how things are a mess in her dorm and how everyone exchanges clothes and wears them! The recording itself is not the truth. But you choose to have it as your comfort zone. You reinforce it.

I often tell people that if you sit in your house and worry, you call it homework. If you sit in the office and worry, you call it office work. If you sit on the beach and worry, you call it vacation, that's all! The mind is the same, only the location is different. You can't experience peace just by changing the place!

You should change the slide in front of the projector to see a different scene, not the projector screen! Any projector screen will show you the same picture if you use the same slide. Trying to change your impression to beat worry is like trying to change the screen to see a different scene. If you really wish to see a different scene, you must change the slide.

get sorted out if you get up and get into right action. There is a famous saying, 'If you can't find a solution, you are the problem.'

If making money is the worry, then it clearly means that somewhere laziness is pulling you back into the comfort of worry. If you discard laziness and move, you make money. There are a million opportunities in today's world to make money.

If sustaining the money is a worry, then again you should either take steps to reduce spending or be in the ultimate surrender to Existence, knowing it will sustain you. The worry of sustaining money might not be a great problem in your life after all. So relax and just remain with the right action.

Krishna says in the Bhagavad Gita* , 'A person whose mind is contended because of spiritual knowledge, who has subdued his senses and to whom stone and gold are the same and who is satisfied with what he has, is said to be established in Selfrealization and is called an enlightened being.'

An eternal worry for people is the worry about money. Even your money problems

Bhagavad Gita - Ancient Hindu scripture, delivered by enlightened master Krishna, and considered the essence of the Upanishads or scriptures.

Too much perfectionism leads to stomach troubles and ulcers.

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 many 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.

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 Bharat. 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.

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

Maharishi Mahesh Yogi - Hindu 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.