HOW TO OVERCOME TENSIONS AND HAVE PEACE OF MIND - 7
Practical suggestion number four is, never carry the tension of one moment to another. Has someone cheated you, robbed you, exploited you? Has someone made you feel angry? Have you spoken harsh words to him? After he has left, have you felt sorry? Or have you not felt sorry? Before you move on to attend to some other job or deal with some other person, pause for a while and relax in the thought of the unity of all life. You and every other unit of life, - you and that other person who has caused you to be angry, you and the animal, you and the plant, you and the chair in which you are sitting, - all, all are vibrant with the One Life. There is but One Life flowing in and through all. We are not apart from each other: we all are parts of the One Great Whole. This thought of unity of all that is cleanses us, ennobles us and puts a stop to the accumulation of tension.
Has someone harmed me? Has someone spread scandals against me? Have someone behaved rudely towards me? Let me forget it all, thinking of the unity of all life. I and he are not apart from each other: I and he are but parts of the One Great Whole. In this thought let me dissolve all my tensions.
Practical suggestion number five is, practice relaxation at least twice everyday. There is a simple yogic asana, called shavasana, the ‘dead man’s pose.’ You may learn it from a yogic teacher and, as you practice it, you will feel relaxed.
I have my own method of relaxing. I do no asana but, whenever I sit in meditation, whenever I enter into the depths of the silence within me, the first thing that I do is to relax. I imagine myself sitting at the Lotus Feet of the Lord. God, it is true, is formless: but for the sake of His devotees, the Formless One hath put on many forms. Think of any form of Lord that appeals to you, that draws your heart. Imagine yourself sitting at the Lotus Feet of the Lord, in the loving, immediate and personal presence of God, with your arms girdled round His ankles and rest your head at His Lotus Feet. At His Lotus Feet is true rest, true relaxation. In the loving presence of God all fears and frustrations, worries and anxieties, difficulties and dangers, impurities and distractions vanish as mist before the rising sun. You will feel relaxed.
I relax my body and mind, my will and feelings and emotions and the heart. First, I relax the body. I say to myself that the body is built up of five tatvas (earth, air, water, fire and ether): and so is the whole universe. The body then appears as a drop in the ocean of the universe, a drop of water bobbing merrily up and down the surface of the ocean, being buoyed up, sustained, and upheld by the vast expanse of the ocean. In such conditions the drop of water naturally abandons itself to the ocean. The drop lives a life of utter self-abandon. The drop – the body, - is completely relaxed. Every muscle, every limb, every nerve of the body is relaxed.
I take up the muscles, one by one, I relax specially the muscles round the eyes and those round the mouth. Those are the muscles that are most difficult to relax. One by one, I relax the muscles of the body. Then I relax the limbs. I take up the limbs, one by one, - the neck, the shoulders, the arms, etc., - and say to them: "Let go, let go, let God!" As I let the limbs go, I feel that underneath are the Everlasting Arms. I feel as though I am sitting in the lap of the Divine Mother, - and I feel utterly relaxed. The mind, the will, the feelings, the emotions and the heart are yet to be relaxed, before I may enter into true communion with the Highest. But more concerning this, some other day.
-to be continued
(Author: Sri J P Vaswani)
