Managing Stress
Swami Sukhabodhananda
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One
youngster comes to me very depressed and asks this question "Why is God creating
so many difficulties for us? How to handle stress?" I tell this youngster to
reflect on this beautiful story:
A
man goes to a shop, picks up a beautiful cup and says "my god this cup is so
beautiful" and suddenly the cup starts talking to the man. The cup starts saying
"O man, I am beautiful right now, but what was the state of my being before the
pot-maker made me a beautiful pot?
Before I was sheer mud and
the pot-maker pulled me out of the mud from the mother earth and I felt why that
pot-maker is so cruel, he has separated me from mother earth. I felt a
tremendous pain. And the pot-maker said, "Just wait." Then he put me and churned
me, when I was churned I felt so giddy, so painful, so stressful, I asked the
pot-maker "Why are you so cruel?" the pot-maker said, "Just wait." Then he put
me into a oven and heated me up, I felt completely burnt. There was tremendous
pain and I asked the pot-maker "Why are you so cruel?" and the pot-maker said,
"Just wait."
Then he poured
hot paint on me and I felt the fume and the pain, I again asked the pot-maker
"Why are you so cruel?" and the pot-maker said, "Just wait." Then again he put
me into an oven and heated it to make me more strong, I felt life is so painful
hence pleaded the pot-maker and the pot-maker said, "Just wait." And after that
the pot-maker took me to the mirror and said, "Now look at yourself". And
surprisingly I found myself so beautiful.
When god gives us
lot of trouble, it appears god is very cruel but we need patience and we have to
wait. When bad things happen to good people, they become better and not
bitter.
So all difficulties are part of a cosmic design to make us
really beautiful. We need patience, we need understanding, we need the
commitment to go through in a very calm and wise way. So all difficulties are
not to tumble us but to humble us.
With this understanding, let us
not be against difficulty. Understand difficulty is a part of a purifying
process. A purifying process at present which we cannot understand and hence we
need faith and we need trust.
Let us understand how to handle stress
with this background. You can be affected by stress from two angles. There is an
internal stress and there is an external stress. Nobody can avoid stress; one
has to only manage stress. Managing stress can be internal and also external.
The internal stress is; your thoughts can create stress, your values
can create stress, and your beliefs can create stress, meaning thereby your
stress is coming from your mind more from the outer world. Many people suffer
not from heart attack - they suffer from thought-attack.
For
example, when somebody says you are an idiot, we get so hurt, we get so
victimised. My boss has called me an idiot and I am feeling tremendous pain. Now
where does this stress come from? If my boss has called me an idiot, I have to
ask myself "am I an idiot"?
If I am an idiot nothing to be upset
about; and if I am not an idiot, then also nothing to be upset about! It is the
perception of the boss. But why do we suffer from that stress? I suffer not
because my boss has called me an idiot but because of the thought-attack.
I may say the boss has called me an idiot; therefore I am suffering?
It is true that the words are unpleasant. But what hurts is the interpretation
of the unpleasant word. The thought in me interprets. That is pain and therefore
it becomes pain. Much of our stress is our mind interpreting it as pain. So we
suffer from thought-attack more than heart attack.
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