The
role of breath, desire and mantra in stress relief.
Stress
is common to all of us. It is not a deep philosophical subject,
yet its implications are very deep. Stress concerns everyone
in modern society, being one of the factors that threatens our
life at a very early age. It can bring a kind of suffering which
makes it difficult to experience the purpose and meaning of life.
The
moment stress develops within us, certain important things take
place. One of the most vital things is that the rhythm of our
breathing changes, and as a result of that change a lot of problems
take place within us. In the Upanishads, our rishis told stories
about the great implications relating to the make-up of our physiology,
what we consist of, and that our body, mind and intellect - the
senses - are interconnected and interdependent, and how they
function in different ways: co-ordinating our consciousness in
such a way that, if we are able to understand it and manage the
different kind of conflicts happening within us, we can experience
in this world great peace, great harmony, great happiness, because,
basically, the world is a happy place and there is an ocean of
bliss, of happiness, within us.
Unfortunately,
man suffers because he does not understand how to manage his
inner conflicts. These tendencies of mismanagement and misunderstanding
have to do with a lack of self-control.
The
power of breath in stress relief
The
Upanishads say that once the senses were competing with each
other, each one was claiming to be superior to the others. In
this context of competition they threatened each other. The eyes
- sight - said to the other senses: "I will leave this body,
let me see how you will manage". On returning, sight asked: "Well,
how did you all manage?" "Everything went on well except that
the whole world was plunged in darkness; we could not see a single
thing," they answered. And so it happened with the senses of
hearing, taste, smell and touch. Each one, respectively, left
the body and on returning asked how the other senses had managed.
When the sense of taste was away food had no taste; the whole
world was still when there was no hearing, and it was impossible
to smell anything without the sense of smell. Without the senses
it seemed as if the world was not existing; with them it was
existing in one form or another. Breath - prana - then said: "It
is me who is going now; see how you manage!" The moment breath
threatened to leave the body, the senses tried to stop it and
pleaded: "Please, do not go," because they realized that the
moment breath left the body their existence would also be finished.
This
is the power of breathing - pranayama - as it is emphasized in
our scriptures. Breath is basic to our being. It is central to
our physical and mental existence. It even relates to our spiritual
life.
Stress
affects our breath
When
stress develops within us, it creates tension in the body, which
lessens our breathing. Then our system needs a lot of oxygen
to rejuvenate it. When we cannot get that oxygen, our system
starts to deterioriate, creating a lot of different problems
such as pains like headaches or migraines. Stress can also be
the cause of heart problems. All these things are a result of
prana, the breath.
In
Reversing Heart Diseases - a study, a book written in New York
two or three years ago - pranayama or breath-control was emphasized.
So, breathing plays a vital part in our life. How many of us
know how to breathe? We take it for granted that we can breathe
properly. Sometimes people are not even aware when their tummy
goes in or out. But when you watch a sleeping little baby - who
has no stress - you will see how it breathes, how its tummy moves.
That depth of breathing we do not have generally. We talk of
a lack of sleep. However, it is not sleep but relaxation that
is necessary. Under tense conditions we cannot relax and when
we go to sleep in a tense mood, with a heart under constant stress
and a lack of relaxation, heart - as well as many other - problems
start. So, these are some of the symptoms of the direct effects
of a stressful nature, a stressful life, a stressful mind.
Desires
Nothing
may be wrong; you may have everything. It does not necessarily
mean that stress is developed because we are lacking something,
although in most cases we find that people tend to think that
there is some problem, and as a result of this problem stress
develops within us. The whole problem of our modern, materialistic
society is stress-orientated. In a materialistic life - when
we are going in pursuit of material things - it is natural that
stress develops within us because material things cannot give
us the type of satisfaction whereby we become contented, whereby
we develop inner peace, inner harmony. On the contrary, in pursuit
of material things, more and more desires develop within us:
we want this, that, and so many other things. We do not think
carefully, we do not think properly about what we really need.
More often we do not know what is good for us and even when we
know what is good for us we go for wrong things.
In
the Bhagavad Gita, Arjuna asked Lord Krishna: "Oh Krishna,
in spite of knowing what is right and wrong, a person still does
wrong things as if he is propelled to do so by an external force.
Why is it? What is it?"
Lord
Krishna answered that passion, anger and greed are born out of
our craving for sense-satisfaction. As a result of this craving
within us, our mind becomes imbalanced. With an imbalanced mind
we cannot think what is good or not good for us, and even when
we know what is good for us we still go and do wrong things,
take wrong things, those things that are not good for us, because
we are forced by our nature to do these wrong things. So, we
do not do things to satisfy our physical nature, the nature within
us, for each of us responds according to what our nature is.
This,
then, is the great in-depth study of our rishis: What is man
and why does man behave as he does, how is our nature developed,
in what direction, and how does it respond? The vibrations of
what we hear, see, taste, touch and smell get within us and form
our nature. From this nature comes what we call our character,
and according to this nature - the character within us - we respond
to rajas, tamas or sattva - activity, inertia or harmonious vibration.
Our nature is what we are; it is our second self, as Lord Krishna
says in the Bhagavad Gita. Therefore, it is essential for us
to understand and purify our nature. When our nature becomes
pure, when passionate tendencies are no longer there, we experience
peace, then all the stress we have within us will disappear.
So
stress is not necessarily coming from the outside world but develops
within us because we do not understand ourselves, and therefore
we are not able to control the forces of nature that enter our
being and develop our attitude or character. If we take, for
example, a cup of poison and we pour pure water into that cup,
there will come a time when the cup will be emptied of all poison
and only pure water has remained in the cup, because the poison
has been overflowing. So it is with our nature with all its negativity
which is not only of this birth. We have many births; all these
things have accumulated birth after birth and form our nature,
which forces us in a particular direction. We do not know how
to handle these things within us, and so we are in the hands
of our nature. Where our nature takes us we go; we do not know
what to do. But our rishis say: "No, that is not right. We can
handle our problems". Even if these stress factors develop within
us, we are able to manage them, we can handle them.
Rather
than allowing these negative things to enter our being, we can
control that through the chanting of a mantra. A mantra is that
which protects the mind. With it we are able to protect ourselves
from these influences entering our being. The nature of the mind
is such that only one thing can enter it at one time and not
two things. In order to prevent other things entering our mind,
we can, purposefully, put one thing into it. When nothing else
has a chance to enter the mind, it is protected from external
influences and it starts to rejuvenate itself. And there will
come a time when the nature itself becomes rejuvenated. When
that happens the sense of freedom develops within us through
which stressful factors, whatever is there, will disappear.
When
Valmiki - who was a rogue, who was not living at all a spiritual
life - continuously repeated the mantra he had received, his
whole being transformed from an ordinary man into a rishi, just
by repetition of the mantra.
And
Siddharta - a frustrated man, a man under stress, full of illusions
- sat under the bodi tree with determination: "I will know the
truth". After sitting there thus, without moving, ultimately
all this negativity started to empty itself, all these negative
vibrations, and he emerged from that state as the Buddha, the
enlightened One. What does "the enlightened One" mean? It means
one who is full of knowledge, wisdom.
The
Bhagavad Gita, or 'Song of God', one of the sacred Hindu texts,
recounts the dialogue between Krishna, an incarnation of Vishnu,
and Arjuna, His disciple.
Reprinted
with the kind permission of Share International Magazine.
Authors
Details:
'Breathing and Stress Relief'
Swami
Nirliptananda
Swami
Nirlipananda is a senior Swami in one of the temples of
the Asian community in London, deeply acquainted with the
teachings of Maitreya. |
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