Stress / Anxiety

In nature, hurricanes occur when walls of thunderstorms are driven up the center, producing a vortex -- an "eye" -- where, while everything else is total turmoil in and around it, there is complete silence and stillness in the center.

The basic core of all true spiritual teachings is that the inner determines the outer. What this timeless idea means to us is that what we receive from life -- our experience of self in life -- is determined by how we perceive events. And how we see life is determined, each moment, by what we are looking at it through.

Rushing somewhere, through anything, in the hope of finding some imagined peace of mind is like looking for your heart in someone else's body!

Most of us don't understand the nature of time and our place within it, and so we know nothing of timelessness, save for those rare instances when we encounter transcendent beauty and are transported out of our usual train of thought in time, into the timeless.

In a moment of crisis, would you say that you're easy-going? Are you wide-open and joyous to be with? Or, in a crisis, would you say you're about as tense as a human being could possibly be? Isn't that true? The more tense you are through resistance, the more negative you become. The more negative you become, the more resistance resists itself. And the more you resist yourself, the more tense you become. So you run left, you run right...

The solution to all stress and tension is a mind that is made aware of itself as being the producer of that stress and tension. Stress and tension are products of an unaware, unawake mind wrestling with its own contents to free itself from struggle. Relief from that tension is not to struggle with more things or to become stronger than what stresses you, but to recognize the relationship between how you are involved in your own mind because of that...

The Divine journey involves the preparation of an individual by another, higher order of awareness (that already lies hidden within us), so that we're able to see that the ceaseless, seemingly individual waves of the passing events of our lives belong to a much broader, grander relationship. And they exist for the purpose of our development, and not to torment us with what we fear is going to be...

Our "normal" way of dealing with pain is to ignore it until we can't any longer -- at which point this mounting pressure drives us to ask ourselves those familiar "What can be done about this?" questions -- our perception being that coming upon the correct answer to the cause of our concern will eliminate the ache being felt. And any time we don't know the immediate answer to some pressing question...

In the still uncharted realms of mind and heart, there exist parts within every person that are drawn to seek out relationships with thoughts that are self-wrecking. For instance, we can often become transfixed by our own troubles, turning the image of some fear-producing picture over and over in our mind. And who hasn't found himself drawn into an argument where the antagonistic voice in his head is nothing...

When it comes to our wish to make real changes in ourselves, good intentions cost (us) nothing... and that's why the road to hell is paved with useless coins. On the other hand, making a conscious effort to change -- in the moment that calls for it -- comes with the cost of seeing ourselves as we really are. This awareness shows us not only the possibility of being released from our worry and fear...

Question: In this time of economic downturn, is there anything to say to those of us who have experienced losing a job or a home? I don't know what to say to my friends and coworkers who are suffering. It's easy to tell them that the universe will provide and that something better will come along when I'm not the one in their position. Any words of wisdom would be appreciated.

There is an unseen source of daily suffering that is the constant companion of humanity. It is in one respect one of the great driving forces behind the darkness that encompasses this planet -- the unremitting wars, the violence, the greed, the fear, the desperation -- all the things we see in the world around us...