Foreword

If we don’t know what is steering, brake, accelerator and clutch in a car, and attempt to drive a car, driving will be accidental, and meeting with accidents, is certain!

Have you read Mind-1? If not please read. It is important to know some components of mind, as in a Car! As I said in that article, emotions are network of thoughts nicely attached to our physical body. Think of a deeply buried network of wires in a old city, due to wind and rain, and one day you ambled through those streets saw a small shiny wire and tried to pull it out, and suddenly you notice a big network of wires come out of the ground, and ten meters away something falls making a large sound. Emotion and Feelings are that, emotions pull out feelings.

A small event, a thought, or a sight, or just a word can trigger a emotion that can create a rippling impact in the body, based on how emotional one is.

Emotions are the juice of life. They make our life more humane, unlike machines. But at the same time, emotions are the drain of life when the sign is changed. To experience life, emotions are the core methods. To destory life, by self help, again emotions are the reason.

Examples of positive emotions, are Love, Happiness, Joy, Excitement, Empathy and so on.

Examples of negative emotions are anger, fear, sadness, nervousness, depression, anxiety

Stress is a state of mind, because of various emotions, thoughts, and values we carry.

I will be concluding Arogya Chaturasra with this second article on Mind, so we need to address the negative emotions, which eat life away from us. I will treat anger, and stress which are mostly eating away people’s lives day in day out! You might want to read my book, “Mind Unravelled Part 1”, if you are interested further on Mind. As I said,

If you have awareness constantly alongside with you, you have a great silver armored soldier to guide you through life towards a great place. IF you have ego alongside with you, you have dark gowned soldier, constantly engaging in fight for you, whether or not required, and your journey is never complete, and the places it will guide you to are not the ones you would ever want to be.

Ego and Awareness are mutually exclusive soldiers for you, only one can exist at a time.

So, it is very very clear, that while working with life events, we must have “awareness” always with us. And suddenly, all knots of life, which we thought complex, can be untied with absolute ease, like a silk thread dipped in oil slips through hands.

Remember, any problem persists, because of friction between the injector or host of the problem and incorrect but blunt way to solve

So there are two ways to solve a problem, remove the root,  or host, Or find a right way to solve. But sometimes, there is a third way for self-induced problems, change perspective, that the root/host or the problem itself vanishes, and doesn’t need a solution at all. This is only made possible by awareness, not otherwise.

Anger

Anger is that fire we carry within ourselves, to burn the people who created the situations for us.

But unfortunately, when raw fire is carried, it burns more the source than the target. We may not be letting out due to “humanity, fear, or values that we carry”, but still if you carry it, it burns. It has no discretion. It burns. If you don’t trust me, when you become angry or upset, just try to carry it for a week or month, not letting it down. You will see your stomach starts burning, esophagus burns, headache and so on! So who suffers? The person who carries it. There was a beautiful Telugu poem by a age old yogi named “Vemana”, he said

“Tana kopame, tana satruvu, Tana saantame, tanaku raksha…”, which means your anger is your enemy, your peace is your protector. And it is so true, by every word.

People think anger is a natural quality, no, it is inability of mind to handle situation, and awareness not guiding what to do, ego setting in that person become accidental and wild in behavior.

Anger happens when your expectations failed, like a unexpected slap on face, it happens because you carry single perspective lens coated with ego to assess the situation

The only question to ask ourselves is “Am I willing to work with a person who is angry ?” If the answer is “No”, please understand, others also expect the same from you!

Stress

First thing you should remember about stress and makeup your mind is

Don’t manage stress. Either don’t let it in, or drive it away far. Never work with it, nor find remedies!

Stress is like a pressurized situation, like a pressure cooker, with no vent. It is bound to burst, collapse, if you don’t vent. Stress happens because we feel we are responsible, accountable and perform time bound tasks. What! Does it mean we should be irresponsible, and never deliver work in time! Well, have you seen an irresponsible person stressful? Suppose if I give you hundred tasks to do, and ask you to do them in the next thousand years, will you ever free stressful? So you have a proof. Nevertheless, we make a difference in society, organization, family or event to self, only when we are responsible. We can quantify what we do, and do a lot, when we do things in a time bound fashion.

Responsibility, Accountability and Timeboundedness are the things we have to stick to, and yet not let Stress enter our lives! How?

Stress happens because of five situations. Ensure you do not fall in there, and you will lead  a stress free life.

1. Lack of skill : You don’t have the skill , but yet try to do the work, you are accountable, and it has time boundedness. Stress is inevitable. Improve skills or don’t take up jobs that demand skills that you can never have!

2. Uninterested in Work: You can do the task, but you don’t like it, so you will not do it with full efficiency, and the time rolls by, to create a stressful situation for you!

3. Many focused tasks at a time: Identify two things that you can do wonderfully well, (Say Art, Cooking), try painting and cooking at the same time. You will spoil one or both or all three of them (including yourself). Focused tasks demand attention, and mind can be attentive only on one task. If you take more than your capacity of memory, recall, reboot, you will suffer stress. Habitual tasks can be done as many as your mind can support.

4. Confused mind: When you leave important tasks, to attend some other long term tasks, and come back, and you have not organized your work, you will get confused, and you will lose time, and stress is inevitable.

5. Fear: You can do the work in time, but you are fearful about the consequences of failure, and you lose focus, and lose time. This creates lot of stress.

Stress not only jams mind, but also eats up your inner structures of physiology that you will face mental and physical ailments. So, living stress free life is absolutely important. There are other negative emotions like Anxiety, Fear, Depression etc which are beyond an article’s capacity here.

To conclude, Arogya Chaturasra, the Square of Health, comprizes of Right Exercise, Right Food, Right Sleep, and Right mindset. With this you can be the best of the genetic template offered by your parents, best of your own sculpting, in the situations you are in, to the best length of healthy life the sculpture and template offer you to live. You don’t have to give me positive comments. Just commit to your health, by commenting “I resolve this year, to follow Arogya Chaturasra”, and every end of the month give yourself some marks. If you are 90%, you are doing good. If you are below 90, offer some charity to some organization of your liking.

Every action of ours must either bring some positive impact to us, or some positive impact to others. That is a regret free life!