Vedanta Rocks -4 > Vedanta Reformats the Template of Fear

Part 4 of 46

A guy like Bhagat Singh sang and laughed his way to the gallows. In our case a flat tire is enough to bring on a sense of approaching doom.

‘…Shantih, Shantih, Shantih’ Concluding words of the invocation in the Taithiriya Upanishad

The pot is always boiling. It was bubbling away in your sleep last night. When you woke up it just smoothly shifted gears from dream to reality — it never stopped bubbling. The weird unreal things that happened to you in slumber just disappeared and got replaced by a thousand tiny pin pricks called thoughts. Instead of being based on imaginary fears of dreams, these thoughts are now based on waking sources of worry. It’s the same mind at work. We accept thoughts as inevitable simply because we have accepted fear as inevitable. Your job is at stake in the global meltdown, you have a right to fear. You tell yourself you would be stupid not to be afraid. Once you get used to worrying over all that is wrong with your life, you move to an irreversible stage. This is a reason why teenagers find their parents out of sync with life. The attitude of the parent isn’t naturally unafraid and innocent anymore. Life has gifted you material things and seems to have taken away that free happy smile as a return gift. It takes a long time to understand that the fear is just a preferred attitude to a problem and not the problem itself. A guy like Bhagat Singh sang and laughed his way to the gallows. In our case a flat tire is enough to bring on a sense of approaching doom.

That’s the way it has been since millennia. Vedanta came up as a response to human misery and confusion 35 centuries ago. Humans have been busy destroying their cheerfulness for centuries.

How does anyone kick up a decades old bad habit? It always starts with resolve. Say this out loud and slow, breathing out gently, allowing your lungs to empty gradually and release as much apprehension as possible. Shantih… I embrace a peace beyond words… let the fears that have found roots in my waking mind dissolve and disappear.

Breathe deeply again, and say it loud, releasing the vowels slowly.
Shantih. I embrace a peace beyond words… let fears that power my dreams uproot themselves and disappear.

Shantih. I am beyond fear. Beyond death. The world has lost its authority over me. I have the power to choose the way I want to feel.

Let me see the reflection of my true self now in the still waters of my placid mind.

( Source: Mani Shankar/ Deccan Chronicle, Hyderabad – 1st Feb 2009 )