Worry stops the flow of life

CHENNAI: The world is not divided into two classes of people — the worriers and the non-worriers. Most of us worry sometimes and most worriers are at times full of confidence. I’m writing of a general line of human development, not of rigid categories of people and behaviour.Unfortunately, the worrier, more than most people, finds it difficult to see life as a flow as his exaggerated sense of ego (please understand, I don’t mean egotism, or pride) separates him from reality. Details of one kind or another, usually minor, absorb him and he tends to lose the sense of objective proportion.The mark of a man of action is not only the fact that he takes life as it comes but he absorbs the obstacles as they come; in a graceful and flowing movement.Remember, faith is a dynamic practice, not a passive acceptance of whatever you believe to be true. Try exercising this sort of faith in life, especially in god. Even if life doesn’t always seem like much of a flow to you, depend more on god’s power to work things out always for the best. The more you dynamically and lovingly offer your life and ego to him and the more you think of him as the real doer, even when it is you who seems to be acting, the more amazed you will be to see how capable he is of running things quite competently himself!Our job as human beings is to try to do his will and also understand that we can never be more than willing soldiers in the eternal war of light against darkness. We must do our best but it is not for us to decide the outcome even of minor skirmishes. That is why the Bhagavad Gita says that one should act willingly but leave the results of one’s actions to god. (The Gita calls it Nishkam karma — desireless action) Always remember, worry consciousness and the tendency to fragment reality into separate, static and mental images not only create problems where none really exist but actually interferes with one’s efforts to resolve problems where they exist. The worrier tends to think that he alone is realistic in a world of daft dreamers but he will be more realistic if he saw himself as he really is; a humble soldier in the struggle of life, not a general; and if he saw life as it really is — a divine flow.