Have you ever noticed yourself super fidgety in the mind and body?
Uneasy feelings like you have to be doing something, or being somewhere.
One of the basic fundamental concepts of internal pain is anxiousness.
Anxiousness arises from a future oriented thinking-mind. When your mind is constantly dwelling on the future, it is in a restless and racing state.
Generally speaking, in life, society gets extremely enslaved by the things that we feel we are obligated to do.
You know the good old to do list.
Take a look at some basic examples of things that NEED to be done.
- Going grocery shopping
- Doing homework either for you or your kids.
- Cooking breakfast, lunch, dinner…
- Going to the gym
- Cleaning
- Getting ready for a party….
- Going to your appointments.
- Getting Gas
- Driving from A to B-C-D-E…etc.
And for a good number of people this is a relatively short to do list.
None of these errands or things to do on an individual basis causes you an extreme amount of anxiety. That is, of course, unless you’re like me who hates the dentist.
The real cause of anxiety, or stress, is thinking that everything on this list needs to be done before I can relax.
The real cause of anxiety is NEVER about what needs to be done, but by the mind that cannot stop THINKING about what needs to be done.
The mind thinks that once I can hurry up and get this thing over with, I can hurry up and get to the next and get that over with until the to-do list is done so I can finally relax.
So what does that mind look like?
When you’re going grocery shopping, your mind is anticipating checking out, then driving home, then putting the groceries away, all while you’re in aisle 5.
When you are cooking, you’re projecting eating, then doing the dishes, then cleaning….
When you are cleaning, you’re worried about it getting dirty again…
Your mind is trapped in obsessive compulsive thinking and you may not realize it.
Your body, of course, is present during the to-do list, but because your mind is so far into the future and or in the past, you are unconscious of what you are being or doing.
In those times when things just continue to pile on and on your to-do list, it’s easy to go into a daydream, and the mind will say something like….
“Boy, if only I had just a clone of myself, how much I could get done.”
But because your nervous system knows the reality is that there is only one of you, and that is enough, there is internal anxiousness, struggle and strife.
“That ocean of eternal peace is you. What is the difficulty that we suffer from? It is that we seek peace elsewhere and do not experience that we are peace incarnate itself.” – Papaji
What Papaji is saying is that, it is not your to-do list that is making you suffer, it’s that you think that you need to get it, and whatever else, done in order to be peaceful.
The stress comes from not realizing that you are this peace you are searching for, and the only time you can find this peace, is right here through the absence of thought.
The very thought of a to-do list is future oriented.
The peace that you are searching for is not a search but a realization.
A realization of what?
The realization of your inner body awareness is that you are here, and this realization is you, regardless of what you are doing.
This point is this….
Your purpose on this earth is that, when you cook, then cook. When you eat, then eat. When you clean, then clean.
You can be cooking but, because your mind is so clingy to time, you’re not REALLY cooking.
“If from morning to night we just took care of one thing after another, thoroughly and completely and without accompanying thoughts, such as “I’m a good person for doing this” or “Isn’t it wonderful, that I can take care of everything?” then that would be sufficient.” ― Charlotte JoJo Beck
Somehow society has taught us that; I must feel obligated to have a long to do list in order to be productive member of ‘society’, and that I should feel good for being “productive”.
And according to the universe, there is no intrinsic necessity to do ANYTHING. And if there is, it will be done, not by thinking about it but because consciousness is doing it through you, naturally.
And consciousness can work through you naturally, when the focus of your life is to bring your attention here.
When the full attention is here, then in your attention there is no to-do list.
There is only the relationship between your being and your doing.
The ‘silent background’, as Eckhart Tolle calls it, means that although you may not be overwhelmed by presence, there is a degree of presence while you do what you do.
One of the most talked about topics in the spiritual and entrepreneurship world that causes the most anxiety, stress and anxiousness is…
What is my purpose?
When a person feels like they don’t have a purpose, but they need one, that person is going through agony.
And what happens then is, because at this moment they don’t feel like they have one, they race as fast as they can to the future in order to find that purpose.
But because you can only look to the future through the anticipation of the mind, you are looking at projection itself to give you your purpose, and you will never find it in the mind, you will only find unease.
As an entrepreneur myself, when I started I have caused myself a great deal of suffering because I imagined it to be this otherworldly expectation.
What I didn’t realize at the time was that I could still create things nobody had ever seen before, but I could only ever create them through this moment.
What I also didn’t realize is, that because I could only create them through this moment, it didn’t matter what I achieved, I would continue to suffer if I did, until I realized that inner feeling “I am here” is the contentment, is the joy and is the perfect peace.
When the present moment becomes the focal point, the foundation, the absolute and utter truth of your life, then you can loosen the grip that your thinking-mind has had on you.
You will instantly reduce anxiety, anxiousness and the pain of being overwhelmed.
Start paying close attention to your thoughts and ask yourself…
“For the sake of my peace, NO matter what I decide to do am I willing to make this inner body sensation that “I am here” the foundation of my life?”
“Am I willing to not take the mind too seriously, for the sake of being aware of this moment?”
“Where can I begin to focus my attention mostly on this moment?”
Perhaps driving?
Cooking?
Cleaning?
The bottom line, the only thing that absolutely matters is not what you’re doing but your relationship and attention with this present moment.
You will instantly start having less stress and reduce the pain that you were originally unaware of.