One of the biggest challenges facing the world today in general, and working professionals specifically, is that of stress. In this blog, I shall discuss what are the underlying factors that cause stress and how meditational science-stress management techniques deals with it.

If we look closely into the topic at hand, we will realize that stress is not the actual problem. In fact, stress is the manifestation of the problems that plague us at a deeper level. For example, fever is not the problem; it is the mere symptom that there is an underlying disease in the body. The fever could be due to a throat infection, due to joint pain, due to insomnia, it could be due to tiredness, it could be due to other reasons such as any bacterial or viral infection as well. So, clearly, fever is not the disease but the symptom of the disease. Similarly, stress in itself is not a disorder; it is an indicator of how a person has a problem within. Now, when we talk about stress and its effects, we have to think about what is the cause of this stress.

If we look into the root cause of stress, we can identify anger, ego, greed, lust, fear, and envy as some of the main causes of it. The presence of these negative traits in us is the cause of stress. If we can overcome these negative traits, we can find the answers to battling stress. Now, the negative traits too, in turn, must have an underlying cause. Can I get angry for no reason? As an example, consider this. If a person is unhappy about the social order, they might feel angry. If we talk about the external factors that often cause stress, the political system, economic disparity, etc. are also causes of anger in people who find them contrary to their expected standards. While these can and must be resolved, they are not the focus of our discussion here.

What we need to understand is that there are underlying internal causes to stress. Even a person who is supposedly very content, leading, at least on the surface, a satisfactory life with all luxuries may experience anger, envy, greed, lust, etc. What this indicates is that the external social, political or economic reasons are not alone in causing stress. Some reasons lie within us and these need to be resolved by us on our own. Now how is this to be done?

Here, when we talk of a solution, we must understand that our existence is made up of two things – the physical existence or matter and consciousness. In the medical sciences, only the physical existence of the humans is acknowledged and treatment is only carried out at this level. After several years of rigorous research, physics, the science of physical matter, which deals with the basic unit of matter, atom, molecules, energy, etc., found that it is unable to determine the true meaning of nature, which led to the establishment of metaphysics and quantum physics, which go beyond the focus of physics on matter alone. In the words of adhyatm (spirituality), there was an effort to know the chetna or consciousness, bringing to fore this other aspect of our existence.

Physics by itself deals only with matter, thus falling short of explaining the universe as a whole in all its dimensions. On the other hand, spirituality, in its purest form, is supposed to be dealing with both matter and consciousness because only these two taken together explain the universe as a whole; otherwise, taken individually, they will only explain it in parts and not comprehensively. So, spirituality deals with both matter and consciousness together and their interrelationship. Now, when we attempt to understand our emotions in terms of this knowledge, we must remember that emotions go beyond our physical body. Our emotions are dictated by our positive traits (compassion, love, etc.) or negative traits (anger, lust, envy, greed, ego, etc.) and are also responsible for the various physical and mental disorders that afflict us. Stress, with which we began this discussion, is one such disorder.

Stress Management Techniques

Now, when we understand that the emotions go beyond the physical level, then it also becomes clear that through medicines alone we will not be able to deal with emotions and the associated disorders. The emotions are directly connected to our consciousness. In the meditational process we try to correct the emotions by correcting our aura. This is because the type of emotions will determine the aura we have and that energy or aura in turn will be available in focused form in our chakras. As we have learnt earlier, the chakras or energy centres within us affect our neuroendocrine system and the hormonal glands. Therefore, in the meditational science, instead of dealing with the neuroendocrine system at the physical level, we go further to purify the aura and make it positive. The underlying principle is that once we purify the chakra and consequently the aura, we will be able to clear ourselves of the negative emotions. Here, the endeavour is to correct the disorder from the level of the aura and purifying the level from which it originates itself so that it does not even reach the neuroendocrine system and we are able to correct and take care of it.

Returning to our discussion of the underlying causes of stress, from what I have mentioned earlier, the negative emotions that are within us are manifested in the form of stress. Here, meditation can serve as an instrument to rid us of stress by going beyond the physical symptoms to find the deep-seated emotional imbalance. By taking into the account the relationship between the physical, the emotional and the mental aspects, meditation helps in correcting the imbalance of emotions that in turn affect our aura, our chakras and our neuroendocrine system. Once this imbalance is corrected within, it manifests in our physical body, helping us relieve ourselves of stress and taking us towards better overall health.