You will continue to suffer if you have an emotional reaction to everything that is said to you. True power is taking a step back and observing things with logic and reason. True power is restraint. If words control you, then everyone can control you. Use your power of discernment and allow things to pass.

In an advanced world, where everything is created for our comfort and convenience, it’s a paradox to find people suffering from stress. Yet stress has become so common today that people have accepted it as a “normal” part of life, but there is nothing normal about stress.

Even a little stress is not good.

When people say “a little stress is good,” they’re referring to the fact that it motivates people to work. That’s certainly better than doing nothing. Yet, what they don’t realise is that there’s another way to motivate people to work — and it’s stress-free!

The Stress-Free Way

Nothing in the world can cause you stress, except yourself. ― A. Parthasarathy

Life without stress is normal. When we are not stressed we feel peaceful and happy. This is a normal life. But how to achieve such a life?

Vedanta tells us that we need to pitch up a higher goal that is beyond our personal interest. Something that benefits a large number of people. For example working as a team player to help bring International speaker and philosopher Sunandaji to Perth for Talks and a 3-Day Retreat.

Having a higher goal creates initiative to work.

Initiative motivates people into action. Action without expectation is selfless. Selfless action makes you peaceful and productive. People are normally one or the other. Hardly ever both. Yet, working selflessly towards a higher goal makes you peaceful and productive.

It’s All in the Mind

An ungoverned mind slips into feelings of worry, anxiety, fear, stress, anger and depression, sabotaging not only ourselves, but those around us. A governed mind, on the other hand, remains peaceful.

It’s something like this: imagine water flowing in a river. The constant flow of water is like the unending stream of thoughts in your mind. Constantly rambling, meandering, drifting.

What holds the flow of water together is the riverbanks. If the banks of the river are strong, they will carry the water to its destination, which is the ocean. However, if the riverbanks are weak, they will collapse under the pressure and overflow, inundating the land on either side — destroying itself and everything in its path.

Strengthen the Banks

Apart from the mind, which is the home of worry, anxiety, negative emotions, feelings, irrational thoughts, desires and impulses, we have another faculty called the intellect.

The intellect is the home of rational thinking, reason and clear decision making. It is like an internal muscle that needs to be developed through questioning and reflection.

When we need to develop a strong intellect (banks of the river) we can carry our mind (water in the river) to its destination, which is the ocean of calm, clarity and contentment within.

Mind and Intellect

The mind is a constant stream of random and irrational thoughts. It drifts aimlessly into the past and future — and worries about what happened yesterday and becomes anxious about what might happen tomorrow.

The mind is often referred to as a monkey, because it cannot sit still. It jumps from one thought to another, continuously. The intellect, on the other hand, is focused, rational and objective. A developed intellect is solid and stable, like a dependable friend.

I do not feel obliged to believe that the same God who has endowed us with sense, reason, and intellect has intended us to forgo their use. — Galileo Galilei

The Importance of Intellect

When our intellect is weak, we sabotage our physical and mental health by falling prey to the virus of attachment and aversion, anger and greed, lust, fear and jealousy, and a host of other harmful emotions.

A weak intellect lacks clarity, focus and reason. Learn how to develop a strong intellect and gain control of yourself and your life at the Wisdom for Life and Relationships Retreat with international Vedanta Scholar Sunandaji in Perth, 10-12 April, Easter 2020.