Certain incidents make us so tense…our blood vessels reach a bursting point because of them. Most often we get flustered that our limbs begin to tremble! The heart throbs so loudly that a person even standing one foot away can hear it clearly! We experience fear so strong and inexplicable that it makes us feel as though we were drowning in a dark sea of troubles. All this is due to tension.
Many times, we get tense on trivialities.
Here is an example –
A professor was transferred to another collage. In order to see him off, four of his colleagues had come to the railway station with him. As there was still time for departure, the professors standing on the platform, began to chat. They were so engrossed in their conversation that they did not realise that the train had begun to move.
Suddenly flustered, they decided to jump into the train. Without even bothering about which compartment they were getting into, the four of them struggled to with the crowd and somehow entered the compartment. Their idea was to move into the correct compartment in the next station.
But one professor holding his luggage in his hands was unable to board the train. A passer-by consoled him saying, `Don't worry! In another ten minutes the next train would come. You can board that one.'
The professor replied, `I know there is another train after ten minutes….I am not worried about myself! I am only worried about my colleagues. They came to see me off; in the process, they have all boarded the train by mistake!'
This is how tension and agitation make us lose track of even simple matters. When we are agitated, no matter how hard we work to accomplish some task, the net result would just be zero.
How to be calm?
Just be a witness to your thoughts. Don't identify with them. See them as clouds in the sky of your awareness. Thoughts will come and go; but you don't come and go. You are just a witness. Then the mystery of calmness happens.
