I And Mine: [03.05] - 8 Formulas For Making Individual Efforts To Attain Liberation - 5. Elimination of Nervous Tension

Relaxation is yet another term used for elimination of nervous tension. It is needed when the body is tense. Therefore, for being relaxed, it is necessary to know what tension is and how it is produced.

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These days 'tension' has become a very popular word, because mental tension is increasing in proportion to the increase in industrialization. In the last rainy season the Vice-Minister in the Japanese embassy came to meet Acharya Shree. Acharya Shree asked him. 'Do you also practise relaxation sometimes? He informed Acharya Shree that the technique of relaxation was widely popular in his country. Similarly, specialists from Germany and America also informed him that it would be difficult for people to survive in their countries without practising relaxation. In fact, so far as Japan is concerned, it is compulsory for most students passing out of Japanese universities to undergo a six-month training in relaxation in some selected places. Only after completing it do they enter life. This is why the Japanese are very hardworking. They told Acharya Shree that Indians speak much but do little. Its only reason is that they do not practise or relaxation. That is why they lack discipline too.

It is true that toiling hard increases tension. It is equally true that physical labour does not create as much tension as do mental problems. The main causes of mental tension are fear, hatred, anger, deceit, etc.

Fear gives rise to unnatural states. Really, the effects of fear are unimaginable. Psychologists too have shed a good deal of light on this theme. Many studies have been made on this subject. Both Ayurvedic and Homoeopathic systems have minutely investigated it. According to them fear stiffens the body. This puts artificial pressure on the nerves and they cease to function. Of course, we are all too familiar with the plight of our body under fear. There is a general feeling of shrinking. In fact, there are occasions when sudden fear results in heart failure. The scriptures list fear also among seven causes of untimely death. Scientists too confirm it.

Hatred

In Hindi hatred is pictured as turning up the nose and knitting the brows. It indicates how tension grows automatically in the body with the entertainment of hatred. It in turn affects blood circulation and brings about weakness.

Anger

It is an established fact that an angry man is always tense. As a result he is not able to do anything with a free mind. When scientists injected angry man' s blood into mice, they started strange movements so much so that some of them even died, because in anger toxins get mixed with blood. It too has been seen that in rare cases infants have died, while being suckled by angry mothers.

We heard about an incident in Rajasthan. In a village lived a man of very calm temperament. Ordinarily he never felt angry. But one day a teacher beat up his son. When he came to know of it he felt so angry that in that very agitated state of mind he set out to go to the school. He had hardly walked some distance when he had a heart attack and died a few days thereafter.

Deceit

It feels very pleasant to deceive others. Not only this, the man who can skilfully cheat others is regarded very clever. But it increases mental tension very much.' When we cheat someone, it indicates our extreme attachment to the thing for which we have cheated. Intense attachment causes tension in the mind. Let us take a lover as an example. A lover sees every moment the person he is deeply attached to; not only this, he loses his appetite and sleep too. It gives birth to many illnesses. Through their investigations doctors have found out that 60% diseases are caused by mental tensions. About ten to twenty percent diseases are physical. Some diseases are caused by bacteria also. Here also disease occurs because of the weakening of the body's power to fight disease. But all this is the outcome of mental problems. This is the reason why external diseases can also affect us only when we are mentally unsound.

From the materialistic point of view America is a very affluent country. But the number of diseases in America is very large. It is said that some forty-five per cent people there have psychiatric problems.

So far as India is concerned, she is quite backward in material terms, but here the percentage of people suffering from psychiatric problems is only fifteen. The obvious reason is that there is less mental tension here. Mental conflicts grow with increasing urbanization. It is much less so in villages. Even though the standard of living in the villages is lower, people there remain healthier because they have fewer mental tensions.

There are many more causes of mental tension. But true accomplishment lies in countering them. The main means of doing so isKayotsarga or relaxation. Mental conflicts cannot disappear without making the mind straight and simple. Therefore, strengthening the mind is the first step to getting rid of mental tension. It is this that can be rephrased as Granthi Moksha (deliverance from all knots and complexes).

There are three processes of relaxation - on the lying position, in the sitting position and in the standing position. Of these the one done lying is the easiest. One should first of all lie down straight with closed eyes. Then raising the hands and inhaling maximally; the body should be made very tense. Thereafter one should return to the original position while exhaling slowly. It is repeated several times, It smoothens the process of blood circulation and the carbon is expelled. Finally stretching hands and feet according to one's convenience the body should be relaxed. In this state breathing becomes quite slow and effortless. This constitutes the first activity.

After it the mental activity starts. Closing the eyes the sight is fixed successively on the eyes, nose, throat or neck, hands, chest, stomach, thighs, groins, legs, feet and toes. While the mind is being concentrated on each, one should go on thinking that each of those organs is becoming relaxed. While concentrating on the toes, one should keep thinking that the whole tension is getting out of them. This constitutes the second activity.

Thereafter begins the orderly relaxation of the muscles. Right from the bottom to the top the sight is concentrated on the muscles and the suggestion is passed on to each that it is becoming relaxed. This constitutes the third activity.

The fourth activity is the elimination of attachment. So long as there is the slightest attachment to the body, so long as there is some mental conflict, Kayotsarga or relaxation cannot be fully accomplished. When an individual forgets his own existence, he can be sure he has accomplished relaxation.