Q: How do we separate stress from our work?
Gurumaa: The problem is not work or work related stress, rather it is your habit of remaining in stress, cultivating stress. And you have nurtured this habit to an extent that even if you are in paradise, you will convert it into a hell; you will remain in stress and more stress even in paradise. So, you have to change your way of thinking. The important question is: what is your approach to the work you are doing? In reality, work has nothing to do with your stress. You can work twenty-four hours and never ever feel any stress.
Work has nothing to do with your stress. You can work twenty-four hours and never ever feel any stress
Let me give you a real life example. I was in Ahmedabad for satsang, for five days. After five days of satsang, I flew to Hyderabad for one evening to meet devotees there, and the same night I took flight for Pune to conduct another five days of satsang. So through the day I kept traveling – coming in and out of airports; During the day I went to my center in Hyderabad, met people, had tea with them, did sankeertan with them, and went back to the airport to board the flight for next city. I reached the destination at one o’ clock; even dogs were sleeping and here I was traveling. Was it stressful? No! I saw a beautiful sunset in Hyderabad. The satsang and kirtan which happened in Hyderabad were awesome. I enjoyed the cup of coffee at this new posh airport. In the craft, I enjoyed my dinner and read a good book. The house where I had to go was on the top of the mountain; the early sunbeam trickled into my room through the window and gave me a beautiful morning. Say if you had to go through this schedule, what would you have done? You would have yelled at everyone in Ahmedabad, Hyderabad and Pune.
How can work give you stress? The problem is in the way you approach life – this approach is wrong. When you say, ‘I don’t want to do anything’, do you mean that you wish to sit in the sofa, watch T.V and eat popcorn – lay lazy like the couch potato. Do you think this would be an unstressful thing?
No one can stay without action. Sri Krishna in Bhagavat Geeta says: ‘Action is life and no one can remain without action.’ You have to do the action – your body, senses, mind, everything is in action – no one can remain without action. So learn how to do your work. Learn to be calm through right thinking and then right action will happen through you. Do the Karma like a character performs his role in a drama – your life is nothing more than a drama, a real time drama. Enjoy the show, don’t complain. Every day you have a new beginning, new screen play, so do your new act. The best part of that is that the screenplay for it is written daily by none other than you.
What happens in a drama? There is a villain, a good man, a bad man, a villain and a vamp. You can be the hero or heroine, no problem. Scandals are happening, fights are happening, family gets separated and then family union is happening – so much drama. If I begin to narrate even your life story, it would be so interesting to everyone. But how pathetic, you are the only one who is not enjoying the drama, others might laugh. If someone sits with you and listens to your story you feel very good. You really like that as you like attention and narrating your sob stories to others is therapeutic to your mind.
Sri Krishna in Bhagavad Geeta says:

‘Action is life and no one can remain without action.’

You have to do the action; your body, senses, mind, everything is in action – no one can remain without action
Life is not a problem – the only thing is that you have taken your life seriously. You have forgotten that it is just a dream. You have forgotten the fact that before this body you were formless. The day this body dies again you will become formless until your next reincarnation. In between birth and death the drama of the forms is happening. All of you have names, addresses, characters and attributes, and this interaction which is happening in the midst of different forms, bodies, identities is the real time drama happening. Why can’t you enjoy that?

The problem is that you don’t flow with your life. Life is always going to give you a new situation and a new challenge, but you should never be comfortable in any situation – good or bad – as everything is going to change.
When you sleep at night and dreams begin, you forget the so-called real world. When the dream is over, the cycle of deep sleep comes and then you leave behind the dream world too. Deep sleep brings the transition from real to dream world and this happens so smoothly that you are not even aware of its happening. Death too brings the change from this life to next, from this body to next body, and when death comes this life which seems real will be forgotten like a dream. As long as it is there, enjoy life!
But you cannot enjoy life if you don’t know what eternal is i.e. what is that which is non-changing. You can’t enjoy life if you are not aware of real joy which is not dependent on any outer source. Simply stating, if you do not know the art of being joyful how can you be joyous. For this, deeper understanding of life and its ways is to be learnt; one needs to be trained to be in joyousness. Now you are all trained to be pessimistic that is why you are picking on the negative points of people and nagging with people. But you are not able to pick up the good things in life. You are always looking at the half glass empty, not the half which is full. You never look at what you have but what you don’t have. Then you say, ‘why am I in misery? Why me?’

If you do not know the art of being joyful, how can you be joyous.
Know this one fundamental rule: ‘Change is the law’. Things are going to change; you should not be dependent on individuals or situations because they all can change anytime
Know this one fundamental rule: “Change is the law’. Things are going to change; you should not be dependent on individuals or situations because they all can change anytime. A friend can become a foe and a foe can become a friend anytime. When it happens you will be flabbergasted. You wonder how that happened. The only person or the only being you can depend upon is God alone. Learn to trust God; those who trust, they never feel sad, dejected or frustrated.

Surdas, a great blind saint said in one of his compositions that there is no better friend than Hari (God). He gave many examples sourced from mythology to prove his point. In Vishnu Purana there is a story of an elephant that was caught by a crocodile. Hari came running to crocodile’s rescue. He gave another example from Mahabharata where Krishna helped five brothers, the Pandavas, from every obstacle and they attained paradise with Lord’s grace. So, nobody can be better than Hari. Surdas says, “God will remove all your sufferings, sadness and difficulties, but the question is: Are you ready to be with God?” Now your love and attention for God is conditional. You think: God saved them, why shouldn’t He save me also? But it is not possible until your love for God is unconditional.

God will remove all your sufferings, sadness and difficulties, but the question is: Are you ready to be with God?
Who is a devotee? The one who can surrender to Lord without any question, whatever may happen. You have come to this world naked and you will go naked. In between these two situations, you see some people are with more money and stuff than others, some got name, fame, etc. but what is the difference? When you came out of your mother’s womb, you were not even wearing a nappy! You came out all naked. The day you die, as per Hindu custom, the body is covered with kafan (shroud) and taken to the cremation ground. Your daughter-in-laws, sons, daughters and all siblings together will make sure to remove all the jewelry, designer watches, solitaires which you savoured and wore with pride. If you had not made a will then they will get the thumb impression on the faked will. Today you have no time for doing sadhana or to seek God, your whole time is consumed in worldly pursuits. Wake up before it is too late. Pay attention to your upliftment now.

God cannot become your experience unless and until you make it as your priority and put all your energy, capabilities, will and volitions in exploring this
One old man went to a doctor as he couldn’t see clearly. Doctor examined him and said “you have cataract and surgery is required and it should be done as early as possible”. The old man thought why should I go for operation – I have 8 sons so I have 16 eyes, I have 8 daughters so another 16 eyes, my wife has 2 eyes, so in total I have 34 eyes. I am living in a house with thirty-four eyes, so why should I get operated. These eyes are more than enough for me and moreover how long will I live? Why waste money. One day a fire accident happened in his house and the whole house got engulfed in raging fire. Soon all the thirty-four eyes rushed out to save their lives, and old man was stuck as he had totally lost his vision. Once family was outside the house they realized that the old man is still in the house. It was too late for them to go inside. Since the old man couldn’t escape on his own, he got burned and died.
Who do you think is going to help you? You have no time for God. You are ‘ok’ with the concept of God. You have not explored God. You have not discovered God. You have not experienced God. For you God is just a concept. This concept has no root; it is not grounded and any communist can slash it away. Any misfortune, any hard situation shakes you up, and you begin to wonder – does God exist? It is just a concept, nothing more than that. You haven’t made it an experience. You just believe in God, and beliefs don’t work.
Once people used to believe that earth is sitting on the horn of a bull, and when the bull gets tired he shifts the earth from one horn to another which causes earthquakes. This is what people used to believe. Is it true? Once upon a time people believed that the earth is square and flat but now we don’t believe that. Now we know that the earth is round. Once it was believed that sun does the circumambulation of the earth and poor Galileo was executed in the king’s court for just saying this – It is the earth which is revolving around the sun and not the sun which revolves around the earth. But do we believe all this now? All beliefs keep on changing.
God should not be your belief. God should be your experience. God cannot become your experience unless and until you make it as your priority and put all your energy, capabilities, will and volitions in exploring this. If you are happy in the very convenient belief system, I have nothing against that. So be happy, as such the idiom says ‘fools live in paradise’. Fools are happy in their belief system. But wise ones will always explore what Truth is, what reality is. Surdas did that and found the fact that no one can be my true friend and I fully surrender and leave myself in His hands and whatever may happen in my life I am fine.