Worry Not

It seems easy for us to focus on our families, our jobs, and our friends, but difficult to focus on the path without worrying about all of these attachments. Why do we worry about how to pay the rent, how to get our children or ourselves married, whether to buy a house or rent one, and so on? The possibilities of things to worry about are endless. Worrying is a trick of the mind. Maharaj Jagat Singh in The Science of the Soul says:

Did worry ever help to solve any problem? It is born of confused thinking. Form the habit of clear thinking always and laugh away your troubles and sorrows…. Your worrying shows that you have no faith in the goodness of God or even in God himself. Let him accomplish things in his own way rather than in the way that you desire. Try to adjust yourself to all that he does and you will never be unhappy.

The Master is saying some very logical things. Worry does not help to solve our problems. It scatters our attention in the world. Problems go around and around in our head without leading to any logical conclusions. But if we think things through logically - clearly - we will remember that it is the Master who is in charge. He wants us to go through certain karmas and we don’t have any choice in the matter. Worrying is a waste of time.

Then in The Science of the Soul, the story is told of a lady who was worried about her son flying to Europe the next day. She approached the Master and expressed her feelings. The Master smiled and asked: “Well, what is there to worry about? Is it his flying or further studies or tomorrow?” This is a humorous question that reflects the fact that we worry about everything. So in the story, the lady laughed and said it was the flying that was worrying her, and the Master suggested that she focus on the comforts and convenience of flying and not the dangers. If we focus on the positive as Maharaj Jagat Singh suggests here, it is much easier to go through life.

It is the same message over and over again. The Masters know that our lives are not easy. They know we have physical and emotional pain to deal with, but they encourage us to be positive, to look on the bright side, and if we do, we will feel better. See the cup as half full, not half empty; it is an attitude of mind. A positive attitude won’t change the circumstances of our lives but will give us courage so that our challanges won’t be so hard to go through.

Maharaj Jagat Singh continues in The Science of the Soul:

He [the disciple] has to be completely fearless and bold, for without his will nothing can or will happen. Worry can only deflect and debar spiritual progress. Not until he has cast off dread and apprehension, can he be firm in devotion and sustain it.

Worry stops us from progressing on the path. If our mind is focused on a problem, it cannot also be at the eye centre. Simran is what keeps us firmly in the present moment. If our mind is one-pointedly engaged in simran, it cannot think of anything else, so we can use simran as a sword to cut through our obsessive thinking.

The Sufi mystic Hafiz, in a poem called Now is the Time, says:

What is in that sweet voice inside
That incites you to fear? …
This is the time
For you to deeply compute the impossibility
That there is anything
But Grace.

Now is the season to know
That everything you do
Is sacred.
_{The Gift, rendered by Daniel Ladinsky}

Hafiz is telling us that everything that we do is sacred; it is holy. Everything that we do matters. Everything that we do should take us closer to our goal. Master is waiting at the eye centre, but where are we?

A questioner once asked the Master about actively choosing the Shabd over the world - making a real commitment to the path - and said that she was afraid. He answered: why be afraid of something that will bring us more happiness and bliss than we can imagine? He suggested that the questioner just needed to let go and turn her worries and fears over to the Master. Another time, he talked about how when we are going to our worldly home, we look forward to reaching there and having a nice warm cup of tea. He said that we are eager to go home, and the warm feeling we have when we get there is magnified more than a billion times when we pass through the tenth door and go within. So what is there to worry about?