Yet, the question arises — how can we use stress to go beyond? This then we have to do when faced with stress — to widen, heighten and deepen our consciousness.
Widening
To widen is to look at the problem or the threatening situation from a ‘transpersonal’ viewpoint, and not a personally preferential attitude. Preferences limit us. They bind us to ‘conditions of living’ to which we transfer our happiness or sadness. Looked at from another angle, we may say, that each condition we set for our peace and happiness is actually a barrier between ourselves and universal delight. A simple example is a child four or five years of age. There is a natural happiness in him. Even in rags he runs about happily. Yet as he grows up the mind gets conditioned through society, parents, media, everything. He is made to believe that happiness consists in possessing this or that. So strong is the belief that happiness lies in possessions that he doesn’t even question it! He doesn’t even look back once (as an adult) to reflect why he felt spontaneously happy as a child. The simple and candid trust in life and the feeling of being at home everywhere is gone. This notion of ‘yours’ and ‘others’ has emerged. So he can enjoy only by buying and possessing. He begins to compete, to expect, to desire, to ‘seek’ what was already and always there. The result is stress which forces one to make choices: a global outlook, or a limited awareness? So the work of widening is to remove our consciousness from the difficulty. As a result the difficulty not finding a support in us drops off by itself.
Heightening
But then, an outlook alone is not sufficient. It may relieve us of the stress of suffering, but not of the problem itself. The difficulty persists, even though it no more touches us in a personal way. To solve the difficulty, it is not always enough to take a certain attitude and then sit passively. Sometimes we may be called upon to act. And to act is to concentrate, it is to focus and channelise our consciousness in a certain direction. Would this not narrow us and bind us again? This is what is called ‘karma’. i.e each energy let loose from us binds us to a certain determinism or a chain of cause and effect. But we become narrow only if we channelise our consciousness towards a desired result. Instead if we learn to open our consciousness to the height we can consciously lessen the binding effects. This is demonstrated in life by a simple example. When a person kills another for material gain he calls the law of revenge upon himself. Besides he is haunted by fear and suspicion and lives in a nightmare. Whereas, if a soldier kills with the thought of safeguarding his nation it brings a sense of joy, glory and fulfillment. This is so, because in one case the act was motivated by desire, while, in the other, it was done from an ideal, in a sense of sacrifice. To rise is to act with freedom and force.
Deepening
So, to widening is added heightening. That is to act always from the summit of one’s consciousness. Additionally comes a deepening of the consciousness. In fact, it is possible to widen and lift ourselves, only if we step back. Our surface activity is full of restlessness and we have to detach ourselves from this habitual superficial nervous thing that has its hold on us. Most of our thoughts, feelings and impulses are a reflex reaction determined by pure habit. The result is, we are all the time open to every shock and passing wave, driven by each casual circum-stance and event, and become like a cork on the sea, tossed and kicked about. The reflex reaction has to change into a conscious and deliberate action. This is possible if we learn or habituate ourselves to detachment before action. So after some time it becomes spontaneous. Then we have a clarity of thought and a clarity of the direction we ought to take. Our emotions remain clear and peaceful. We are at ease in every situation, however nerve-shattering it may appear to be.
