To widen, heighten, deepen is therefore the key to true relaxation. But for this inner change we have to first learn to quieten our surface activity. And it is here that some of the relaxation techniques and exercises find their true utility. All these techniques, including breath regulation, imagery, meditation, are meant to help quieten our outer activity so that we have a chance to open to our own larger dimensions. The same result can be arrived at through other even more powerful and radically effective means, like the devotee who surrenders to the will of God or a man who lives for a high and noble aim and ideal, or a poet, philosopher, musician and artisan who in moments of self-forgetfulness loses his narrow personality in creative work. To those who are closely attuned to Nature, this relaxation can arrive suddenly through a spontaneous identification with a vast landscape, an ocean or the sky. At times, a noble act done in a moment of true love, can open us to a large source of joy, peace and strength. These are things we can experience practically in our life. Thus as many persons, those many methods. And each one has to choose the means that come naturally to him. A technique pursued for its own sake, as a mechanical routine soon loses its value and becomes invalid. To be true, genuine and sincere is much more important than to be ritualistic. Sincerity liberates, ritual binds.
This is the greatest limitation of stress management techniques. Most of us carry them out for some time moved by a faith in them. This faith, either in the technique or its founder helps us for a while. It draws our attention for a time to our own hidden depths. But soon we fall back into the narrow round of habitual ways of living seeing and reacting. What we try to do in one hour, we undo in the next twenty-three hours! Still, it is a marvel that even that little touch helps us. Just a brief glimpse of our larger Self has a liberating effect upon us. After some time however, the technique itself becomes cumbersome. The passage to our higher self is lost or closed again and we suffer the effects of stress once more.
It is necessary, therefore to discover what really makes us suffer. Is it an outer situation or our own limitation of perception? Next, we must try to widen ourselves and understand the problem from another perspective, disregarding our ideas and preferences. Then we must act from the summit of our consciousness. For this we should study the law of our being. We should try to understand what constitutes us and seek our own deeper truth through the path or method consistent with our aspiration. The rest then is merely a matter of persistent practice. This may be slow but it is more permanent, as it manipulates not only our surface but changes our congnitive structure, our emotional nature, the movement of life energy in us. Any outer technique too when done with this deeper purpose, opens an inner door somehow. Once done, the technique itself can be discarded, provided we learn to now live and act from this perennial source. Sometimes only a strong and persistent aspiration to discover our inner strength can force open the door. And there we find ourselves born to a new freshness and light. We walk in freedom, joy, mastery and peace. Stress is taken away from us. The burden of life disappears. The fetters of our narrow personality fall away. The bondage of ignorance that seals the eye of wisdom is removed. Our hearts are relieved of suffering and grief. Awake and conscious, all in us, becomes glad, pure, wide, tranquil and free.
