Religion and Social Values-1.3.

Chapter 1: The Circumstances in Which We Have to Live in the World-3.

So is the illness of man in general. The continuous consciousness of ourselves and people around us, with a consciousness attending upon it as an awareness of our peculiar adjustable relationship with people which keeps us perpetually aware of our personal relationship with others, keeps us also in a state of anxiety of an indescribable character. No one knows definitely what would happen to oneself the next moment, and there is an apprehension that something untoward may happen.

While anxiety about the future may be permitted if nothing unpleasant is going to be expected in the future, it becomes intolerable when we always expect something which may be to the detriment of our well-being. This anxiety, this apprehension, arises from our own selves. It does not come from outside; it does not drop from the trees.

 There is a wholesale maladjustment of ourselves right from the outer skin down to the deepest of whatever we can be, and so whatever we speak is an artificial expression of our conduct. We do not and cannot reveal the whole of ourselves in our expressions.

When we think, we are guardedly thinking about circumstances, lest repercussions may impinge upon us. We are always at daggers drawn, under a pressure of a feeling that we are not in our own homes. There is a necessity felt by every one of us to be vigilant, as if we are on a battlefield.

 Swami Krishnananda
 To be continued ....