Stress and Meditation: Deserving Power

Old patterns or habits, or the impressions left over from past experience can cause us to feel unworthy. We typically think of stress as something that is happening in the present – we’ve run out of our adaptability and therefore we feel stressed out. In the moment, we get overloaded in some way and report feeling stressed. However, that experience also makes an impression – it stays with us in the body.

One of Guru Deva’s Favorite Reminders

In Sanskrit, the word used to describe it is Sanskara, which literally translates as impression, and is commonly used to describe the imprint left on the mind by past experiences. From this word we derived our English word scar- that which is physically left behind on the body from a past overload of experience. Whether through past experience or social conditioning (familial or via the general media) each of us has been susceptible to feelings of being undeserving. We must remember that this is just our past conditioning or stress, not who we really are. We are no more our stress than we are our wardrobe or bank account. But that doesn’t make those low feelings feel any less real. At times we must remind ourselves of Guru Deva’s words. Like a good parent, the higher Self, the big me always wants what’s best for the (s)elf. The big Self is pure Bliss, pure Consciousness unencumbered by the impressions of past experience or the hypnosis of social conditioning. Meditation helps purify out the old Sanskara so that the big Self can shine through us in its purity, and raises our deserving power to the fullest: You deserve the best.

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