Q: I am getting worried over even small insignificant things. Why is it so? How can I get out of it?

A: When you get worried next time, get out of yourself! In the prayer room on that day ask yourself, "Would I be worried over this particular circumstance in this house if I were the servant's son's daughter? Certainly not. So, the capacity to worry me is not in the circumstance. No one else is worried about it in this house! If it is not in the circumstance, then it must be in me! It cannot be in my stomach, or head, or hand, or legs! It is not in my gross body, nor prana, nor intellect. Ah, it is in my mind."

Thus, you discover that the mind is the entity in you that is getting worried. Now you must nurse and comfort the mind just as you would your husband or wife when they are worried. Explain to your mind why it is getting worried; how useless it is to worry when the "cause for the worry" is not in the circumstance. Make it feel shy at its own false worries. Also know the root cause of all worries. That servant's relation is not worried about your circumstance, because your circumstance has nothing to do with her. So, then, it is the "connection" between the circumstance and you that is the cause of the worry.

This "connection" is maintained through attachments, delusions, and desires. This connection is false. Teach the mind to snap off all such pain-giving connections! If the fire in the hand burns the hand, indeed, the quickest, cheapest and surest remedy is to drop the fire! Thus, renounce attachments. Renounce all I­nes: and my-ness! Renounce personal vanity and self-importance. These are the false connection-makers. When one's mind is free from these worry-makers, there can be no worry to bother about.

When you have accomplished this, you will find that whatever be the circumstance around you – be it sorrow or joy, insult or injury, loss or gain, failure or success – in all of them, you are in mental equipoise. For one who has thus perfected oneself there is no more samsara (cycle of birth and death) and one is left with supreme happiness and eternal peace, which is liberation.

So then, train your mind! Watch the mind. Try slowly and steadily to arrest, to apprehend, to laugh at, to cajole, to threaten, to plead with, to soothe and comfort the mind. This is not possible as long as you are identifying yourself with your mind. A non-cooperation movement, practiced within –against the mind tyrant is the only hope of the individual, the jiva.

Ride on the mind when it is tamely running the paths of dharma, the smooth roads of peace or love. The moment it gets mad and runs wild, jump down on it! Let the mind do its own drunken somersaults; you confidently stand on the side and watch the fun in remorseless detachment.

When such worries come, don't yield. Stand apart and watch how the mind gets worried, and not you, by the worries. Just as you pacify a child "weeping for nothing" often by fearful threats, on occasions by loving words, sometimes by promises of some presents, and sometimes by a tender slap, so too manage the mind! The very moment you start detaching yourself from it and watching it, you will find that the mind has lost half of its stamina. As though ashamed of itself, it comes to you in surrender and awe! You have been worrying for a long time now. Thus, the mind has developed this tendency to get worried very strongly. But never despair and say, "Oh that Swami he does not know anything of the practical difficulties". The Swami was also in the same position at one time. He didn't drop down from the skies. A saint is one who, in solitude and patience, has developed himself. The very same mind that is now madly agitated, which gives so much worry and pain, is the ferry that must take us to peace and perfection, which is God.

Worry, anxiety, desire, selfishness, jealousy, hatred and so on, are the dirt that lie heaped within us, accumulated during the millions of births which each one of us had lived in our various embodiments. This accumulated dirt has now turned the Lord out of the inner temple. Empty His home. Clear it. Purify it. Sanctify it with devotion. Invoke Him. He shall enter in and then glory, glory to the God-mad devotee. This is what Draupadi gained, Radha accomplished, and Mira experienced, even today many are living the joys of the Lord having entered their home. “Shri Krishna Govinda Hare Murare He Natha Narayana Vasudeva” is the universal song to be sung as He enters.

Q: Often one gets shaken up by happenings around and then loses the ground that has been gained. One's equilibrium gets upset every now and again.

A: Equipoise is the state of mental equilibrium that comes when one has unshakable intellectual foundations and the mental capacity to soar to the highest pinnacles of greater visions. When a person raises himself into greater ambits of spiritual vision, his mind will no longer entertain any agitation at the ordinary level of likes and dislikes. None of the happenings at the level of the mind and intellect can be of any serious consequence to a person who is trying to detach from the dualistic experiences and who has learned the art of, drawing inspiration from something beyond.

Q: How can a mind detach itself from the happenings and situations around?

A: Detachment should not be understood as a running away from situations in life. This we can never do; an escapist is never a champion in the spiritual path. Ignorant of this fact, many have wrecked their spiritual unfoldment by merely running away from sense objects and comforts. Detachment is an intelligent attitude to life and the environment.

We cannot avoid the world. The world will impinge upon us whether we wish it or not. We have to be in the world as long as we live in the-present plane of consciousness. There is no escape from perceptions, emotions, or thoughts. In fact, the objects and beings that constitute the world cannot bring any storm into us. The shattering shocks in life, not only the tragic events but even the day-to-day pinpricks in life, are all received by us only because we are making wrong contacts with the world. Our reaction to the environment will depend upon our mental evaluation and our inner nature at that particular moment. If our inward nature can be arranged, and continuously held in that arrangement, so as to make us react with the world positively, then we have discovered the secret of living in peace with the world, independent of its happenings. This arrangement in one's inner nature is called detachment, and a personality that has developed detachment becomes a non-conductor of the shocks in life. Such a person is tranquil, efficiently intelligent, and peacefully serene at all times.

This glorious spirit of detachment cannot be practiced in a sequestered place where there are no temptations and no challenges around. No one can learn to swim on the dry banks of a river. One must live in this world fully and enthusiastically and learn the art of doing so in a spirit of intelligent detachment.