Calm Up!

When somebody is shouting, shaking, making fists, and visibly tensed up, we suggest that they calm down.

That calming “down” could have possibly triggered an automated analysis in the mind that calming is inversely proportional to alertness, consciousness!

Most people who ‘manage’ restraining the manifest form of inner turbulence! (perhaps it is such people, who happen to provide an ideal example of ‘calm’. If so, the real intrinsic value of the correct form of ‘calm’ would remain elusive to the ‘aam aadmi’!). Now it is a different matter that such people who happen to suppress the turbulence at socially tolerable levels for too long a time, end up eventually as stress-related patients!

Please see, when we “heave” a sigh of relief, it is deep exhalation! The vital energies are ‘driven to the wall’ , and now they make a feeble attempt at ‘drawing our attention’. That should convince us ‘logically’ that breath-watching, meditative practices related to it, etc, are not just a fun-pastime for those who have nothing better to do! It is about evolving enough to do everything better!

Now before some of us are inclined to heave that sigh of relief, I would like to wrap up the prologue, and quote the question, the asker of which, surprised me, when he felt inclined to ‘consider’ my answer!

Psn(2nd November, 2010)

Quote:
http://in.answers.yahoo.com/question/index;_ylt=ApXaV9DQWJhCcd.AmbUXzpOQHQx.;_ylv=3?qid=20101101023745AAfCJsN&show=7#profile-info-R6DaVtMcaa
Will not watching breath while meditating make oneself more self conscious and alert instead of calming down?

My answer:
If calming down is exactly equal to less alert and less conscious, drinks would do a better job, why take the trouble of meditation or that tedious 'breath' watching? Yes. It does work, and as a quick fix solution too! But the problems come back with a bigger magnitude, and after some time, even drinks do not work, instead they make the nerves totally unstable apart from other medical complications. Some people who are in a great hurry to calm down are tempted, and before they realise, they are addicts.

A person can be really alert and very conscious only when very calm. With lots of thought process going at great speed, where is the alertness? That breath watching is just to keep a tab on the thought process, basically. That way, we have some control over the thought getting translated into unintentional nerve related problems, or a negative chemical disorder physiologically. It cannot happen all at once. A sustained effort would very slowly afford an enriching experience. Calm is not at all 'dull'.