Anxiety

Anxiety is a symptom of the global western culture – an effect of the progressive drive that has choked the revitalising flow of life. The repercussions of this damming of the psyche now appear as a world in disarray and the bewilderment of the human race at the appalling condition of its own making. According to the medical profession anxiety is the number one mental health problem, which is escalating alarmingly in the light of the current pandemic. A particular concern is for parents worried about the wellbeing of their children.

Anxiety is a creeping affliction which begins to infect the body organism at the moment of birth. The natural solution provided by life is to cushion the shock from the embryonic state of the womb to the harsh divisive outer conditions: this is the release of unconditional love, without which it would be impossible to go on. And it’s a process, not only in the human animal but in all the species. The unconditional love is future earth time, the function of which is to sustain the body organism during the life’s journey as experience is gained through being in existence. This would ensure a life lived without anxiety, as it is for every other creature (until they come into close contact with human beings). But the subservience of the human race to an emotional way of living creates all the problems in the world.

In electing to build a world based on acquisition and power over others, love became corrupted by a degenerative parasite called self. This entity of the underworld (whose name is fear), having no knowledge of the power and glory beyond itself, vibrates at the octave of the world. Since it’s a substitute world and consequently out of kilter with the original state of being, the purity of love is degraded within the human psyche. For the person, the effect is periodic anxiety and every other negative emotion which destroys the quality and harmony of life. The most common cause of anxiety is projection into the future of what might happen. The truth is that things rarely unfold as any of these imagined negative scenarios and we always get through. We may see, after the event, the absurdity of the anxiety but soon the next bout of worry begins again.

Anxiety, when it becomes chronically persistent, generates a discursive substance of emotion which breaks off from the body of self and becomes a separate entity within the subconscious. This can often be registered as a band of inner pressure which lodges in the chest. The more immovable it becomes, the more the effects are registered and, in extremes, can influence the function of the physical organs, such as a panic attack. The emotion is being kept alive by feeding on the natural vitality of the body; after a bout of anxiety what follows is a feeling of coldness, fatigue and paranoia. The person becomes a slave to the anxiety patterns, often in a perverse pay-off providing an incestuous experience of self which strengthens the attachment to the negative symptoms. Some people have become so accustomed to an anxious way of life that to even suggest there’s a way out is likely to be emotionally disturbing.

So what can be done? Firstly it’s to attend to the outside circumstances and relationships to clean up the life. And equally important is self-observation. As someone becomes more conscious without judgement of the degenerative effects of anxiety within themselves, there’s a gradual separation within the psyche from the symptoms. The anxiety cycle may still have to run its course but there is the knowledge that it is being dissolved, even though there may be still be some agitation in the body. This introduces a power of consciousness as the light of self-knowledge which creates the circumstances and eventual solution to bring about a greater fulfilment in the life. Gradually, the bouts of anxiety will reduce in intensity and be unable to upset the inner state as before.

The pressure of these times is stress and uncertainty, which combine to produce anxious behaviour when someone reflects on the negativity of the self. However, stress does have a purpose and serves in the following way. As a natural release of tension from being in a physical body, stress provides the fight-or-flight instinctual responses to the innumerable threats from the environment such as from a predatory animal. But we no longer need protection from the wild; so it’s to ensure that stress doesn’t accumulate as a debilitating factor by consciously dropping the tension down in the body. I refer to how this is done in many of my other articles and books.

From the spiritual perspective, the challenge is to be immersed in the stress and bustle of the world but stress-free in a place of equilibrium within. When stress is transcended, the uncertainty of living is no longer feared and is realised as the creative aspect of being. Anxiety is then unable to accrue as an emotional blockage that would stifle the joy of life.