Stress in Today’s World

Swami Satyananda Saraswati

People have found that through the practices of mantra yoga, they can relax, control their brain waves and their blood pressure. Not only that, through the practices of mantra yoga, they can achieve a very high quality of concentration of mind. This has become so popular that, now in the West, there are thousands of people practising mantra in the morning and at night. Through the practices of mantra, one can check the ever-developing and ever-consuming stress conditions of the physical body.

The modern technology and structure of society has created a condition which the scientists call stress. This stress condition affects the mind and body, as well as the behaviour within families. There are scientists who state that eighty-nine per cent of all of today’s diseases originate from stress conditions. Mental hospitals are packed. People take hallucinogenic drugs that cost millions and trillions of dollars, or pounds, or drachmas. The suicide rates are so high. Sexual discipline has broken down. All this is due to stress.

A man who has no stress, or a man who has controlled his stress, won’t behave like this. Why should I smoke marijuana? What for? Because I am suffering from stress, or I want to overcome the stress. So I go this way, or that way, and all these ways are wrong and dangerous. If any of you are doing this, please don’t get angry with me. I am here to tell you the truth, and not to preach a religion. It is not my opinion; it is the opinion of the scientists. Quarrels in the family originate from stress; cardiac diseases originate from stress; peptic ulcers originate from stress. The scientists have discovered that through the practices of mantra, one can check the ever-developing and ever-consuming stress conditions within the physical body.

10 May 1984, Patra, Greece, published in History of Satyananda Yoga in Greece, Volume One