CHRONIC FATIGUE AND THE PHYSICAL LAYER
Suppose you are flipping through a magazine.
You come across an advertisement for a beach resort, with the picture of someone relaxing on a deck chair by the water.
The moment you see the picture, what starts happening inside you? You wish that you could also be relaxing like that, doing nothing!
A deep desire for rest is awakened inside you.
That is what I call intense craving for tamas or lethargy.
Chronic fatigue or lethargy is the desire to continuously be in a state of inertia or rest.
It is the most powerful samskara or engram stored in the physical body. That is why, when you try to do some physical exercise - a workout, or even a simple walk - the first thing the body will bring out is tiredness! If you start walking, in a few minutes, your mind will start suggesting to you, 'I am tired! Enough for today. Let us stop now…'
But if you don't bother about these first level samskaras which are rising and just go ahead, in a few minutes you will see that the same action brings energy to you!
Usually, we are not conscious of this samskara operating in our physical layer. We think that it is a positive sign, a desire for peace and quiet. No!
Understand, if you really find that same beach, that same chair and lie down in it, you will not have that same peace that you imagined!
Actually, till you exhaust the tamas engrams that you carry in the physical layer, you cannot really rest.
Because once you start resting, in a few minutes, this samskara will settle down and the next layer samskara will start!
Even the decision to rest, if it is based on a samskara, will not let you rest.
Chronic fatigue is deeply related to the intense craving for rest. Please understand, this intense craving for rest brings diseases which will put you in bed.
There is a very beautiful story in the Upanishad:
A disciple went to the Master and asks, 'Master, please give me a technique for enlightenment.'
The Master gave him 400 cows from his own farm and said, 'Take these 400 cows with you and breed them. When they have multiplied and become 1000 cows, come back.'
The modern-day disciple would have said, 'What! You are making 600 cows out of my enlightenment! You are trying to make money out of my seeking.'
But the disciple was a really sincere disciple. He did not bother, he just took the cows and did as his Master said.
A few years passed.
And the story says, when he finally came back with the thousand cows, the Master said to him, 'Now we have a thousand and one cows'.
In the Vedic tradition, cows are highly respected as sacred animals. So, the Master raises the disciple also to that level of sanctity.
When you continuously work with animals, they will not let you rest. They don't know that you are working 24 hours a day! They don't know there is nobody else to replace you. They don't know that any particular day is a holiday. They don't know that one person can work only in an eight-hour shift!
They don't care about all your problems. They will constantly demand your attention.
Because of working continuously with the cows, the deep desire for rest had completely disappeared in the disciple. The tamas engrams had been totally wiped out. Without even knowing it, he had crossed the first and most difficult layer of samskaras.
Be very alert about this samskara – it is your biggest hurdle. I can say that if this chronic fatigue, the deep desire for rest, leaves your system, 90 percent of your spiritual journey is over!
THE PRANIC LAYER AND DESIRE SAMSKARAS