This Too Shall Pass

This is the first in a series titled “Weathering a Storm” where we will examine a framework for addressing adversity or a crisis like the one we are currently entering, with the Covid-19 pandemic. This series will examine ways of finding our footing and becoming resilient, through ancient and time-tested wisdom. In this talk, we remember the advice from the past.

As part of this series, we will be promoting the benefit of managing stress and finding calm (so as to be able to make good decision

Transcript

Om Namo Bhagavatev Vasudevaya.

So I'm going to begin with a series that we're going to be calling weathering a storm.

That's a phrase I think most people are familiar with.

But I've had a lot of requests to sort of address things that people are currently going through with this whole COVID-19 epidemic that we have on our hands and the amazing effect that it's having on the world and people's economic and social lives,

Etc.

So the talk tonight,

I'm titling it,

This too shall pass.

This is a very well known saying that actually is incredibly appropriate.

So I'll just open with a few notes I've got here.

Julie,

A friend from Auckland,

I got a communication that came from her and she's saying that she's noticed that people are really looking for a lot of help online for their anxiety and the uncertainty at this time.

And she states,

Everyone I know is stressed and frightened.

Some of the things I have noticed that people are battling with her anxiety,

Isolation,

Depression,

The fear of passing on the virus,

Uncertainty about the future,

Separation from loved ones,

And just change this massive change that's overcoming us.

So she had suggested some topics that I might address.

One would be overcoming anxiety and depression,

How to deal with change,

The benefits of meditation,

What is fear,

And how to deal with it,

And how to deal with isolation in a changing world.

So we'll have a,

We won't,

I'm thinking I won't do this just once a week on Sunday,

Perhaps during the week,

I'll post one or two shorter talks.

And we're also going to be sharing a real simple guided meditation that just,

You know,

Has to do with a lot of deep and relaxed breathing,

And then just listening to the spiritual sound.

And I'm hoping this will become a tool that maybe you can share with your friends and loved ones and other people to help them in this great time of change.

Another very dear friend sent me an email about something that she experienced.

She was going to go out for a walk.

And she heard this wailing and crying and she tried to investigate where it was coming from.

And she heard from her neighbor and she went over to see her and hung over the balcony to talk with her.

And the woman was in a somewhat inebriated and intoxicated state,

And was just having this monumental meltdown.

And she was not terribly coherent.

I was told,

But she basically managed to voice what the masses of people are going through right now.

That was her identity,

That her world had disappeared overnight.

So obviously,

People are going through a lot.

And I just thought I would just read something that I read in the New Zealand Herald.

And it was in response to,

It was an article titled,

We're Not Just Being Asked to Stay Home.

It's bigger than that.

And the person that wrote it was reacting to a meme that was making its rounds on social media that,

And that meme said that your great-great-grandfather fought in a war.

You are only being asked to stay at home on the sofa.

And she said that was actually somewhat of a deep fallacy that really continues to be spread,

That you're just sitting there on the sofa like there's nothing really going on.

And I completely agree with her that that's a little dismissive of what's actually happening.

I think a lot of people,

It hasn't sunk into them what's really going to be going on here now.

So she wrote that no one is saying that this is worse than fighting a war.

But it's also unfair to downplay the magnitude of what we are doing and what has been asked from us.

And then she bullet points.

We're asking some mums to give birth without their partners,

Especially if they have other children who cannot be left with anyone else outside of their bubble.

We're asking dads to miss seeing the birth of their child.

We're asking grandparents to miss out on meeting their grandchildren.

We're asking grandchildren to risk never seeing their elderly grandparents again.

I don't think it's necessary to explain what that means.

We're asking people to cancel weddings with hundreds of thousands of people at home because they've lost their jobs.

We're asking people to spend their stays stressing even more than usual about how they'll feed their children.

We're asking people to potentially die alone rather than spending their final moments surrounded by loved ones.

And we're asking people not to hold funerals for their mum or their dad.

We're asking parents in complex custody situations to not see their child for a long time.

We're asking grandparents to miss out on their grandchild's first birthday.

We're asking immune compromised people such as cancer sufferers to worry even more about their health.

We're asking people to sit at home away from people that they love who might not have long on earth.

And we're asking them to come to terms with the fact that there's no date that we can put on their diary for when they'll be able to see that person again.

We're asking them to live with a knot in their stomach every hour of their days for an undetermined period of time,

At least four weeks.

The list of individual circumstances is endless,

But the bottom line is this.

Hardly any of us is settling in for a month of Netflix marathons on the sofa,

Completely carefree and worry-free.

So I completely am in agreeance with this article that what has been asked of people is something that's very,

Very tremendous,

That we will be facing something that these current generations have never faced.

You know,

It was not uncommon that in the last century,

From the 1900s up to 1950,

That the world went through catastrophic changes.

We had two world wars that practically eliminated many of the major cities of Europe or caused severe damage.

We had people living on rationed food for years in the most difficult situations.

We had the Great Depression that brought about monumental suffering.

We had the Spanish flu that killed between 20 and 50 million people.

Polio epidemic swept the world.

There were so many things that happened.

And the fact is that we have lived in the last perhaps 60 to 70 years to a large degree,

Apart from a couple of hiccups,

To a large degree free from any of those kind of experiences.

And so a lot of people have lost resilience.

We have been lulled into living on credit,

On living for the day and not really preparing for difficulties that naturally arise in the world.

And it's had a tremendous transformation of people's value systems.

And so when confronted with this current epidemic,

I mean,

I was reading about a young girl and in England that committed suicide just because she was so fearful of the isolation of being cut off from everyone.

And it's not a good situation when people have become so utterly fragile.

So as we go forward,

We'll be talking about different things that people can do and things that they can consider to help them not only through this period,

For however long that is going to be,

And it could be quite an extended period,

But to help them in their life in general,

To live a more purposeful and meaningful life.

And a lot of that will have to do with learning a couple of things.

There needs to be a shift,

An actual quite major shift in society's values.

And in terms of personal practices,

We need to engage in more types of activities and forms of thinking that actually contribute in a positive way to life.

And to this end,

I've made a new meditation that you can actually share on social media with your friends.

It's nothing very complex.

It's just something that's deeply relaxing and distressing.

And a lot of people find it very helpful and may actually arouse in them a desire to start looking in this direction a little bit more seriously.

It's actually such a wonderful saying that this too shall pass.

It has to do with an acceptance of things.

One of the things that I will talk about,

You know,

Going forward is how we actually spend so much time stressing and worrying about that,

Which is beyond our control.

Excellence is actually requires some courage to be able to accept things for what they are.

Yes,

We can have regrets that I didn't prepare enough,

I didn't maybe put enough effort into preparing for these things.

But there is this reality that the only thing that can be counted upon in life is change.

Change is not only inevitable,

It's the only thing that you can actually rely on.

Understanding how to accept change and to understand that even the most difficult situations they will pass.

And I think that this is something that has become largely lost,

Particularly in the more developed economies in the Western world.

The people are not so used to hardship and difficulty that perhaps the majority of the people in the world are used to.

And not being able to accept that things may come my way which I cannot control.

And to simply do at that time the best that I can do is a really important state of mind to be in.

And I say this particularly for parents,

Or for people that have a partner in life,

That there is this need for you to be present,

And to be supportive,

And to be able to be helpful.

And if you have been overwhelmed,

Worrying about things that you feel that you have lost control,

It's really important to understand that there are many things in our life that we don't have a great deal of control over.

There are a lot of things that we do.

And as I mentioned,

I will be talking about this need for us to become more focused upon things that we can control in our life,

Situations and circumstances,

Our responses to things,

How we deal with things,

How we process things,

That is in our control.

And for those things that are not in our control,

Even if it is a time of enormous difficulty,

We must accept the reality that this too shall pass.

It doesn't mean it will be easy,

But simply accepting that reality,

It's much like I sometimes advise people that are struggling with depressions,

That there are going to be other times rather,

It's almost like a sailing ship in olden days,

That was going into bad weather.

They didn't have GPS,

They didn't have satellite connections to the internet and weather services,

Weather predictions.

And so they would frequently come across weather situations,

Storms.

And when they arrived,

It's not like you could avoid it.

They would do what was called to batten the hatches.

They would tie all of the sails so that they wouldn't be shredded in the wind.

And then what they would do is go below deck and close everything up and they'd put a batten through the hatches so they don't open,

Fly open.

And then they simply need to ride out the storm,

Accepting that they don't have control of the situation.

And knowing that sooner or later,

Whether it's hours,

Whether it's a day,

Whether it's a week,

The storm will pass.

And when it passes,

The sun will come out again.

And now it is time to open everything up and to come out on deck and to continue with the voyage.

And so I would really like to advise people that first and foremost,

There has to be that acceptance.

There needs to be an embracing of that in order to make it so that we become a little settled and more accepting of the situation.

And now what we should do instead of putting our time and energy into worrying about the things that are beyond our control is begin to look at,

Okay,

What is within my control?

What can I do?

You know,

In life,

The only thing that we are asked is to do the best that we can do,

To simply do the best.

That is all that's asked of us.

And in different situations that will be different,

Even for ourselves at different times in our life,

That will be different.

But if we do the best that we can do,

Then there is nothing more.

There is nothing more to be done.

So going forward,

We'll try to offer a few maybe brief videos on some of the things that people can do to help them address this.

And then perhaps on Sundays,

We can,

At mantra night,

We can do something a little bit longer.

So I hope you are all keeping well.

And this is really a time to take advantage of your forced retreat from the world.

And to use this time to actually think quite deeply about your life,

And to practice your meditation and to begin to with more enthusiasm and focus to do the things that are really going to make the big differences that are going to bring about the big internal shifts in our own life.

So thank you very much.

So we will conclude with chanting the Gopala Govinda Rama Madana Mohana mantra.

Gopala Govinda Rama Madana Mohana.

Gopala Govinda Rama Madana Mohana.

Gopala Govinda Rama Madana Mohana.

Gopala Govinda Rama Madana Mohana.

Oh Oh Oh Oh Oh Oh Oh Oh Oh Oh Oh Oh Oh Oh Oh Oh Oh Oh Oh

Reviews

This too shall pass...i hear you...i just pray 🙏 that my faith is just as strong as the ride

Thank you so much for this wonderful offering. It blew me away ahead of attending the online funeral of my dear friend's mother this morning, a necessary biproduct of Covid19. I felt called to attention and arrived home in myself on hearing the wonderful chant. I felt amongst you and as though thawing and opening to my grief. Such an unexpected and generous gift, my focus of gratitude and thanks for today. It would be a joy to hear this recorded separately, I would return many times to this in my day when possible.