Questioner: Good afternoon, my name is Aryan and I am in my first year. So, my question is how to control anxiety, as I have a problem called ‘Hyperhidrosis’ where my hands are too sweaty. So, without thinking, my hands and feet start to sweat and it’s because of anxiety, over-thinking and all.
Acharya Prashant: See, the problem is due to a physiological reason, obviously only a medical practitioner can advise best. Having said that, I am sweating right now probably as much as you, it’s just that I don’t care for it, and that ends it. You have no control over what your body does, what circumstances or chance can do, and who can control that, right? You didn’t control your birth, you’ll also not probably control your death. We do not know when the next earthquake or tsunami might hit us. There is so much in life that we have no handle over, no control over at all. But there is one thing we can choose, and that one thing is everything.
You can decide, what is it you care for and what is it you ignore. If you cannot ignore all the trivia in life, life will enslave you, are you getting it? There is just so much that can happen to you, just randomly, let it all happen just on the outside; even the body must be considered an outsider. If something is happening to the body, it is something happening to somebody external.
How many of you got COVID infected? Many. Did the virus take your permission? That’s how life is — It infects you without your permission. But inwardly your consent should be everything. The body is an outsider and the virus can infect it without your permission. But, let no virus infect you inwardly without your consent. You have that freedom, that authority over yourself, and you must exercise it. It is possible there is something in your body, in the brain, in the physiology, that causes the condition you named. You can’t help it, maybe it is genetic, who knows? But is it not in my purview to accord it importance, or to willfully ignore it, I am asking you?
