1.2 Stress Accumulator

      Let us remind you that we consider the SA a reservoir that collects human stress - "sins". We can imagine that our SA collects them in the form of a stress liquid. A model of SA is shown in Figure 1. As you see each valve corresponds to a different idealization. If we possess an idealization, a corresponding valve opens in the upper pipe allowing the stress liquid to flow into the SA.

      It is important to say that by "sins," we do not mean thoughts and actions that are considered sinful by usual moral and religious norms. We consider a "sin" dissatisfaction with life expressed as prolonged negative stress, which is primarily responsible for causing different problems in our lives. This discontent with life causes the stress liquid to enter our SA.
      Remember that an idealization of some material or spiritual aspect begins when we attach excessive importance to it, regardless of whether we actually own something already or only dream about having it. When something in the world does not meet our expectations, we experience prolonged stress.

Idealizing earthly and spiritual values

      The SA pipe collects our sins (i.e., earthly and spiritual idealizations). These sins often take the form of excessive attachments to the following aspects of our life:

1. Money and material values. Most of us do not have enough money or material goods, and this situation is normal because our desire to have money motivates us to strive towards our various goals. The idealization takes place only when your income causes you to continually experience stress and you believe that it is not enough for a decent existence.

2. Beauty and attractiveness. This idealization exists if you constantly worry about your appearance whether you are beautiful enough or you have a nice figure or you are well dressed and your hair is well done, etc.

3. Work. Many people are "workaholics" and cannot imagine life without their beloved profession. As a result, Life periodically teaches such people lessons in the form of workplace troubles or even job loss.

4. Family, children. This idealization occurs when you are convinced that you are supposed to have a family and children but have none. It also happens when you have a clear idea about how your spouse should behave, or about family relations and duties, your children's education, and so on. When someone close to us has a different opinion on those issues and does not want to meet our expectations, we become depressed for a long time.

5. Sex. In your dreams, you can have sex with many women (or men), but in reality you do not experience intimacy because of shyness, distrust, etc. You constantly wonder if you are a good lover and you attach excessive importance to sex; or when you consider sex a big sacrifice or even a humiliation.

6. Power. Many of us love power, but not all of us have an opportunity to exercise it. Men mostly try to become powerful in their home environment or at work, while women pursue power mostly in family life. Power is a good thing; it helps to rule people. However, idealizing power takes place when we crave it and enjoy using it to humiliate or to totally control others.

7. Faith, trust. Many people have sacrificed their lives trying to build upon the ideas of others (democracy, monarchy, communism, etc.). At present, many people believe in these ideas and become annoyed when reality turns out to be different. Excessive trust in others also falls into this category. People will try to destroy your ideal and will not justify your excessive trust in them.

8. Moral norms. This kind of idealization is most common among older people who were raised according to the older times standards. As a result, they become annoyed with what seems, from their point of view, the immoral behavior of young people - the weakening of moral values, and many other changes in life.

9. Relations. This idealization takes place when we have a distinct idea about the way people should behave in general. It means they should be honest, fulfill their obligations, be kind to other people, never lose temper, etc. When we find ourselves in an environment where people do not behave according to our ideal, we get angry or aggressive, at the same time trying to impose our moral model on people around us.

10. Development, education, intellect. The idealization of these qualities is typical of scientists, artists, and academic kind of people. It makes them despise uneducated people or those who can be perceived as "underdeveloped".

11. Common sense. We idealize common sense when we are annoyed by inane or unreasonable behavior of others. We think that all people are sensible and that it is always possible to come to an agreement and explain everything to them. Yet, for some reason, they use weird and incomprehensible logic and do crazy things. The more stubborn they seem about their delusions, the more we suffer from their behavior.

12. Self-imperfection. This idealization occurs when we constantly judge ourselves for lacking important qualities (determination, purposefulness, good ancestry, connections, education etc). The other symptom of this idealization is having a phobia of making a wrong decision. As a result, it takes ages for us to decide anything.

13. Our success. This idealization makes us exaggerate our achievements, overly praise our success or professionalism, and be reluctant to listen to anyone's advice. When people with such idealization are not successful, they blame their problems on other people and circumstances. They take offense easily and react aggressively to any critical remark when other people doubt the correctness of their actions.

14. Goal. This idealization exists when we are determined to achieve something and in the process we get annoyed by any obstacles or delays. It really does not even matter whether we may become nervous or blame ourselves or other people - we just cannot tolerate it that our goal has not been achieved.

15. Arrogance. Some of us believe that we are the center of the universe. Whatever happens in the world, it works either against us or for us. As a result, we only value our own opinions, needs and interests, and we despise other people.

16. Control over the surrounding world. This attitude toward the world is typical of corporate executives. As part of their job, they develop major planning and they become annoyed when their business strategies do not work out. Therefore, they do not trust anyone and try to do everything themselves. In family life, this idealization takes place in the form of one spouse's authoritarian behavior (trying to impose his or her will on others). People sometimes referred to as "control freaks" may constantly worry about their family members or be afraid of the future.

      Other idealizations exist in addition to those previously mentioned and even include being excessively religious. Of course, there is nothing wrong with having an excessive faith in God, except some believers judge and despise non-believers or people belonging to other religions. Some of them even take offense with God for not paying enough attention to them. You can find more detailed description of idealizations in Book 5.
      Let us return to our SA model. Each of the previously considered idealizations has its own valve connecting to the pipe, and as soon as we experience long-term suffering as a result of our failed ideas, the valve opens and the stress liquid starts to flow through the pipe into the SA.
      As long as we idealize even one earthly value, the appropriate valve stays open and allows liquid to pour through the pipe further into the SA. As soon as we realize that we have the wrong attitude toward this value, the valve closes and the stress liquid stops entering the SA. If all of the other valves are also closed (i.e., if the person does not have any other idealizations), the liquid level starts leaving through the lower pipe and Life stops giving this person spiritual "penalties", and his situation starts improving quickly.

Cleaning the SA

      There are several pipes at the bottom of the SA. These pipes remove the liquid from the SA, thus cleaning it. The SA is cleaned when we repent our sins through our thoughts and actions.
      The pipes at the bottom are always half open allowing the stress liquid to drip slowly out. This conclusion is drawn from the following observation: as soon as the liquid stops coming in, the SA starts to gradually empty because the number of accumulated "sins" goes down.
      The SA empties through the following four pipes:

Deliberate good actions

      One of the lower pipes deals with deliberate good actions. We may idealize some earthly values, but by performing good actions and by having a good attitude toward other people, we can open the value on this pipe and allow the liquid to escape or keep it from reaching a critical level in the SA.
      Deliberate good actions include compassion, mercy, unselfish work toward noble goals, charity, self-sacrifice, and similar examples meant for the good of other people. For example, if you give this book to a friend who is experiencing difficulties, it will count as a deliberate good action.

Personal positive traits

      The second lower pipe deals with positive personal traits of character, such as kindness, good nature, cheerfulness, optimism, etc. We can be very attached to something, i.e., have many idealizations, but thanks to having a good character and optimistic attitude, our SA never becomes full. Many good-natured people fall into this category.

The influence of others

      The third pipe at the bottom of the SA concerns the influence of other people. For example, anyone may go to a good healer if by performing certain manipulations they can remove some liquid from the SA. The results most likely will be short-term because without closing the pipes at the top, the SA will become full again quite soon (in a week, a month, or a year). That is why some healers use their influence to remind patients to take their medications for their existing illnesses. Medicines only help while we take them, but as soon as we stop, our problems return.
      The same principle applies to religious purification rituals. For example, Christians use fasting and confession. The priests understand this principle very well and ask people to confess every week. These methods are effective for believers and they should be preformed consistently.

Fulfilling our mission

      Another pipe at the bottom of the SA concerns recognizing and fulfilling the mission that brought us to this world.
      We all have several tasks to perform in each of our incarnations (e.g., to create a family, give birth to a child, become a warrior or scientist, invent something new, or gain new knowledge). It seems that we have to try everything in this life - love, family, power, politics, teaching, sports, war, intellectual pursuits, and so on. Some people fulfil several missions in the course of one life. A clear indication of this fact is a sudden change in our field of activity. For example, we work as a cook or teacher, and we are good at it and achieve great success. Suddenly, without any obvious reason, we quit and begin pursuing something absolutely different, for instance, we become a farmer or an artist. Having reached success and satisfaction in one field, we want to succeed in something new. Today, there are many people like this.
      For its next incarnation, our soul can choose any task that it was unable to fulfill in this life. For example, its mission may be to create a new work of art or increase scientific knowledge, to create a perfect family, or to organize people's work into a new enterprise. As a result, the soul gains new experience and takes another step toward its spiritual growth.
      Unfortunately, we do not usually remember what kind of task it is that our soul had wanted to pursue. However, the situation is not so bad. We are often attracted by a certain type of activity (e.g., social or political affairs, business, teaching, medicine, technology, or the arts). If we are satisfied with our work, we succeed and are happy with our destiny, deriving pleasures from our life. This happy feeling indicates that we are on the correct path toward fulfilling our soul's mission.
      If we fulfil our mission in life and enjoy what we do, the valve on the lower pipe opens and the liquid slowly seeps out from the SA.

Empty SA

      At some point, the SA of a certain person may become empty. An empty SA indicates that this person has no stress liquid or "sins". He is not attached to anything on Earth (in the wrong way) because no event or circumstances can cause him stress or provoke his negative emotions. He accepts this world as is. He usually has correct convictions and helps people by healing, giving sermons, and by the way he lives life. No one sends him negative energy, and even if someone does, it has no power or influence over him. Nothing holds this person on our planet; he stays only for as long as he wishes and can leave at any moment. Whenever they wish, these individuals can travel to the Subtle World and return to the human body. There are not many humans of this kind in our world, e.g., yoga adepts of high initiation or highly spiritual people. When they conscientiously realize that they have fulfilled their mission, they leave our world, regardless of their age.
      One way to achieve this state is through a conscious renunciation of earthly values, called asceticism. However, this way is hardly acceptable for people living an ordinary life because the reality provokes us to care about our relatives, to earn money for paying our bills, and so on. It is extremely difficult to abstain from negative stress when we do our usual business, which is why most of our SA never empties out fully.
      Here is the way how most of us can clean our SA: each of us should figure out which of the valves is open and if we had any events in our life that could be considered a lesson that we were taught as a result of having an incorrect conviction or idealization. Most likely, each of us can find more than one event of this kind in our life.
      We suggest [that you] analyze willfully your life and determine what ideals you have concerning this world and calculate the stress liquid level in your SA. We will help you to do this kind of evaluation in the next paragraph.

SUMMARY