Dealing With Stock Market Ups and Downs

Some years ago, a gentleman came to see me. He wore a long face. Due to volatility of the stock market, he had lost sixty million dollars that day. "I don't know what tomorrow will bring. The uncertainty is bothering me," he said. I told him, "Don't worry. The best thing about tomorrow is that it never comes!"


My intention was not to trivialise or philosophise his loss. But once you allow your happiness to be entirely determined by stock market, politics, relationships, or anything external, it will always remain precarious. This is true for most people. If stock market crashes, their life plummets into gloom. If the graphs rise, their mood is immediately upbeat. The real problem is just this: their mental activity is out of control. If they are stressed by uncertainty, life isn't the problem; their interiority is.


We are living through intense economic, political, and ecological tumult. But nothing in life has ever been certain. As human beings, we came here without any investment. We will leave without any capital, and still, irrespective of what happens in our lives, we will always be in profit because no one can take away richness of our experience.


We can never fix our external circumstances one hundred percent. But we can fix our interiority. When your inner mental upheavals subside, you will find you're able to handle outside issues with ease. The basis of spiritual process is just this: attending to your subjectivity, before attempting to change objective aspects of life. Yog can create a little space between you and your body, you and your mind, you and the world. This spells the end of suffering. Once your interiority is in a non-compulsive, conscious state, your life is your own. You now decide nature of your experience. What you experience may never be completely in your hands, but how you experience it most definitely is.


Once a rabbit was romping around the countryside when he heard a frog croaking in distress. A frog had fallen into a pit and couldn't get out. The rabbit told him to wait while he went to procure a ladder. When he returned with one, he found the frog sitting outside the pit. "How did you get out?" asked the puzzled rabbit. "Well, a snake entered the pit," said the frog, "So I leapt out."


Disruptions in life can also be possibilities. When life seems stable, things are at status quo. But when you experience life's instability, you have the opportunity to leap into another dimension, because your life depends on it. You can now propel yourself to a new level of well-being and freedom.


Wanting to know the result of a game in advance makes you a match-fixer. That is a crime. Don't try to match-fix your life. It is life's uncertainties that make it exciting. For those seeking opportunity, this is the best time. With vision, uncertainty can be transformed into a tremendous possibility.


Authored by: Sadhguru Jaggi Vasudev