Are Feelings The Language Of The SELF?

Hey, It’s been a while since my last post, not so long, though ..it’s been just a little over 2 weeks, I guess…hmm..Anyways, I like coming back to this space to pen down my thoughts. I enjoy it

Lately my friend and I had been discussing this book titled “Conversation with God” that he been reading. He quoted multiple lines from the book. Here are few of them:

“The soul speaks to you in Feelings. Listen to your feelings. Follow your feelings. Honour your feelings.”

The author goes forth to say “Feelings are the language of the soul, but you must make sure you are listening to your true feelings and not some counterfeit model constructed in your mind.”

It’s an interesting read, well written and look at the title . Who wouldn’t grab it off the shelf? We can draw a lot of similarities between this and the dialogue which is said to have happened some 5000 years ago between Krishna and Arjuna, called Bhagavad Gita. It doesn’t matter how many years have passed, SELF remain the same and anybody who attempts to explain the experience of the Self has to go down that road. Moreover, SELF is eternal and ever-existing and hence thankfully cannot be restricted to any religion

As I was engaging with my friend in this interesting & stimulating conversation about this book, something struck me hard. I thought how is it possible for anyone to differentiate from true feelings and mind constructed ones. Is it not the mind, the policing factor here, the very faculty to comprehend. Each one’s understanding depends on their nature and faculty of understanding. With a confused mind, it becomes impossible to listen in to any feelings, let alone the true feelings of God. How can we base our judgement on that?

The purity of the faculty is an important factor here, don’t you think? Remember even though the SELF shines in murky water in all its purity, it is impossible to experience the self in all its glory. What good is the distorted view that we get through the muddled Mind? Bhagavad Gita discusses purity as Trikarana Shuddi, the Unity of Thought, Word and Deed. Gita says, we perform action( karma) through Body, Speech, and Mind. Trikarana Shuddi is keeping these three in pure state without manipulating it. Meaning Thinking one thing, speaking quite another thing (contrary to one’s real thoughts) and acting still different one are all features of an impure/confused mind. That doesn’t give us the right to say anything inappropriate to others, in the name of being honest. Use discretion.Communicate with care, compassion and love. Everybody deserves to be treated right.

I strongly believe that only a faculty which is pure can follow Gods feelings. As we transcend to higher levels beyond ahamkara(ego) then we don’t even have to worry about negative or positive feelings. Either way, Feelings are like visitors, they come and go. We all can learn to play the perfect host each time they visit us without getting carried away with a pure and undistorted MIND  

Frustration Ends where Knowledge Begins

Dhyayato vishayan pumsah sangah teshu upa jayate 

Sangat sanjayate kamah kamat krodhah abhijayate

Krodhad bhavati sammohah sammohat smrti vibhramah
Smrti-bhramsad buddhi naso buddhi nasat pranasyati

                                                                                    Bhagavad Gita, Chp 2, Sh 62, 63.

which means, Brooding on the objects of the senses, man develops an attachment to them; from attachment comes desire; from desire, anger sprouts forth. From anger proceeds delusion; from delusion, confused mind; from confused mind the ruin of the reason; due to the ruin of reason, he perishes.

We humans are constantly being challenged. How we deal with those challenges also shapes our personality. Each time the world forces itself upon us demanding, it is also challenging us to own the responsibility of our emotional reaction. One such challenge that we often face is to handle frustration. It is an emotion that occurs when one is blocked from reaching the desired goal. The block can be a physical or a mental one. Dealing with frustration has always been one of the worst nightmares for both teenagers and adults.

Though life teaches us to tolerate a little frustration without becoming too upset about it. Nevertheless, it keeps us proactively engaged with new goals and challenges. We all at one point or another had found ourselves face to face with frustration. 

I had been there many times but I still remember this incident when I couldn’t find a way to vent it and all hell broke loose. Flustered and irritated, I couldn’t notice the steam building up. And with every disapproval, it was expanding within me until I exploded under the pressure. It took me a lot of time and effort to bring peace and to rebuild the relationship that my anger almost damaged. I learnt my lesson the hard way that suppression can never help me get away from that emotion that I am running from.

I also realised how frustration and anger travel hand in hand. It is like a chain reaction and we have to stop it before it gets triggered(the above shlok also warns us the same).Who’s to blame then? Who needs to unlearn habits that cause such unpleasant episodes? A good analysis following an emotional storm will lead us to the realisation that nobody other than our state of mind was guilty of that painful experience. The reason was never the situation/thing/goal/person. Once we discover this, we will learn to respond to such situations. Like we discussed before, repression is never an option but we can practice healthy ways of dealing with it. It will be challenging at first, but overtime being mindful of that sliding point, we can learn to change the habitual reaction to a more positive discharge than a negative one.

Another observation is that we stay frustrated when we get to thinking that we are going nowhere. That happens when we start feeling powerless and what triggers that emotional state is when we only focus on the problem. I mean, we should look for ways to solve the problem in hand. By understanding the cause of frustration we can direct our energy to sketch a goal to resolve it. I know it is not easy but it is not difficult either. Look at the damage we cause to ourselves and disappointments we bring to our dear ones. Why I say dear ones, because oftentimes, we indulge in displaced aggression. It is easy that way, isn’t it?  When we can’t yell at the boss then we vent it at the spouse or someone close.

It is also unrealistic to think we can rid ourselves of this dangerous thing called frustration. It is not always dangerous, it motivates us to resolve things which are standing in between us and our goals. They only turn against us when they bring with them excessive emotional feelings of deep dissatisfaction and vanity. Have you noticed what Chronic frustration does to people? Their self-image deteriorates and goals that they chose would look impossible and unrealistic then. Some of them fall into a state of perpetual apathy.

Try it for yourself. Next time when you feel frustrated stuck in traffic, ask yourself if there’s something you could do, like finding another route. If there is nothing you could do, then ask yourself is it even worth your anger and time. You grow frustrated by over-thinking and over-analyzing anything that is not under your control. When the block is external and if there’s nothing could be done, we just have to wait. Even that quality of ‘waiting’ can teach us something, isn’t it?

And now it is our choice, whether to succumb to despair or take control of our life. If we don’t manage our emotions, it will start managing us and then life wouldn’t be a pleasant experience.

Source Of Existence Over Changing Beliefs

Aham sarvasya prabhavo
Mattah sarvam pravartate
Iti matva bhajante mam
Budha bhava-samanvitah
Bhagavad Gita, Ch 10, shl 8
Meaning:
I am the source of all spiritual and material worlds. Everything emanates from Me. The wise who know this perfectly engage in My devotional service and worship Me with all their hearts.

Believers or Non-believers, we all get dogmatic at some point when defending the above word I am-The GOD. Well, either way, one shouldn’t induce others to confirm to their beliefs as each of us is suffering from MYSIDE BIAS but ends up happening anyway. 

In fact, I myself look up to the deities present in the places of worship more like Teachers who not only succeeded in playing the game called’Life’ well but also have become worthy of being idolised. You can term it as God or Intelligence or consciousness. But aren’t we all a part of this cosmic design that governs this universe? There is a saying by Richard Cecil that the first step towards knowledge is to know that we are ignorant. The quote emerged because that is a design found in all living entity: to seek, to learn, to grow. To understand this source of the design that happens inside us is to realize the three letter word-GOD.

When we are living in a country, we cannot be ignorant of the law that governs the land. Likewise, the seekers from time immemorial have tried to decode the order of the universe.

Don’t we have the right to question and seek the existence of God. To understand this Intelligence in our own way. I am afraid we were & are categorizing GOD in black and white. If someone dares to say he might be gray, we look at him like a villain who is trying to jeopardize the religion. Imagine a world where everybody thought and believed the same thing. We will be nothing less than a robot then  . And not everyone of us are enlightened souls. We are seekers. So, it is okay to take the road map of a realized soul to make our journey, like the Gita. It is a journey of Acharya Ved Vyasa but what I realized is not be confined in any beliefs but to stay a observer.

Below are some food for thought for my Theist, Atheist, Agnostics and Deist friends. For months, I tried asking myself to logically answer them and every time I tried, I discovered something more about my Self .

• We all know that energy cannot be created or destroyed but can be converted from one form to another. Our bodies turn food into energy. This energy allows us to move, breathe and think. Till here we all agree, but we fail to question the source of energy. Where did energy come from?
• We all believe that we have minds. And what is a mind? It’s a flow of thoughts but then what is the source of a thought? The first thought that arouse in our infant mind was created by whom? Where did it come from and where did it disappear? What is its source?
• We all know we exist this moment but where did we come from? Are we just a product of some human chemical reaction? I don’t think so.Look around we all are unique and different in our own ways. Don’t we see some children demonstrate remarkable talent than their age-peers. Some of them are really gifted and talented, which even their parents can’t explain. Where did this talent come from? What is its source?
• We all at some point of time in our lives have experienced a strong desire. A desire which demanded to be fulfilled and we knew it existed but the moment we get the object of desire then it ceases to exist. What was the source of that strong desire or an emotion which was waiting to explode and made its presence well felt? Where did it disappear once it’s fulfilled? Where was this desire housed?

Just as the Sun doesn’t cease to exist if we don’t see him in the sky. Likewise if we can’t understand the source through our senses doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist. We can’t see the infrared through our naked eyes. That doesn’t mean it do not exist. Our belief or unbelief around it does not determine its existence. It will not cease to exist if we do not believe in it.

This Source which is said to be Absolute is something our intellect evades. We are at the habit of looking at the surface of everything and trying to mend things on the top but never question its root. That can be a disease or estranged relationships or mental disturbances. We want quick remedy and never want to get to its source and that is the reason for our suffering. Blame the time. We all act like we’re going to be here forever.No one is promised tomorrow! Some of us might not even get to say our goodbyes. Let’s take the time to get to the source of anything which needs attention and clear the negativity which is ruining our mind and body. Let’s work on the mind to declutter it and eventually retrace our footsteps back to the our source we belong.

The purpose of this post is not to show off my own belief or to condemn others, but it is to share my journey in finding myself. I am not endorsing any particular belief system. That is up to you to choose what it is. Also it is important to remember that each of us has the freedom and right to do so but it should be limited to ourselves.