Brain, thoughts and emotions.

We have seen that emotions are responses of the body to outer influences. In order to understand emotions, we must know some basic functions of the human brain. The brain is the main organ of our body, which controls and co-ordinates the physiological functions of the body, and also responsible for the thinking processes and generating feelings and emotions.  

What is brain? Where does it come from? It is not a gift from God, for sure.  It has not been made in one day. Over millions and millions of years of evolution, this brain came into existence.  We have gone through a great deal of experiences in the journey of life from being a micro organism, plants, animals and finally become a human being.  All those experiences have been stored in our DNA.  Those experiences have made the brain into a kind of programming.  For example, the brain has seen over many years that fire is harmful, so it is accustomed to stay away from fire. The brain has gathered knowledge through experiences and made them into a mechanical system. 

Brain is a completely automated machine.  Its purpose is to sustain life in the body.  Brain has only one agenda, that is, sustaining life.  It protects and controls the body through biological signals and  our behavior through thoughts. 

Thoughts and emotions are not at all different. In fact, emotions are induced by thoughts only. For instance, you got a phone call from somebody and felt irritated.  You started thinking about the person intensely for sometime.  Slowly, you felt nervous and agitated. Hands started trembling. Then,  eyes starts becoming red, palpitation increases and now you can't even sit in one place. The body started shivering and sweating.  If somebody looks at you now, they will say that you have become emotional.  Similarly, you heard a bad news and it was a thought initially, but as you continue thinking about that, you start feeling sad and worried.  Then, few drops of tears ooze out from eyes and you start weeping.  Now, you have become emotional. 

So, there is nothing special about emotions.  When thoughts become severe and intense, they gather energy and start showing up on body.  Then, it is called as emotion.  

The brain knows very well that the body is mortal and it can die at any time. Brain is also a part of the body. So, the brain wants to continue in time and survive. So, it considers anything that comforts and nourishes life to be pleasure and anything that is detrimental to life is pain. This is common to both animals and human. A deer gathers speed and run fast when she sees a lion waiting for attack. Fight or flight.  

Now, let us try to understand some of the emotions.  Fear is one of the strongest emotion.  When life is threatened, when the body encounters danger,  then, to protect the body, brain secretes chemicals and hormones in the body to fight or flight.  This, we call it as Fear.   Our ancestors, cave men used to live in jungles. They had to protect themselves from animals, so, fear is ingrained in their DNA very deeply. 

Happiness is an emotion we all crave for. Food and sex helped them in survival and sustenance, so brain secreted happy hormones at the sight of food and sex. That's how greed for happiness is ingrained into our system. We have travelled many many years far from our ancestors, but the basic instincts are still the same.  Fear and greed. Only we have got few more words to describe them. Money is happiness, because there is a bright chance of survival.  Marriage is happiness, because life will continue to next generation. The same primitive tendencies of the cavemen. 

The cave man's brain was simple and his motives were clear and direct. So, his suffering too was less.  Our brains have become too complex with the invention of language. Stress, tension, anxiety, jealousy and depression are words which are nothing but fear and greed only. 

Now, we human beings are not mere body, but identified as a person with a set of ideas, character and patterns through our personal experiences. I am somebody.  This "somebody", the person as a psychological entity is prone to change and death. If someone hits our shoulders, we may not react much, but if they neglect our ideas or harm our respect, we will surely get offended.  This offense is interpreted by brain as "death".  Now, you will know what kind of chemicals and hormones will be generated by the brain.  

In a nutshell, in order to understand emotions, we must understand how brain functions. Brain is a product of evolution, a conditioned machine, and programmed to continue in time. It controls our body through biological signals. behavior by thoughts. Thoughts are coming from past conditioning. What is emotion?  When thoughts become severe and intense, they start expressing through the body. They are called emotions. With time and experience, brain has gathered ideas and stuff from outside and a psychological self came into existence - "I am somebody"  This limited sense of self is prone to change and death and so lives in fear always.  This is the cause of all our problems, feelings and emotions.  

We will see in detail on the nature of psychological self, Ego, the personality,  the compulsions of brain to live in habit patters and who we are really in the next part.  

Reflect on what you have read so far.  Knowledge has to be digested properly to bring transformation.  If you have any queries, what's app me personally. 

~Parameswari Kumar.