Emotions: friend or foe? Part 1

Emotions and feelings are something that makes a difference between living organisms and  machines.  Emotions are responses of body to an outer influence. We are feeling creatures. We experience and express emotions. Sometimes, they are so mild that we hardly notice them and sometimes they rush like a tornado and create a havoc.  When the emotions are faint and mild, we somehow navigate through them without much strain.  Many people are frustrated and irritated in daily life, but they do not show up explicitly.  We are accustomed to cope up with little discomfort and uneasiness just like the background AC sound is no more disturbing.  Once the emotions become too strong and intense, we often find ourselves to be victimized by emotions. 

Anger is one such common emotion, so many fall for it.  Sadness, resentment, jealous, fear, anxiety, confusion,  excitement are some of the emotions we go through every day.  We have no idea about what they are, but labelled them as "bad".  Next, what we do is, either suppress the emotions or try to get rid of them.  There is so much of violence involved in both ways.  This is suffering. 

Suppose,  if there is a problem in your car, what do you do?  Ignore it? Suppress it?  Control it?  or understand it?  You heard a weird sound coming from the car and you take it to the mechanic shop.  A good mechanic, who knows the mechanism of car,  will listen carefully where from the noise is coming, whether it is from the engine or somewhere else.  He will figure out what is going on inside and fix it. 

We have never taken a moment to ask and inquire, "What is this thing called emotion?".  This is such a simple basic question. But, nobody is asking this question, but keep on asking, "How to handle emotions?", "How to control emotions?" 

Understanding the mechanism of car is vey important to fix the problem in the car.  Similarly, understanding the functions of mind is very important to fix the issues of mind.  In fact, emotion is not at all a problem.  They are signals from the body. Tears are the expression of our body.  They convey something important to us, just as we get fever or headache.  Fever and headache are not diseases, but they convey the message that there is some trouble in body and that needs to be attended.  But, what we do?  We take pills and drugs to suppress them.  Fever is good.  Head ache is good.  We must listen to them.  The body speaks to us through pain only.  Emotions are language of our body.  They say something.  We must listen carefully like a good mechanic listen to the sounds of a car.

So far, we have seen that emotions are responses of body to outer influences. They are not bad. We need not afraid of it. Emotions are language of our body.  They say something to us.   We must listen the emotions carefully like a good mechanic listen to the sounds of a car. 

Once you have understood, then you don't even need to control.  

Understanding is freedom from the problem. 

~Parameswari Kumar.