We have a tendency to control the way we feel. We do or don’t do something thinking that its going to make us feel better. We are under the impression that we are in control of how we feel within and we can change it at will. We keep chasing one thing after another, constantly fixing and mending what we do so that we can feel good all the time.
Anytime a so called negative feeling comes up, we immediately jump into some activity which can help us divert from feeling the negative feeling. This creates a negative relationship with our feelings. We start getting anxious about our feelings. We feel the need to always have something that can help us feel better. It can be food, drugs, alcohol, sex, shopping, charity, meditation, prayer. We start clinging to one thing or another to help us change the way we feel. We start creating a dependency on activity or substances. This is how addiction sets in.
Because the feeling never really goes away when we indulge with the activity or substance. Its just forgotten or covered up. It has not been released. In fact its pushed deeper into the unconscious where it is much more dangerous. Once the effect of the activity or substance is over, the feeling is found to be still present, now stronger than before. To cover up this feeling, you now need a much stronger dose of the activity or substance. In this way, our entire life is spent trying to control how we feel.
When the feeling doesn’t go away, we end up feeling guilty, scared and tired. In case of habits like smoking, drinking, drugs, we end up harming our body and our relationships as well. That adds another layer of stress and burden. Some people who take the “spiritual” route even end up leaving their family and work in search of “peace”. Earlier they were running behind money, power and sex. Now they start running away from them. But they are still controlled by the same thing.
All of this hassle can be completely avoided if one simple thing can be understood. We were never meant to control our feelings. We were always meant to follow our feelings.
Our feelings are a moment to moment guidance system. They are how the universal intelligence communicates with us. The same intelligence that spins the planets, circulates our blood, maintains gravity and converts seeds into trees. That intelligence is what’s guiding us on a moment to moment basis.
Our feelings are a feedback mechanism letting us know whether we should be doing whatever we are doing now or not. Its that simple. Whatever we can do or not do, can only happen now. You cannot raise your hand two days from now. You can only do it or not do it now. Our feelings are also happening right now. They are reflecting whatever is happening now.
If you are feeling anxious, the anxiety is only reflecting your anxious thinking. Your mind has moved away from the present moment and has gone into the past or the future. The anxiety is just feedback from the body letting you know that you need to come back to the present, that you need to become aware of the thinking that has been going on unconsciously.
The one that becomes conscious of the unconscious thinking in the mind cannot itself be the mind. In the very awareness of the mind you become the one that is beyond the mind. In this very light of your awareness the unconscious thinking starts dissolving and your feeling starts coming back to its natural state of peace and calm.
Sometimes it is the activity of your body that needs to be looked at. Lets say you are working on an important project and you start feeling dread or anger or irritation. This is feedback from your body to drop whatever you are doing. The mind might step in and make you believe that the work needs to be done, that this is important, that you should ignore the feeling and keep at it.
In this moment, if you are able to bypass the mind and you trust the feeling, you will notice that the feeling automatically starts relaxing. If you end up listening to the mind, the feeling only goes deeper into the unconscious and waits to spring up back again at any moment. And when it does, you are confused and you end up using substances and activities to get rid of it unsuccessfully.
The more you trust your feelings and bypass the mind, the more easy and free flowing your life becomes.
Our mind has a very practical purpose. It allows us to take the world in as input and allows us to express whatever we feel as output. It is an amazing device with awesome capabilities like memory and auto pilot. Imagine if we had to learn how to walk again and again. The mind takes care of all of that. It enables us to understand and convey using language, both words and body language. It powers the most complex device in the known universe, the human brain. Its capabilities are truly awesome.
But the mind is just that. It is a device that is available to us for us to use. It is the gateway to the universal intelligence. The source of our mind. Its capabilities cannot be imagined. It has infinite potential and that’s made available to us through the mind that we have.
That’s why its important for us to have an open mind. An open mind means a mind that is open for the universal intelligence to flow through. If the mind is used properly, it can help lead crazy blissful and creative lives.
The mind is very good at receiving information and then transmitting it. It was never meant to generate it.
And every time the mind is misused, our feelings always let us know. Thats how crazy intelligent this entire setup of being a human is!
If this is understood, if you can trust your feelings completely and you can bypass your mind, your experience of life completely changes. There’s no need to change how you feel. It changes on its own.