Words From The Master: 17 Feb 2008

Entering into Meditation
(continuation from earlier post)

There are three steps to work with your emotions:

a) Recognize your strongest emotions

What moves you?

Which emotions control your actions?

Does your life revolve around hostility, aggression, and anger?

Are you frequently depressed for no reason?

Is it more important for you to love, or to fight?

Be honest with yourself!

You must first acknowledge your emotions – otherwise how are you going to transform them?

Very often, people who live in a hostile environment develop a strong affinity for the negative emotions. They need it; it is a survival technique for them. They get all their energy from their negative emotions.

Research has proved that in the time of war, the crime and suicide rate in society goes down drastically. Because people now have an open platform to express their negative emotions, they need not commit their crimes privately!

Even Hitler has said, if you want to make a country powerful, create enemies! The enemies need not even be real; they can even be imaginary enemies. As long as people are in a hostile situation, they feel strong. When they are rebelling, they feel powerful. All our energy has been channeled into negativity.

Even depression is nothing but anger turned upon oneself. When you express the emotion, it is seen as anger. When you repress it, it becomes depression. But both are the same negative energy.

When we focus on our negative emotions, when we nurture our sense of separateness, when we create an experience of ‘me versus them’, the ego feels very powerful. That’s why many of us enjoy situations where we can be in a fighting position.

The positive, softer emotions always make us vulnerable. Love, joy, compassion – these are very fragile states of mind. When we experience these emotions, the boundary between ourselves and the world becomes weaker. The ego feels less
powerful. That’s why we are all afraid of these emotions. In a deeply unconscious way, we are afraid of love – because in love we have to surrender the ego.

But spirituality is nothing but the process of losing one’s ego. If you are afraid even to love, because it makes you feel vulnerable – how will you move inward into meditation?

(to be continued)
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This excerpt has been taken from the book: "Meditation is for You" -- an introduction to the science and art of meditation