Perspective about Life - Part 3

Emotions

It is said that it takes a long time to understand human emotions. May be that’s why this long gap after my previous blog. This episode is on one of the important aspects of life - “EMOTIONS”.

The English word emotion is derived from the French word émouvoir. This is based on the Latin emovere, where e- (variant of ex-) means "out" and movere means "move." So emotion is something that we express or bring out what you feel inside.

Let’s continue with our Professor’s experiences. At this stage “Morrie can’t eat most of this food. It’s too hard for him to swallow. He has to eat soft things and liquid drinks now.”

Morrie’s health had deteriorated and small horrors of his illness were growing. He was coughing more than usual, a dry, dusty cough that shook his chest and made his head jerk forward.

Morrie closed his eyes. “What I’m doing now,” he continued, his eyes still closed, “is detaching myself from the experience.”

“Detaching yourself? What does it mean?” his student asked.

Morrie continued “Yes. Detaching myself. And this is important—not just for someone like me, who is dying, but for someone like you, who is perfectly healthy. Learn to detach.” He opened his eyes and exhaled. “You know what the Buddhists say? Don’t cling to things, because everything is impermanent.”

Usually, aren’t we always talking about “experience our life both the good and bad ones”. But how is it possible when we detach ourselves and at the same time experience.

Now, detaching oneself from emotions is actually a challenge for every human being. In fact, it is my experience, that when we fully experience the emotion we transcend or at least we understand better about ourselves. Our emotions are authentic sources to understand ourselves. We don’t detach as Morrie says, we either deny or rather control.

Morrie further stated “Take any emotion – love for a woman, or grief for a loved one, or what I’m going through, fear and pain from a deadly illness. If you hold back on the emotions – if you don’t allow yourself to go all the way through them – you can never get to being detached, you’re too busy being afraid. You’re afraid of the pain, you’re afraid of the grief. You’re afraid of the vulnerability that loving entails.”

When we were young, we were very expressive without any inhibitions, But, as we grow we learn lots of don’ts from this life. We suppress our emotions and don’t let it prevail. Let’s take fear for example, either we avoid the situation or encounter the situation with the resistance thinking that the situation is undesirable or unwanted in your life. Hence we lose the opportunity of understanding your true nature. Fear or any emotion is just a façade we need to go beyond the emotion, that is possible only when we embrace the EMOTION fully and get transformed.

Morrie says “when he felt his chest locked in heaving surges or when he wasn’t sure where his next breath would come from. These were horrifying times, he said, and his first emotions were horror, fear, and anxiety. But once he recognized the feel of those emotions, their texture, their moisture, the shiver down the back, the quick flash of heat that crosses your brain—then he was able to say, “Okay. This is fear. Step away from it. Step away.”

We need this in everyday life. How is it possible to be non-attached and at the same time work and produce results.  I have been enquiring about this in my life ever since I started reading Bhaghavat Gita. Let’s try to understand this. It is very interesting. How we feel a surge of love for a partner but we don’t say anything because we’re frozen with the fear of what those words might do to the relationship.

Morrie’s approach is exactly the opposite. “Wash yourself with the emotion. It won’t hurt you. It will only help. If you let the fear inside, if you pull it on like a familiar shirt, then you can say to yourself, “All right, it’s just fear, I don’t have to let it control me. I see it for what it is.”

 “By throwing yourself into these emotions, by allowing yourself to dive in, all the way, over your head even, you experience them fully and completely. You know what pain is. You know what love is. You know what grief is. And only then can you say, ‘All right. I have experienced that emotion. I recognize that emotion. Now I need to detach from that emotion for a moment.’”

Let me quote another example on Non-attachment or detachment. I am reading a book on KRISHNA – the MAN and HIS Philosophy by OSHO.

Non-attachment or Anasakti in Sankrit is one of the most mis-understood words.

Attachment has two faces, negative and positive. For example, someone is attached to sex and someone else is attached to it opposite – Brahmacharya or celibacy. Negative attachment is as much an attachment as positive attachment. Non-attachment is altogether different and has deeper meaning.

A non-attached mind, according to lord KRISHNA, is one that accepts everything unconditionally. The interesting truth is that if you accept something totally it doesn’t leave a mark, a scar on your mind. Your mind remains unscathed and undisturbed.

All our lives are full of past and the past impressions accumulated over a period of time. These impressions and residue were from the past events we encountered in our life. These past experiences are driving our lives and we use these impressions to guide our life and eventually get frustrated.  

Let’s listen to Morrie to end this chapter and its relevance and use of “EMOTIONS” in LIFE.

“I want to die serenely, peacefully.  And this is where detachment comes in. If I die in the middle of a coughing spell (heavy coughing) like I just had, I need to be able to detach from the horror, I need to say, ‘This is my moment.’ I don’t want to leave the world in a state of fright. I want to know what’s happening, accept it, get to a peaceful place, and let go”

EMOTIONS are beautiful and it is the doorway to get inside the REAL YOU and understand YOURSELF. Have a beautiful (emotionful) LIFE.