Emotion
The source of emotion is neither a positive nor a negative energy. As shakti enters the heart, human beings vent, scream, laugh, or cry depending on how open they are to spirit. A conflicted heart transforms shakti into a swampland of emotion. The soul of a human being is born into a world where suffering is a dominating factor. It must find means to transform depression and unhappiness into a joy filled heart full of love and compassion. A chakra system must be built to detach oneself from dark energy and sustain openness. Childhood innocence converts to adult skepticism and often a cynical approach to life. People are defeated by external pressures like love interests, money problems, family problems, jealousies, illnesses, and assorted encumbrances that must be dealt with. Happiness is the final goal, but happiness is often hidden behind a dark cloud in the heart. Happy people have learned the most important lesson life has to offer. It frees them from karma and is the soul’s final step on a path that leads to spiritual enlightenment.
Emotions enable one to share deep feelings of love with other people. They also release pent-up anger, fear, insecurity, joy, and a host of other sentiments that lurk in remote corners of the heart. Tantric meditation practice teaches one to internalize will and use it to transform anger, depression, and fear, into positive energy. They’re just chaotic energies that control the way people function, but these energies obey the will of a practitioner that focuses their attention on the Hara. The negative energy transforms itself into chi, an alchemical-like process that converts inner chaos into balance, foundation, internal strength, and rootedness, and gives one the ability to deal with life situations. The Tantric practitioner is no longer blind-sided by anger and fear, and clarity of choice becomes possible. The heart remains open, and one accomplishes peaceably what fisticuffs and curses never do. One admits to being wrong and amiably makes up the difference. One’s persona changes when one experiences unconditional love.
Happiness is the final goal, but happiness is often hidden behind a dark cloud in the heart.”
Anger has become a rare commodity in my life. I’ve made friends with it. I diffuse it in my meditation practice and bring it to the chakra below my navel, where it’s transformed into chi. The alternative creates unnecessary conflict inside me and with other people. It’s easy to find forgiveness if one’s heart is open; it’s easy to feel compassion for the sufferings of other human beings. It’s also easy to succumb to anger, depression, and rage if we don’t use our will to control them. Time and training help one to master one’s inner life and live with an open heart. It transforms lower emotions into harmony and balance.
Anger and revenge will slaughter innocent and not so innocent people without a resolution of the problem. Vengeful warriors and quasi-warriors kill others until life borders on a state of madness. Nothing gets resolved unless both sides admit to being wrong and listen to each other. The moment one realizes that the person they want to kill is a mirror image of themselves, they understand that revenge is a suicidal act that leads to their own death or imprisonment. It’s an act that sustains violence from generation to generation. Like Gandhi said: “An eye for an eye will leave the entire world blind.”
People closest to us often receive the brunt of one’s anger. Family and friends know how to push emotional buttons and use their own insecurity to take advantage of another person’s vulnerability. Familiarity can easily breed contempt if internal strength imposes will and ego on other members of a family. Without patience, family life can be very difficult and sometimes impossible. Heartfelt guilt, pain, and insecurity can traumatize relationships with loved ones. It took me many years to realize that neither my mother nor father weren’t perfect. They had problems of their own and couldn’t live up to my expectations. I learned to accept their limitations and forgive them for not being perfect specimens of humanity. It changed the way I related to family and friends. It enabled me to bring a nonjudgmental and unconditional self to each relationship. It was easy to dump rage and anger on people close to me, but to love them, I had to learn to like and love myself, a newfound perspective that produced enough inner strength to forgive members of my family and accept imperfection as a way of life. Fear, anxiety, jealousy, rage, insecurity, revenge, and self-loathing would not only damage my present life, but my future life as well. They would also damage the lives of others. I transformed thought and intellect into knowledge and wisdom, and murky emotions into joy and love. What I once thought impossible to do became possible. I developed a chakra system that enabled my heart to stay open…
(To be continued…)
“St. Francis in the Desert”, Giovanni Bellini ca. 1475-1480, oil on panel
