Tricky stuff: Emotions & Energy

So let‘s talk about feelings.
They arise spontaneosusly, without any effort as it seems, and we are so used to them. To like or to reject someone or something, to be the victim or the attacker, to fall in love or to hate. We all know them, they come very easily to us, and they are nice and comfortable because we grew so accustomed to them. At least on my part.

But to feel nothing – absolutely nothing -, having a clean slate – that seems rather difficult and troublesome. And even not depending on them appears like an insurmountable range of precarious rock cliffs and yawning chasms which makes your larynx bounce like a nervous tennisball on Speed.

And yet, you have to invest energy into feelings which is ultimately lost, and most of the time you are intimately bound to them.
On the other hand to be truely free of emotions would then mean to have more energy for life, for health, staying young and beauty.
Maybe that is why some chain-smoking bastards grow so atrociously old although they don‘t really seem to care about their diet, let alone their fracking body.
Because they are… free?

Now, that doesn‘t mean that you‘re not supposed to have feelings at all. At least at this stage of human evolution they seem perfectly human and natural, and for sure they have a meaning. Also, we‘re no freakin‘ Vulcans, right?

To be independent means to be not „affected“ by them in a way. Not pondering about the knots in your belly chakra and thus feeding them which produces only more thoughts and lo behold the vicious circle!

To be free means not putting energy into them which instead could be used in a much more meaningful way. For example to create stuff. Some people do honestly believe that that‘s what we‘re here for, can you imagine?

It also doesn‘t mean that there would be no joy in life. You don‘t have to like or be passionate about something to feel joy.
The more you are passionate in life the more energy you use. And that is perfectly alright if that is your path. But your life shall then be much shorter if you can‘t find the right gas station to fuel up so to speak.

Which could be meditation of course.
I say „could“ because some people including myself might often think that they fail while desperately trying to concentrate.

That is why it doesn‘t matter when a thought emerges from the ineffable depths of the unconscious while you practise; maybe it helps even. But it does very well matter if you dwell on it! If you get either carried away and start stuffing emotions into them like in a Thanksgiving turkey. Again the vicious circle powers up and again this cursed machinery consumes energy!

Or you might think that you just fucked up your enshrined session: „Damn! I had a thought! Damndamndamn… Immediately you start blaming yourself, once more loosing energy.
And head over heels you stick to the past like a fruit fly in a jar of marmelade suffering from type 2 diabetes. By thinking about the thought just a few moments ago, a few minutes ago – and so on.
So the mind is a fickle and tricky thing indeed.

Because at that point you negate the very purpose of meditation: to get you out of past and future and into the present moment by being conscious, by watching, observing. Being.
Because in the end it is the only one which we can ever live to see and experience.

Which is why it‘s not important IF a thought arises – but it is vital to let it go after looking at it and feeling it. And not to be AFFECTED by it, but accepting it fully. Loving it.

And so out of this experience of being utterly free arises a deep, imanent and all-encompassing joy that penetrates everything.
The experience of love in the sense of being completely open to everything, to be content with everything, be it good or bad, positive or negative – well, there is nothing like it I guess.

Even to accept what we call evil: hate, violence, greed and all those fellows who are in league with the darkness. Accepting all those things in the way of realizing that they teach us. Yes, we can actually learn from them when the time is right. And there is a right time for everything.
In fact, we need these crises to learn, to de-velop as a human being. To become more human, more humane.

But again, accepting evil doesn‘t mean that you can‘t work for the light and strive to make the world a better place. Might as well.
Anyway, it‘s hard to fight something if you don‘t accept it to be there, right?
And in this world of duality it HAS to be there. Without evil there is no good. Without darkness there is no light, without East where are you supposed to find West, for Christ‘s sake, and so forth.

If you truly want to get rid of evil you also have to shed all that is good – and all of duality for that matter.
Which is largely known as Nirvana, my dear friends: being one with the creator, the primary source, the unspeakable, unknowable causal force which, out of nothing, gave birth to… everything.
If you believe in such things.
(Or should we say: to have faith, to trust rather than blindly believing?)