Managing emotions

Devotee: I sometimes have so many emotions and thoughts.

Guru: Thank goodness you have them, if you didn’t you’d be dead. Let each emotion come one by one. If they flood into your mind say, “Wait, wait a minute.”  Put them in a queue. Tell the emotions… 

Swami: Make them take a ticket!

Guru: Yes, [tell them] “You wait till I call you,” as I am doing now for you. Don’t let them flood into your mind because it is uncontrolled.  You tell them to wait. You see, this is what contemplation is about. Tell the mind, “Normally when I sit down to meditate, I can’t do it because undigested thoughts flood my mind. Now mind, I’m going to give you an opportunity so that all these undigested thoughts about what I have not accomplished in my life will have an opportunity to air their grievances.”

Then they will come to your mind and say, “Don’t forget the job you did, you did not do it well.” Your guilt, your conscience then dictates to you and says, “Come on I want a better reaction from you and a good action.”

Start by contemplating

So you are able to deal with it but you have to have absolute consciousness within yourself saying, “I have to be mindful of what I am setting in motion. I’m not allowing all the thoughts to pour into my mind.”

You will find that once you have started contemplating on a regular basis, you won’t have that problem because you will have cleared your deck on a daily basis and it will become easier for you to meditate and contemplate.

Devotee: He says that he’s listening to your answers and they touch him but all your answers contain that element of inner control.  It needs inner control and concentration.

Guru: Which is difficult for him?

Devotee: Concentration is very difficult in our daily lives when there is so much distraction and tension. How to deal with that?

Guru: There are so many questions in one, never mind, I will try to answer one by one. I will talk to you about contemplation. Contemplation means you’re looking at your lifestyle.

Devotee: I understand.

Look at causes and reactions

Guru: You’re looking at your lifestyle from the moment you get up to the moment you go to work; at what you do, how you do it, the way you do it, the results of what you do, what tension you have inside you, and what you want out of life.

When you start that journey, you’ll find it much easier to take control of your uncontrolled emotions, calm them down and proceed on a journey of harmony and well-being.

In other words, [to understand the outcome that occurs when] you are in a situation in which you would normally react impulsively, or react without any reason or understanding. To know the results of such a reaction when you are at work and to stand back, look at the work you’re going to do, and say, “How can I do it in a way that gives me satisfaction inside?

Not that you should be a robot but just to know how you can contribute through this job you are doing to make it a success.

This satisfaction comes when you have become very analytical within yourself, and don’t allow your emotions [to dominate]. I understand you have a lot of power and energy inside your body, I can feel that when I am sitting here. But whilst you have that energy and power, don’t let it dominate your whole intellect.

Your intellect must govern that energy which is in your body and say to it, “Now, come on I know you are very strong, I know you are powerful.” Learn to use that energy and harness the goodness of life. You can only harness the goodness of life when you know how much power and energy you are putting into a particular project you have undertaken. 

If you put more than is necessary into that project then it is daunting for you and that project. Then you will feel that you are not getting anywhere. Learn to conserve your energy and learn how to direct that energy to no more than is necessary.

It is just like having a hundred franc note in your hand. You want to spend this hundred franc note, not just once, but many times before it is consumed. You’ve got a hundred francs of energy inside or a thousand francs of energy inside. You must learn how to use that energy wisely, how to work with it. If not, it is overwhelming for you. That is what is happening at the moment.

Withdraw out of yourself, look at yourself, look at the projects and the things you want to do, and ask yourself, “How much of this energy am I going to use on this project? I’m not going to just go ‘unngh’ (Guru imitates someone jumping in). No, I’m going to say to myself I’m going to conserve [my energy]. I’m going to work it wisely, and achieve what I want.”

Your relationships will also be better. At the moment you have this volume of energy, and other people can’t relate to it.  

The emotions have an extension to them. First, you have to experience your emotions then you will discover your divinity through those emotions. I’ll tell you why I am saying this.

Use the energy of the heart

[Through the emotions and what you express] you will find suddenly that there is something more than what you can do with your hands or your eyes; that there is something more than what you can do with your hearing or with your prana and the sound that comes from your lips and throat. When you begin to use the energy that you have got in your heart you will slowly and steadily realise that there is a power greater than just the superficial use of your emotions.

You will transcend the superficial use of your emotions to discover the sixth sense. The sixth sense is the extension of all the senses that enables you to perceive and realise divinity. That enables you also to discover your intellect. At the moment you are only doing things with your mind.

The mind can become mindless at any moment without your power of intellect. To discriminate, to understand what you are doing, and to be able to say no this is not for me, I’m fooling myself by pretending that this is divine.

The senses within yourself will always try to play a game with you. They will slowly bombard the mind with ideas saying, “This is divine, this is very important for you, you must have this.” Then you must halt that thought and say, “Why is this divine? Who is sending this message? Why am I thinking like this?”

Then you will soon discover there is a little monkey in your brain that is playing a game. That is the monkey you have to take control of and develop as you go along, for the mind is a monkey.

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