This is the second part of an article series on flow and emotions. In last week’s article. In last week’s article I introduced the concept of emotions and how they are the way we communicate with our Higher Self. In this sense, emotions are a sort of language and do not represent reality itself. Let’s explain this in more detail by looking at how we communicate amongst each other through language.
Human beings need language in order to communicate amongst each other, which is why there are more than 7100 languages spoken in the world today. Languages are made of vocabulary and words, which are a series of letters or symbols which represent something that is real. For example, the word ‘elephant’ represents a large mammal with four legs, tough skin, a trunk and tusks, however, it is simply a word and not the animal itself. Until you have experienced an elephant up close, the word ‘elephant’ does not do it justice.
In the same way, any emotion that you feel is not a true representation of your reality, whether it is anger, sadness, despair, happiness, excitement or ecstasy. These are simply states of being, which come and go as our circumstances change. The fact is that our circumstances are changing all the time but this does not mean that our reality is any different. The absolute truth about reality is that it is not malleable and is immune to perception and changing circumstances.
To know the truth about absolute reality requires a high state of awareness and this awareness does not arise out of emotion, which can change on a whim. Emotions are experienced in the context of our greater awareness and can be observed from this higher place of being. We experience emotions but we are not our emotions but the awareness which is witness to these emotions.
This awareness is closer to the truth of who we are and is immune to the effects of emotions. This does not mean that we do not experience the effects of feelings. Ask anyone who has ever felt depressed and they will tell you that it is very real. The problem arises when we are engulfed by the feeling and fully identify with it, instead of experiencing it fully. There is a subtle difference here in that all our emotions must be fully experienced in order for us to come back to that centre of awareness, which lies beyond thought and emotion and is closer to the reality of who we are.
If we are able to source our lives from this deeper awareness and not from our emotions, we will be closer to the truth of who we are and in the flow, instead of letting the waves of feelings, we experience, overtake and submerge us in their onslaught. Know yourself as the awareness and be the observer of everything that you feel and enter the flow from this place of being and consciousness.
Next week, I’ll introduce the next gateway into the flow.
Dr. Nauman Naeem