Life is found to be caught up in a storm of emotions so very often, and you are not yourself when you are in a storm. What do you do? Emotions make us human. Emotions are like the river; as long as they
are flowing within the banks, they are good for you. But if they overflow the banks, they can cause flooding. It is normal to get angry or upset, but we tend to carry these emotions with us wherever we go. This becomes a problem.
Thoughts are like the gatekeepers of the house. You may think positive thoughts — “Oh, I am happy”, or “I am not going to get angry or irritated”. You may have read all the knowledge; you may intellectually know everything about handling negativity. But your emotions are more powerful than your thoughts.
When the storm of emotions rises, anger, jealousy, and fear engulf you. Often all understanding takes a back seat, the situation overpowers you, and throws you completely off balance.
Here, you need something more practical to have a say over your emotions.
Observe how quickly you get over an emotion. If you look at children, they cry one moment, and even before their tears dry up, they are already smiling. I am not saying we should never get angry. But do you know how long the anger should stay? It should only last as long as a line drawn on the surface of water.
You don’t have to feel that you are helpless in the hands of your emotions and moods. You can have your moods in control with just some awareness of your breath. Our breath holds within it a deep secret, the key to bringing your emotions into balance.
The first thing you did when you came to this planet was you took a deep breath in, and the last thing you will do in the world is breathe out. In between the first inhalation and the last exhalation is what you call life. Yet, you never attended to the source of life, which is the breath. Breath is the connection between the body and mind, and through it, you can bring the mind to the present moment.
Breath is synonymous with life. Our life is our breath, our breath is our life. And subtler than the breath is our prana or life force. The main purpose of spiritual practices like meditation, pranayama, and Sudarshan Kriya is that they increase prana, or the subtle life energy. Prana is subtler than the emotions. When you attend to the subtlest, the gross, which is the body, mind, and emotions, they get taken care of. You handle the breath, and the body gains good health.
Breath is the sign of life and health. The ancient seers could predict the onset of diseases by reading one’s breathing patterns. For example, if your breath is hot, quivery, shaky, and not smooth or easy, you can predict that you will be sick. The patterns of the breath can also tell you about the toxin levels in the body. If you observe infants, you will be amazed to see how balanced their breathing is. As they breathe in, their belly comes out; as they breathe out, their belly moves in. But the more nervous and tense you are, you will do the opposite. When you breathe out, your tummy will come out, and when you breathe in, it will go in.
For every emotion we experience, there is a corresponding rhythm in the breath. And each rhythm affects certain parts of the body, physically. You only need to observe it to feel it. Have you noticed that when you are happy, your breath is deep, slow, and calm, and when you are anxious, it tends to get shallow? We feel a sense of expansion when we are happy and a sense of contraction when we are miserable. Though we feel happiness or misery and the sensation, we fail to notice the connection. So, when you cannot handle your mind and emotions directly, you can effectively handle them through the breath. So, how you feel in the day is really up to you.
We are not just this body. There are five sheaths of existence, the first of which is the body. Then is our breath, which is the link between the mind and the body; then come the thoughts, and subtler than thoughts are your feelings. Beyond that is the energy field, which is the positivity and radiance of the soul, the spirit that you are. All the meditation techniques and contemplative prayer in all the traditions are meant to transcend the thought and reach the Self, from where everything else is run. So, if you want the gatekeeper to listen to you, you have to attend to the house owner. Because the gatekeeper listens to what the owner says.
The author is a humanitarian leader, spiritual teacher and an ambassador of peace. Views expressed in the above piece are personal and solely those of the author. They do not necessarily reflect News18’s views.
