Mystic Mantra: Be mindful and fully grounded

The more one thinks of “mindfulness” and “conscious receptivity” at the drop of a thought, the more expansive their mysticism, not bafflement, or perplexity. This takes us to yet another level — being far too obsessed with our emotions, aside from dizzy, ardent feelings and expressions.

The best thing to do is simple, also profound — to detach oneself from such a stranglehold with a sense of attached detachment. Yet another useful idea would be to take time to understand our internal and external feelings — so as to decipher “what” our emotions really are. This does not, in any way, purport to focusing our mind’s eye on the wall clock, or wristwatch. It trickles down to a certain “time-gap” that we all go through, time and again, between taking charge of our emotions and learning to “emoting” what we think, or feel.

Taking time is not merely a logical upshot, or empirical preparedness. It outlines the difference between expressing and communicating our emotions and articulating them.

Each of us, in a manner born, is endowed with the ability to understand and decode events, responses and reactions of our own as also others’ emotions, feelings and thoughts. This is, in point of fact, not enough so long as we don’t make an earnest attempt to experientially comprehend and fervently appreciate our own or others’ intents for receiving acceptance. It is this attribute that “sets us up,” as it were, to tell — sometimes also “coach” — ourselves to be more open than we are. This has a good, ripple effect — it helps us to not only connect events, or happenings, in our lives, but also carry our feelings closer to others’ emotions.

Most of us remember certain events from the past, a majority of them being childhood memories — thanks to our remote, yet “resident” feelings.

They may be repressed memories too. Most of our emotions, in like manner, also emerge from our dreams, including certain events that occur in our daily life. A dream experience of a river in spate may, for instance, represent a sense of disquiet, or difficult time. Some dreams, especially of stressful situations, which seem so real, may, likewise, awaken you with a jolt. You are alarmed — yet you may know not, in such a dazed state, what it was that aroused you from your slumber so abruptly.

The inference is simple. Our mind is a dependable friend and not opponent — as the philosopher Plato epitomised its overall functioning to a scaffold of co-operating behavioural patterns in individuals, society and the world.

This holds the key to combating our distasteful feelings, or thoughts, while listening to our heart, acknowledging our feelings, and purging our emotional baggage of miffed feelings of the past.