FUNDAMENTAL HAPPINESS Series 16 - What exactly is "feeling yourself from within"? What exactly is feeling and observing your pain?

What exactly is "feeling yourself from within"? What exactly is feeling and observing your pain?

Hi Friends,

The intensity and depth of questions that I am receiving from those who are reading this blog and my book, "ARE YOU REALLY HAPPY?" prompt me to dwell more on the questions that I have posed at the head of this post. For, I can sense that many of you are quite close to it, have understood me well, but are missing it by a whisker. So what exactly signifies, "feeling yourself from within" or "observing your pain"? That is most crucial to enable  you to take that first step in a spiritual journey towards HAPPINESS.

Let me focus on it by stating upfront what it is not. It is not a mental exercise. While all of you are certainly using your intelligence to comprehend what I write in this blog, which is also the correct thing to do, the actual steps to be taken thereafter have nothing to do with the mind. Rather you have to be alert and truthful to check whether the mind (often accompanied by the ego) has crept in. The mind just loves to make an entry with its great ability for analysis. 

Now let me try to make this clear with an example that all can relate to. Forget, for a moment, the innate, fundamental unhappiness that we all seem to be afflicted with, something that I have been underlining endlessly. Let us, instead, take the example of the day to day stress that almost all of us feel. Take a day that has been particularly bad - say, you had a tiff with someone, or someone humiliated you, or someone unfairly threw rude words at you. We all witness bad days sometimes.

At the end of a day like this, when you settle to go to bed, adopt a relaxed posture, and just observe how the "unhappiness" is working physically on your body. The mind will love to go to the reasons that probably triggered the stress or unhappiness earlier during the day. Do not fall into that trap. Do not go into the reasons why you are feeling low. The mind just loves that.

Instead, just accept whatever unhappiness or stress you feel; do not fight it. Do not deny it either. Often we feel we are being 'weak' by accepting that we are upset. So we pretend that all is fine. Not acknowledging your feelings is the stupidest act, and takes you far away from spirit and hence, HAPPINESS.

Now, once you have decided that you will not allow a mental analysis, also take care to see that you do not fight with your mind. Thoughts will come. Do not resist them. Yet do not get entangled with them. Be a passive onlooker of the thoughts. Please try what I have described above. You will be able to adopt the correct posture by trial and error. Gradually you will enjoy thoughts come and go, without you getting involved in them.

Having reached this stage, come back to observing what this unhappiness is doing to your body. Just focus your attention to the different parts of your body, feel the muscles, the aliveness. Focus on how you are inhaling and exhaling. Just observe the flow of air, without getting involved in it. Observe your heart beat. With practice you will be able to learn this art of passively observing your entire self. You may be surprised to discover that there is so much of stress in your body. Feel the stress, the pain of stress. If you can actually feel this pain, you have taken the first giant step towards HAPPINESS. Remember, this 'pain' is not physical; it is psychic pain, which we often tend to overlook. If you can hold on to this position, say for 45 minutes, and if your posture is correct, you will actually see the pain dissolve. You will also notice that the degree of your unhappiness has reduced substantially. You can now go to sleep. You feel much lighter next morning. Normally, the morning after a bad day, one feels the worst.

Come on, try it out and come back to me...

Cheers!

Deepak Chatterjee

chatterjee.deepak33@gmail.com
www.facebook/deepak.chatterjee.944
@Deepak33C

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