DR. SHRIRANG BAKHLE goes into the root of what creates happiness, sadness, fear and anger in our mind.
These four are the basic human emotions. These emotions are the most important part of every person’s life. The fundamental aim of every person is to experience happiness – and to avoid unhappiness (sadness, fear and anger), isn’t it? Each person may define his or her happiness in different terms: money, health, respect, sensual pleasures etc. But the basic aim is to become happy. This is true for all people: saints, goons or simple people like you and me. We also put in a lot of efforts throughout the life to avoid unhappiness (sadness, fear and anger).
Whether we go to work, clean the house, eat ice cream, do meditation or murder someone, all our activities are related to these emotions. The emotions rule our lives. Hence it is very important to understand how these emotions are created in our minds and what effects they have. Then we can use this knowledge to our advantage: to become happier and to minimize unhappiness (sadness, fear and anger).
There are many causes of emotions. But, commonly, the emotions are related to wish fulfilment. If a wish is fulfilled, we experience happiness. For example, if the wish to eat tasty food is fulfilled, we feel happiness. We have literally hundreds of wishes: from the wish to wear a nice shirt to the wish not to suffer in old age to the wish to enjoy music and so on and on and on!
If a wish is antagonized, we experience unhappiness (sadness, fear or anger). But when do we experience sadness or fear or anger? To understand this, let us see an example. A man is walking on the road and is hit by a vehicle. He is taken to a hospital with major injuries to his leg. The surgeon has to amputate three of his toes. The surgeon says that if the blood supply to his leg does not improve, his leg will have to be amputated. Now, let us see, how different aspects of the situation lead to different emotions.
Fear is caused by the harm that is likely to happen: possible amputation of the leg. Sadness is caused by the harm that has already been done: loss of three of his toes. Sadness is also caused by inevitable harm: if the surgeon says amputation has to be done, the man will become sad. Sadness can also be caused by the loss of happiness: “I will not be able to walk normally again.”
Anger is directed at the cause of the harm: the reckless driver. Hence, this usually leads to the wish to take revenge, to hit back.
But suppose, next day the surgeon says that the blood supply is better and there is no need for amputation. This will lead to happiness: due to avoidance of the harm and due to fulfilment of the wish to walk normally.
The important point to be noted is this: The situations leading to all the emotions may be in the surroundings. And they may or may not be under our control. But the wishes, the emotions and all thinking that leads to the emotions happen in the mind and hence, they can be controlled. If we understand the mind and all these mental events, we can modify them to our advantage. We can use this knowledge to get more happiness and peace and to minimize unhappiness.
It is important to realize that there is no direct switch-wire-bulb like connection between the situation and the mind. It is not necessary that a particular situation (e.g. you stumbling on the road) will inevitably lead to unhappiness. Suppose you are in a very good mood and you stumble. You may simply get up with a little awkwardness and resume walking happily. But on the other hand, suppose you are in a foul mood and you stumble.
You may get up scowling and cursing, “Who the hell …” Note that the problem was exactly the same: stumbling. But the emotional reactions were vastly different. So what determined the difference in emotions: the situation or the different types of thinking? Thus, if we understand the mind and the thinking, we can control what the emotional reaction will be when we face problems.
The good news is this: we are not necessarily at the mercy of the situations. We can choose whether we will be happy or unhappy when facing problems – because we can understand and control the mind.
In the subsequent pieces in this series, we will see many interesting – and useful – aspects of the mind: The “my-god-what-a-big-problem” attitude versus the “what-can-I-do-about-it” attitude, the duel between you and the problem: how one affects the other, how the emotions influence thinking and many others.
