A friend of mine asked in a Facebook update why do I feel the way I do?
That’s probably a question many of us have.
I’ll say a few words about it through the lens of Living Inquiries, since that’s what I am exploring most these days.
Through looking at the images and words connected with the sensations, and feeling the sensations, we get to see how the mind creates the experience of whatever we are feeling. We get to see and recognize the components, and how it makes up a certain experience. That’s one answer to why we are feeling the way we do.
As part of it, we get to see the many associations to the feeling, including perhaps fears or hopes about the future, and painful or joyful images about the past. We may even get some hints about how this identification (velcro) was created way back in time, perhaps even early childhood. (That’s not so important in itself, but the images, words, and sensations making up those early stories are.) That’s another answer.
Using another approach, I can see this part of my experience as a being, and have a dialog with it, or hold satsang with it. I can ask it who it is. What it’s doing here. How it sees me. How it would like me to relate to it. What would satisfy it forever. And more.
We can also answer the question other ways. For instance, whatever I am feeling is an invitation to rest with it, find love for it, and ask some simple questions about it to see what’s really there. (Especially if the experience is uncomfortable, but even when it’s not.) It’s an invitation to recognize it as an individual expression of a more universal pattern, something shared by most or (almost) all human beings, and perhaps also other beings. It’s an invitation to be more honest with myself, and perhaps others, about what’s really here. It’s an invitation to meet it with kindness in myself, and even others when I (imagine I) see it there. It’s an invitation to heal and mature.
And, it’s an expression of life. It’s life – the Universe, Existence – expressing, experiencing, and exploring itself. It’s the play of life.