Emotions: The Missing Link

Shatter every window 'til it's blown away.

'Til there's nothing left standing,

nothing left of yesterday.

Every tear-soaked whisked memory

blown away. Blown away!

(Carrie Underwood, Blown Away)

Buddha once stated the perhaps obvious, "The good deeds, do them, the bad, avoid them!" Righteous living is demanded by all faiths. Lord Krishna tells Arjun in the Bhagavad Gita that "he should lift up the self by the Self, and not sink into the selfish; for the self is the only friend of the Self, and its only foe." And then, of course, there was Jesus who simply stated "Get thee behind me satan!" when he was tempted to play with supernatural powers in his 40 days desert stay.

We spiritual travelers mostly know what to do because it is somehow obvious. Sure, sometimes we have to do what seems not so kosher at the first because the Way lets us know that nothing is quite as easy as it seems. But eventually we all travel the same holy pathway and meet at the same beautiful location. No, the true challenge of returning Home is the process of letting go emotionally. Stuff that has been swept under the carpet for decades, perhaps for even for lifetimes. Stuff that we projected or repressed. Fears that we are finally willing to confront, anger we are willing to admit to ourselves; guilt we release and temptations we are willing to face. It is an emotional process and no guru can help us with that personal and painful journey. We have to get it out of the system all by ourselves. 

When all the stuff comes to the surface it really hurts; it really blinds you and it tempts you to do stuff that you know is not right. When you reach this point you at least have to let the steam out. The trick is not to accumulate new karma in your interactions with others, but as far as the stuff below the surface is concerned, you have to let it come to the surface, ugly as it is. Find ways to let go. Make faces, scream, cry, do kick-boxing; allow some little dark symbols in your life from time to time. The tortured girl in Carrie's song unfortunately seems to have reached the end of a road; she believes that there is "not enough rain in Oklahoma to wash the sins away". Yes there is! There is always a way to let go. Just allow your emotions to flow and everything will work out in time.