Question: I have been meditating for years, and yet I get negative feelings like anger, jealousy, irritation.
I know they are wrong, and I want to stop them; but I can’t. I practice forgiveness, both for myself and the person I got angry at, but wonder why these feelings arise in the first place. Is my meditation not working? Am I doing something wrong? Should I meditate more?
Teacher: No. You are doing nothing wrong.
It is a mistake to think that if you just meditate enough, you will become holy, Jesus or Buddha like. That’s not how meditation works, and neither is it the goal of meditation.
You say you practice forgiveness. I say, you need to practice it more, but in the other direction. What does that mean? Let me explain in a second.
Say you have a gun, and you threaten to shoot someone if they don’t do what you tell them to. Is this a form of violence? Yes, everyone would agree.
What about if you turn the gun to YOUR OWN HEAD, and threaten to shoot yourself if other people don’t behave like you want. Is this still violence?
Yes, no matter what you think. Violence is violence whether you do it to others or your own self.
You say you are angry / irritated etc. Let me ask you this: Have you ever tried forgiving yourself?
I bet you haven’t. You must have heard of acceptance, how you need to live in the moment, accept what is, etc etc.
What most people don’t realise is, this includes your mental or spiritual level AT THE MOMENT.
If you are angry, that’s what you are. If you get irritated easily, that’s what your nature is. You need to accept that. Doesn’t mean you don’t try to change, but most people confuse change for self shaming and self attack.
Ultimately, while you are stuck in human form, you are bound by the laws of the human form. You will get angry / irritated / jealous. Your body will never be as sexy as you want it to be. You can try to improve, but you have to ACCEPT WHAT YOU ARE NOW before you can change.
You say you get angry? So what? That’s to be human. Forgive yourself. Forgive your humanness, your imperfections. Forgive who you are today, and focus on what you can, what YOU WILL become.
Ultimately, it is impossible to overcome human limitations. You will never completely let go of what you call “negative feelings”. What you can do is transcend them.
Once you learn to go beyond the mind, by meditation, or any other spiritual practice like self enquiry, the problems of the mind will fall away. Anger, irritation, uncontrolled sex desire, jealousy, fear, disgust: These all exist in the mind, and the mind alone.
Once you master the mind, once you realise you are not the thinking stream, you will no longer be bound by the limitations of the mind.
It is like a caterpillar ashamed of its tiny ugly body. Once it become a butterfly, the problem is transcended. The caterpillar part still exists in the butterfly; the butterfly isn’t something new that is created. Just that the old problems the caterpillar had no longer apply. The butterfly has gone beyond the tiny problems of the caterpillar.
You are not who you think you are. You are a seed, from which one day a great tree will grow. The problems of the seed are not important, as they will not last long. Why worry about something that will die soon?
Until then, have some compassion towards yourself. Show some kindness to yourself that you show to others. Remember, you are not perfect, but you are not meant to be.
You find perfection by transcending the human experience, not by getting stuck in it.
Learn to Love, Forgive, and most important, Move on.
