Achieving Emotional Fulfillment

Dear All,

You may not have paid much attention to this before, but your emotions are connected with your breathing which is why any emotional response you have to anything will also have a physical manifestation. For example, if a person is sad they may cry or if they are happy they may smile.

Within the subtle body the emotions ('manas') are related to your left-side and the physical responses('prana' - breath) are related to your right-side. In order to achieve meditation we have to be centered, which means that somehow the left & right-sides have to be 'dissolved' ('laya').

When the emotions, which can be viewed as unfulfilled wishes, are dissolved, then their underlying causes can be resolved. By this means, it is possible to achieve emotional fulfillment as a result of meditation.

Shri Mataji explains how in this 7 minute video clip : Emotional fulfillment  .

For anyone involved in Drama/Theatre/Dance the notes below may be of interest.

See you at group meditation on Tuesday.

Regards

ps previous week emails >>>>

Notes:

The above two panels are two different portrayals in Indian classical dance (bharatha natyam) of the nine universal sentiments or human emotions (Navarasa) : 1.Delight/Love 2.Laughter 3.Compassion 4.Wonder 5.Disgust 6.Bravery 7.Anger 8.Fear 9.Peace/Meditation/Fulfillment - Navarasa is the basis of aesthetic theory in Indian Art and has it's clearest expression in the dramatic arts - see Urmila Satyanarayan  As Shakespeare said: " All the world's a stage, and all men and women are merely players/actors" , which means emotions(left-side/manas) play a large part in our motivations and  aspirations ie how we act(right-side/prana) on our emotions or give physical expression to them.
The contemplative ancient sages of India got there first but the Russians followed. It seems that the long Russian winters coupled with the strictures of communism caused some introspective Russians to look for some meaning to life in their own mental and emotional reactions to the outer world. One such person was Dostoevsky . From Dostoevsky a line of influence can be drawn to Stanislavski and from him to the Method Acting teachers in America who influenced the 'greats' of American cinema: Marlon Brando , Robert de Niro, Al Pacino ('The Italian Street Actors') . America won the space race but Russia, via cinema, may have helped lay the foundations of American popular culture which has influenced the rest of the world. But, as with many things found in it's pristine form in ancient India, it's modern re-discovery in another place can be incomplete and  slightly deformed. So although the concept of Catharsis , the emotional resolution after dramatic tension is understood and used, the spiritual form of this, 'Shanti'/peace/meditation/self-realisation , which was the ultimate goal of all human life , according to the Indian sages, was missing.

'Lotus Feet' - referred to in video clip

The kundalini rising up and merging into the Sahasrara chakra is sometimes described by the analogy of a river flowing back into the sea. The point of contact between the river and the sea is called the 'mouth' of the river . With the kundalini, the meeting point is described as the Lotus 'feet' . Since this concept was too abstract and difficult to relate to, the first practitioners of sahaja yoga meditation, mainly in India, projected this onto the person of Shri Mataji or her photograph and discovered something real was happening in their meditation as a result. Not just one person,but many people experienced this. This is how they concluded that  Shri Mataji must be something great.