Why do we get angry? Or sad? Or jealous?
These are all emotions of the mind, as we know them. And we think our minds are making us emotional.
But if we stop to think why this happens, we’ll realize it is largely because of a conflict that occurs between our hearts and our minds.
When you have to leave for an important meeting and your lunchbox packing has got delayed, it instantly results in an expression of anger. But the emotion comes not because we are angry by nature, but because a situation has presented itself whereby our reaction is one where temper levels have shot up. The heart is chilled out most of the time, but given that the mind has seen a potentially troublesome scenario, it has dragged the heart into behaving angrily.
Most important is the need to stop reacting. Reacting clouds the intellect and kills any discriminative ability. According to Swami Niranjananda of the Bihar School of Yoga, we must substitute reaction with involvement. Remain involved, be in a flow state, experience the unpleasantness of what is happening, but do not react. Won’t happen in a day, but worth working towards, for me at least!