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Extreme Veteran
Posts: 399
 
Location: Oregon | planthelper: I find this highly egotistical and at best not well thought through, being that many of the older teachings point to the mind as the key to freedom from emotional response and effect.
Would you care to give a couple of cites? I'm not well read, just curious. |
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| planthelper - 2007-06-18 2:41 PM
This only confirms what i am trying to convey in my previous post ,which is: the mind is the source of and also the key to releasing and overcoming emotion.
Hi planthelper,
If this quote summarises your arguement then I completely agree with you.
Meditation is certainly the best practise for stilling the mind, which in turn may cause the release of negative emotions.
Though also in my experience, emotions may be held in the body as well.
Jonathon
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| Hi Yogis,
I think we can only speak from our own experience. All else is hearsay with no real proof. We have to come to understanding through our own experiences and find out for ourselves. Taking information from magazine articles and books and believing it all can cause such a mishmash of information in the mind, like this article:
http://www.yogajournal.com/practice/806_1.cfm
To me this is quite insane. Just a mix of information from the outside with no real deep investigation. I only trust and feel to listen to those who feel like they speak from experience rather than intellectual knowledge. The difference to me is very clear.
From experience, when an emotion has arisen and I have gotten caught up in it, the body tenses up, the blood and prana flow is less and toxins are formed. The memory of tension is also engraved in the cells. The emotion has transformed(everything transforms it doesn't 'store') into a physical blockage and the emotion from that time on has gone.
When I practice asana or get body work done, the physical blockage the emotion has caused gets somewhat released as fresh prana and blood move through that area.
Now, the emotion that caused the physical blockage will come up again when a situation similar to the one that caused the blockage comes again. Then it is up to me to not react, if I am aware enough, so that that emotion does not cause further blockage in the physical body. Emotion may also come up without a situation like the one that caused the blockage in the physical body. It may come up with thought or memory. This can happen at any time, especially when one is quiet and undistracted.
This is my experience. I urge you to look for yourselves and be honest. After all isn't the yogic process about exploring and looking and awareness. Why just take other peoples words for truth?
Like I mentioned already, I have massage almost 5000 people and never has anyone had an "emotional release", They have had physical release which was caused by emotion.
For the yogis that have studied about the koshas, emotion is part of the manomaya kosha, not the annamaya kosha. This is quoting old yogic teachings. This I experience to be true. I have not felt emotion to be stored in the physical/ Annamaya kosha. Therefore emotions are not 'stored' in the muscles.
Peace,
Soul
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| dmbones - 2007-06-10 5:31 AM
In Rolfing, classically the fifth session (of ten) involves deep work in the interior throat. It is not unusual for the person being treated to experience a sense of deep emotion during this session, often accompanied by a feeling of having to vomit. But what arises is not vomitus, but a "ball of emotion" as it is commonly expressed. It's as if the emotions we've swallowed are a physical thing that is released during the session. When we are touched in places that hold body emotions, they often come forward, if we are able to let them.
Michael
This is the body's response of survival. If someone gets into your throat, it's natural that an emotion will come up. As I see it this has nothing to do with past emotions being "stored" in the throat and then "released", with this body work. It is a natural response,in the moment , for emotion to come up to try and get the person out of your throat. The throat is very sensitive and of course we'll freak out if someone tries to constrict the flow of breath. If someone grabs you by the throat do you "Oh I've just got emotion coming up from the past from my mother not letting me speak"? ...Really? Has this been investigated enough?
Peace,
Soul
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| jonnie - 2007-06-17 1:08 AM
Hi planthelper,
If this quote summarises your arguement then I completely agree with you.
Meditation is certainly the best practise for stilling the mind, which in turn may cause the release of negative emotions.
Though also in my experience, emotions may be held in the body as well.
Jonathon
Hmmm well, i a little confused here, if you agree with this excerpt which if applied to this particular subject being that:
The primary disease in the mind: emotional reaction, which we have all experienced as truth.
The secondary disease of the body : being that of tension and toxins accumulating in the body from experiencing the emotion in the mind, which i believe we have all experienced as truth.
At no point are they saying that the primary disease enters the physical body, only the side effect or secondary disease manifests in a physical form(read the rest of the passage in the link i provided). If emotion was stored in the body that would mean i would feel emotion's such as anger,hate,love,sadness fear etc until I did asana to release it. This i have not experienced that as truth ,I cannot speak for others.
Swami Sivananda reminds us, 'If you can conquer the mind, the body will become your slave.' was also something i quoted for very good reason, for if you require asana to release you from the primary disease of emotion, the mind will become a slave to the body.....or so it seems to me. Emotions come and go a are a product of the mind, yoga is observing those emotions and not identifying with them ,this is truth.
Emotion is a thought process ...Aotearoa who started this thread is a good example of this process happening:
At first it was okay-ish but earlier today I had a breakdown. I don't know what came over me but a lot of things must have come together and resulted in my crying like a baby. All of a sudded these bizarre thoughts were in my head and utterly annoyed me, for instance the coldness of the room, the fluffy carpet, the slippery mat, the fact that nothing really worked and I thought I had taken more than one step back and the realisation that there are things I will simply never be able to do physically.
I don't see her saying that she was with a blank mind breathing deeply in a posture where these emotions came out on their own accord. I can see her leading herself into a state of mind where she would be easily overcome by emotion. She should try and make it part of her practice not to identify with these thoughts..they are not who she is...........instead of encouraging such ways of identifying with the mind and being over come with emotion, kulkarn already pointed this out and IMo is the best answer provided, if not the shortest and most direct.
Dj Dre :soul has provided a very good reference in the manomaya kosha and the annamaya kosha to what we are talking about...cheers soul , would also recomend papaji or Sri Nisargadatta..when i said old i didn't necessarily mean ancient.
whirled peas |
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| DJ Dre - 2007-06-19 1:04 AM
planthelper: I find this highly egotistical and at best not well thought through, being that many of the older teachings point to the mind as the key to freedom from emotional response and effect.
Would you care to give a couple of cites? I'm not well read, just curious.
Continuing this investigation...
From B.K.S Iyengar 'Light on Yoga' p.36 :
"The practice of asana tones the entire body and removes the toxins and impurities caused by over-indulgence. Pranayama cleanses and aerates the lungs, oxygenates the blood and purifies the nerves. But more important than the physical cleansing of the body is the cleansing of the mind of its disturbing emotions like hatred, passion, anger, lust, greed, delusion and pride. Still more important is the cleansing of the intellect (buddhi) of impure thoughts."
Iyengar mentions cleansing of four of the koshas (sheaths) one by one...Annamaya kosha, Pranamaya kosha, Manomaya kosha, Vijnanamaya kosha. He mentions the cleansing of the emotions occurs in the mind/manomaya kosha.
If we are present and an emotion comes, we see it tenses the body, then it passes. Where did it go? If it was stored in the physical body, we would continue to experience that emotion. But it is not. It is stored in the mind, latent ,a vasana.
Seems it's only planthelper who understands this or has really investigated this. I urge all yogis to explore this within their own being, for themselves.
I think I have communicated the best I can on this topic. 
Om Shantih,
Soul |
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Extreme Veteran
Posts: 399
Location: Oregon | Souljourney, planthelper... thankyou for sharing your thoughts on this. It's certainly given me something to think about. As a person who hasn't been uncomfortable expressing or being emotional, I've spent the last few years understanding more about how others view emotion or the strength of mine. It can be invasive or uncomfortable for others to witness. For some, it represents a lack of control, lack of composure or weakness. It is a storm.
I know that for me or the way I've viewed it, it's a healthy outlet not to be repressed. But mine has spilled out in such an untidy manner at times in the last few years. Have I always been that way, or was it because of long neglect? I'm definitely looking at it from a different perspective. Still, it seems almost the ultimate in ego to suggest that one can have freedom from emotional response and effect.
Limiting emotions or not allowing them to make one miserable, sure. But to suggest emotional reaction is akin to a disease? I dunno, I'm going to have to think about that.
Edited by DJ Dre 2007-06-21 12:51 PM
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| DJ Dre - 2007-06-22 2:47 AM
Souljourney, planthelper... thankyou for sharing your thoughts on this. It's certainly given me something to think about. As a person who hasn't been uncomfortable expressing or being emotional, I've spent the last few years understanding more about how others view emotion or the strength of mine. It can be invasive or uncomfortable for others to witness. For some, it represents a lack of control, lack of composure or weakness. It is a storm.
I know that for me or the way I've viewed it, it's a healthy outlet not to be repressed. But mine has spilled out in such an untidy manner at times in the last few years. Have I always been that way, or was it because of long neglect? I'm definitely looking at it from a different perspective. Still, it seems almost the ultimate in ego to suggest that one can have freedom from emotional response and effect.
Limiting emotions or not allowing them to make one miserable, sure. But to suggest emotional reaction is akin to a disease? I dunno, I'm going to have to think about that.
Hi Andre,
This thread is now changing from emotions supposedly coming out of the muscles with body work to how to deal with emotions. I'm happy with that.
Which emotion are you speaking of when you say some people are uncomfortable around it? Anger, sadness?
In the past I too was very emotional. It didn't matter where I was..I couldn't hide it.Couldn't pretend.
I agree too that it is possible to have 'freedom from emotional response and effect'. I am watching myself become more and more free as I keep practicing being present, watching the cause of suffering, which I clearly see to be the mind.
Two years ago I spent four nights in a cave in the hills, meditating.Not long really, but long enough to observe something clearly. When I went back into the local town, I bumped into a friend and she (unconsciously) threw a subtle attack my way by saying I looked vague. I felt pain in my stomach and then consciously decided not to go into any thought about what she said and I noticed the pain left quickly. In the past I would of, unconsciously, kept thinking about what she said and this would keep the pain going, until I had created emotion over it. I saw very clearly, that me holding onto thoughts keeps the pain/emotion going.
This is how we have to keep practicing with emotions. Doesn't mean we have to stay around abuse though. When we respond like this, I have found, often, the action taken is to move away from abusive people. But I move from unemotional , no energy lost, being.
All I can suggest is keep your practices up, of being in the moment , keep developing awareness in the present moment, so you eventually get to a point where you see each thought so clearly and feel what the effect is in the body (emotion). When there is strong emotion go straight to it , in the body, let go of the thoughts, that have to do with it or other people or what the story is...
There is nothing wrong with feeling emotions, and there is a point we can abide in where we don't suppress or express the emotion. We witness. It is not who we are. The body and mind and feelings are not who we are. I still don't live this in every moment, but in so many more moments than I ever did, and the joy of this is too big to describe, So much better that the up and down of emotions.
Of course if we have identified with being an 'emotional person' a long time, we will hold onto thoughts such as "it seems like ultimate ego to suggest that one can have freedom from emotional response and effect" as you stated...well i see it's not you, but the mind trying to really hold onto this emotional way of being. Do you want freedom?
I wish You freedom.
Soul
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| According to Hinduism and Buddhism, the mind is a sense organ therefore, subject to "disease".
In this context, it is the false sense of separateness, of duality.
THE SIX ORGANS OF SENSE.
Translated from the Samyutta-Nikâya (xii.211).
"And what, O priests, are the six organs of sense?
Eye, ear, nose, tongue, body, and mind--these, O priests, are called the six organs of sense."
O son of Kunti, the nonpermanent appearance of heat and cold, happiness and distress, and their disappearance in due course, are like the appearance and disappearance of winter and summer seasons. They arise from sense perception, O son of Bharata, and one must learn to tolerate them without being disturbed.
-- Bhagavad Gita 2.14
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| i've seen responses like that, particularly in backbends, when students are encouraged to 'open their hearts'
OrangeMat - 2007-06-16 10:07 AM tourist - 2007-06-16 10:22 AM I have not seen this happen and I think it is more rare than we are led to believe. I have, however, heard first hand reports from very reliable sources (the patient, not the practitioner) about it. I agree that the distraction free environment etc. may be part of the answer as far as body work goes, but it doesn't really explain some of the events that happen in the midst of an active asana class. I'm always reminded of the movie "Pleasantville", where how only some people could see that the world really was in color, though with a bit of coaxing and openmindedness, others could see the color (i.e. truth) as well. So once this capacity is cultivated sufficiently, it could happen even in active poses as well, yes? I really doubt I'm the only "weird" one that's had energetic releases in poses like anjaneyasana, urdhva dhanurasana, pigeon, fish, to name a few. I think it's more that people just don't talk about it. Weirdness, is, well, just weird. |
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All emotional
