Emotions: driving force of our life

Emotions generally drive our life. The strongest emotion is the fear to lose the body. There are very few emotions that can withstand this emotion. If a person is hungry or ill or suffering from any chronic disease, it's very difficult to find pleasure in any activity. Love for the family members such as kids and parents is also an equally strong emotion. If they are facing either physical or emotional troubles, it's very difficult for a person to find pleasure in any activity. Approval and validation from society are other very strong emotions. The fear of losing respect or fame is a very powerful emotion and decides many of our life decisions.

Emotions play such a powerful role in our life because we identify too strongly with our bodies. Our primary life goal is to preserve this body. Family provides a great support system to this body and that is the reason why family becomes the center of our existence. For the safety and comforts of this body, we are also dependent upon society, and therefore society also takes center stage in our existence.

We can see very clearly that the center of our entire existence is our body and the rest of the emotions are just supporting this:

1. In the event of vital organ failure of a close family member including the kids and parents, there would be few willing to donate the vital organ. There would be even fewer to endanger their own lives to ensure the survival of the family members.
2. In many cases where a person develops a huge desire for money (primarily because he sees money as strong means to ensure survival and comfort of the body), he leaves the relatives and the community also for the money.
3. In many cases, the fixation on the beliefs and traditions grows so strong that few people are not able to forgive their family members for the violation of these traditions and beliefs.
4. In many cases, people pretend to be following the social norms due to the fear of social disapproval, while actually in spirit they do not follow the social rules or traditions.

So, the center of existence is our body and the family and society become ways and means to ensure its safety and comfort. However, on the other hand, there are cases where the body becomes secondary and the family or society or the nation becomes primary. We know cases of freedom fighters sacrificing their life for the freedom of a nation. We know many persons giving away their life to save the life of a family member. We even know some human beings save the life of fellow human beings at the cost of their lives.

It's interesting to see what is happening in these cases. I feel that it's not possible unless the center of our existence shifts from the body to the consciousness, our life is driven by the body, and emotions centered around the prevention, preservation, and comfort of this body. Till that time we can only substitute one emotion for the other. At different points in time, health, wealth, family, relations, society, organization or the nation gets priority. However, the center of our life remains self. As we grow in physical age with self as the center of existence, the gravity of our fixations increases and we become more fearful and anxious.

On the other hand, few of us start realizing the futility of at least a few of the layers of this self. For some, the approval of the society becomes irrelevant and they learn to take decisions that may not be approved by the society. For some, even love with family members no longer remains a driving force. Such persons may become too obsessed with their bodily comforts or their own interests and hobbies. In such cases, their overall fixation with their body and its comforts is on the rise while such fixation has confined to a small area of self.

On the other hand, there may be few who drop the attachment to the society or the family or in extreme cases, even the body as they become aware of their true nature of consciousness. The fixations with the social approval and validations start feeling meaningless. The comforts and pleasures of the body also start making not much sense. One starts realizing that even the family members are connected to each other with an objective to maximize the pleasure and since these pleasures start losing their value, the strong family bonds also start losing their strength (either as a natural reaction of the family members or the unwillingness to indulge with them on part of such person). There is a growing realization of the true nature and with that growing realization, the identification with the community, society, family, etc seems to be too artificial to invoke any interest.

In this state, such a person slowly starts making more and more efforts to be aware of its true nature and remain in that state of awareness, and carry out day-to-day activities with that state of awareness. That internal connection starts giving enough joy to make the pleasure from the social approval, and the support of the family, and the bodily comforts fade away and tasteless.