Sensitivity, feelings, thoughts and emotions are different terms which we may use without being very clear in ourselves about what they really mean. For example, we use terms like sensitivity, feelings and emotions interchangeably in many ways. It’s important that I define what I mean when I use these terms, in the context of this post, so that there is no ambiguity in your understanding of this explanation on emotions.
Sensitivity – It’s the capacity in you to sense, or be aware, of something, be it a thought, emotion or a feeling. This term is used to refer to the inherent capacity in you, as life-form, to “sense”.
Feelings – Colloquially, the term “feelings” is used interchangeably with emotions. However, in the context of this post, what I define as feelings are the various “inputs” you are capable of obtaining through your body – a human body has the capacity for tactile sense (sense of touch), auditory sense (sense of hearing), visual sense (sense of seeing), olfactory sense (sense of smell), gustatory sense (sense of taste) and emotional sense (sense of emotions inside the body). So basically, feelings are just the “inputs” that you can sense, for example you can feel cold/hot because of your tactile sense (coldness touches you or heat touches you), you can feel “sad” because of your emotional sense where you can sense this emotion of sadness possibly created by a present thought that creates a perception of sadness (or possibly due to the surfacing of a “stored-up” emotion created by a past thought of sadness).
There is also another sensitivity we have, as life-energy, which is “thought sense” (or sensing a thought). A thought-sense may or may not create a feeling, for example when you think of a lemon it may not create any feeling, but when you think of eating a lemon it can create a feeling of its taste. So a thought-sense is a sensitivity we have, but it may or may not create a “feeling” – this is why all sensitivities are not automatically feelings.
Emotion – When a thought creates a feeling in the body it’s called emotion. Emotion is a physical/bodily experience of a thought. Basically, intense/strong emotions are “unnecessary” and are the reason for 99% of physical suffering in the body, the rest 1% may be physical suffering created through some physical damage/injury. You can “think” without creating any significantly felt emotions – this may be a revelation to many, because usually we assume that a certain thinking will create a certain emotion, however thinking doesn’t have to create emotions. Only when your mind has a high momentum/intensity, where it can create thoughts with high amplitude, can it create resistance in your energy field, which is felt like a physical sensation (input felt by your emotional sense) – this physical sensation of resistance, created by a thought, is what we call emotion. Basically, emotion cannot be created without “resistance”.
You may ask – what about good emotions? Basically, there is no such thing as “good emotions”, there is only a state of absence of resistance/emotion which feels good, that’s all – it feels good because there is no resistance; so emotions cannot create a good feeling, rather it’s the absence of emotions that feels good. Remember that by “emotion” I just mean the physical (or bodily) sense of a thought, however a thought can only create a physical sensation when it has a high momentum/intensity – emotions are not necessary at all. For example, you can have a sad thought without “feeling” sadness in your body, without feeling this emotion called sadness – so in this case you are “sensitive” to a circumstance, and you are sad about it in your thoughts, but you are not feeling the emotion of sadness in your body, your body stays resistance-free. This is what I mean by the state of unwavering peace.
Thought – thought is an idea, perception, interpretation or an imagination. Life-energy is capable of “thinking”, just like life-energy is capable of being sensitive– it’s an intelligent energy. So thinking and being sensitive are two inherent natures/potentials of life-energy. Thought, when it happens, creates a form – this form is initially just a very lose non-physical form. However, focusing on a thought causes its condensation, it starts becoming “solid”. When a thought gathers “momentum”, it has a sense of solidity to it, where it can be “felt” more intensely. So in a human being (a form of life-energy), when a thought has a momentum/intensity, it can be felt through the emotional sense. In order to have an intense thought one needs to create momentum on that thought through “focus” – a lot of thoughts in a human being have a strong momentum because of their past/present focus on it. These high momentum thoughts can now create emotions which can get stored-up when they are not allowed a release (you can think of it as thought energy getting stored up in the body). This store-up of emotions creates more and more blockages (sense of congestion) in the body until it hits a high threshold where it becomes very painful for the body to tolerate emotions – now these high momentum thoughts are felt even more painfully because the body is already high on stored-up emotions.
Freedom from the resistance of emotions
Basically, as a human, what you desire is a state where you are free of the “emotional impact” of a thought, so that you can think without feeling the “bodily suffering” – like you can think about an insult without feeling the bodily reaction/pain created by the emotion of it. It’s like having an inner anesthesia to thoughts – you can imagine what a relief it is, it’s like the difference between doing a root canal (at the dentist) with anesthesia and without anesthesia.
If a thought does not create an emotional impact, you are already free of being afraid of that thought and you are also not in a state of inner resistance, and hence open to inner guidance/inspiration/wisdom – it may be a revelation to realize that our greatest fear is about the “emotional sense” created by a thought rather than the thought itself; for example claustrophobia is basically a condition where you think about being in an enclosed area and this thought creates a thought of “survival threat” of being in such a space (basically due to a fearful perception, possibly created due to some bad memory of closed spaces in the past), and this thought has so much momentum/intensity (due to your mind’s focus on it) that it creates a strong resistance in the body, what’s called the emotion of fear, and it is this feeling of resistance, in the body, which is really “uncomfortable” – it’s this feeling (created by the emotion) that you start trying to avoid, and hence keep away from situations that cause this phobia thought. If this feeling could be removed totally, you can have a fear of closed spaces (as a thought) but you won’t feel the bodily discomfort of this fear. What’s the advantage? Well, when you are free of the “emotion”, it gives you more freedom to live and even explore the fear, for example when you are free of the feeling of “nervousness” created by the thought of talking on a stage (stage-fright), you can still have fear of the stage (as a thought) but without this feeling of nervousness you feel more confident to talk on the stage.
To realize that it’s not the thought but the emotion created by the thought that’s the main cause of being anxious, of being disconnected from your inner wisdom, of exhibiting limiting behavior, of avoiding a certain situational responsibility, or the cause of denying a desired experience (like you may desire to bungee jump but are afraid of “intense” physical feeling of the fear created when you contemplate the jump or you may desire to go to a party but are afraid of the physical feeling of nervousness created by a thought about people watching/judging you). Basically, a lot of people who do the dare-devil stunts are the ones who’ve released the momentum/intensity of fearful thoughts, through the practice of “allowing” the release (sometimes without knowing about the mechanics of this practice), and hence don’t “feel” the emotions like fear, in an intense way, in their body. When you are free of emotions you are not a prisoner to a limiting thought, and thus, you can totally go ahead with what you want to do rather than be afraid of the sensations of an emotion like fear, sadness, guilt, nervousness, anger etc.
Being free of emotions is the state of inner wholeness
Basically, in a nut-shell, this whole state that spiritual teachers keep talking about of “inner freedom” (or what I call inner wholeness) is just a state of being free of emotions, that’s all. You can have all the “enlightenment” (mental understanding of life, like oneness, creator potential, understanding of mind, understanding of negativity etc), but if you are not free of emotions you can’t really be free enough to live the way you want because you will be constantly impeded by the fear of emotions – pain of any form is a survival threat to the mind, and it will keep you from doing anything that can create pain, so until you are free of emotions your mind will stop you from doing anything that creates emotions, including the things that you really want to do (like talking to this girl/guy you really dig, but feel tongue-tied because of the emotion of nervousness in your body created by the thought of being rejected). So, if you want to live life more fully, you need to be free of emotions. In fact, you can’t truly align with the inspiration of your life-stream, or its moment to moment guidance, unless you are free of the resistance of emotions. Being free of emotions is the state you reach through the “release” created by coming to a state of total allowing until the momentum of your mind ebbs away – it’s only through, a “conscious”, total allowing that a release of momentum take place permanently, there really isn’t any other short cut.
(Read these posts if you want a deeper understanding of the state of allowing – Reaching a place of total allowing, healing the imbalance, reducing mind momentum is the key, realizing suppressed energy and the power of allowing).
In the context of how I’ve defined “emotions”, I hope you realize that being free of emotions does not mean you become “insensitive”, because you still have your “thought-sense”. You can have thoughts of empathy, compassion, grief etc without “feeling” its physical impact and thus be resistance-free within, and thus not disturb the inner harmony of your body’s energy-field, and also not disconnect from your inner guidance/wisdom/inspiration. It’s because people don’t understand the difference between “thought-sense” and “emotions” that they think that being free of emotions will make you “cold” or “inhuman” – you have your human thoughts, like love-attraction, sexuality, fear, dislike, interest, empathy, sadness, guilt, anger etc but without the emotions of it in your body – hence they don’t impact/overwhelm you like before, neither do they cloud your wisdom through their intensity.
Being free of emotions does change your attitude towards life in a huge way – it can change many perceptions/beliefs/desires in you, it can change how you engage with your surroundings, it can change your preferences/interests etc, but the bottom-line is that you are no longer moving from a place of being a prisoner to a thought. For example, you can have a thought of sexual nature (like when you see a hot girl/guy), but you are not gripped by the emotion of sexuality to the point where you do something that you regret later, basically your wisdom prevails under all situations – you stop being a prisoner to anything, while also having the freedom to explore anything with a wisdom; Also, in this place you understand what it means to desire without craving, you can have a desire without the emotion/resistance created by the thought of its lack and hence are in a stronger place to manifest the desire. In truth, strong behavior/attitude of “neediness” is mostly created because of emotions, where we try to cling to a source that gives us a temporary freedom from some emotions like loneliness, sadness, sexuality, anxiousness etc – when you are free of emotions you have freedom to be internally “stable” and, thus, not move from a place of desperation.