Where is the anger, fear, anxiety, happiness, sadness or depression?

The simplest answer is – within us. In our minds. Not in external reality. Let’s understand this.

Imagine your favorite food item – a jar full of butter chicken or rich creamy chocolate or chole bhature. Whatever it is. Can you remember its taste and the fulfillment it provided when you had it last. You absolutely loved it, right? Now imagine having the same dish just after a personal tragedy – an ugly breakup or a bitter fight or a missed promotion. Does it still feel that delicious?

No, right! Mostly, you don’t feel like eating only at that point of time right and even if you do, it tastes like any other food item you would have had.

The butter chicken was exactly the same in reality. But it didn’t feel the same at all, right?

Because your perception was clouded by the negativity in your mind. What if exactly this phenomenon is happening with you 24 hours of the day? What if you never experience reality as it is but just respond to mental stories of reality shaped by your moods and conditioning?

Let’s take another simple answer – Imagine the person whom you love the most. Think about the romantic dinner or the last destination you travelled to with this person and thoroughly enjoyed yourself. Now, think about the ugliest fight with this same person when you asked yourself - maybe I don’t know this person!

In all probability, this same person has been the reason for the most pleasant highs and the most shattering lows in your life, right?

Again, while the easiest explanation is the person behaves differently at different times and hence you react accordingly, have you ever considered the possibility that maybe the happiness and sadness all simply arise within you depending on your expectations of how others behave?

Maybe this doesn’t make any sense or just a little bit of sense. Do you want to go a little further and do an experiment on yourself – Try this whenever you experience negative emotions and simply say them out loud to yourself and breathe!

1. Identify the negative feelings in you.

2. Understand that they are in you, not in the world, not in external reality.

3. Don’t see them as an essential part of yourself, these things come and go.

4. Understand that when you change, everything changes.     

Let me end with one more example. Imagine travelling in a train and looking outside at the trees, sky and mountains.

Unfortunately, the window is pretty dirty/foggy and you can’t see clearly. But you somehow want to go out there and change the trees/sky/mountains to make this world a better place. It won’t work, right? What is required is clarity of view – a clean window. Hopefully the above exercise helps you clear your perception a bit.

One last thing – the hazy perception isn’t your fault. You have been fed so many stories and ideologies since you were born that it was natural to develop this. But it would be great to experience reality as it actually is, right?

As the Buddha says – Peace comes from within, don’t seek it without!