How should we handle negative emotions during meditation?.
When your mind and heart are truly open abundance will flow to you effortlessly and easily.
Question:
“Recently, myself and my girlfriend were doing the heart meditation as described in your book The Path to Love, and during the process she experienced tremendous darkness and fear, and sadness.
Although she kept her eyes closed throughout and finished the meditation, when finally she opened her eyes she had a look of fear and terror in her eyes.
She was visibly very upset by this experience, she described it like being in hell, completely alone and lost.
Could you make some comments or offer some advice about what to do in the future and what significance does it have for a person when the message from the heart is one of such darkness, loneliness, isolation and fear.”
Response:
This meditation is designed to cultivate the ability to listen and also to help purify the emotions of the heart with dispassionate accepting attention.
As I outline in the book, this is not about sensing the purity of the heart center, it’s about feeling whatever is there.
In listening to your heart you are likely to experience a train of memories, fears, hopes, emotions, and longings.
Let the experience be whatever it is, without attachment or anxiety.
Every feeling your heart expresses during this time is valuable for this quality of release, regardless of whether the content is happy or sad.
This helps you cultivate trust in yourself to let go of repressed feelings without judgment.
In the book I use the analogy of washing the dirt from a shirt to reveal its whiteness.
The darkness and fear your girlfriend experienced was just this purification process.
By learning to witness these feelings, instead of identifying with them, she will begin to feel freedom and peace from this meditation.
Love,
Deepak
