Because we are so identified & addicted with mind-thinking it creates a phantom self, the “ego”. To the ego, the present moment hardly exists, only past & future are important. The thinking in the present is only based on the past or future, in fact, only past, as our future is merely a re-creation of what one has gone through in the past.
Emotion is the body’s reaction to your mind. It arises at the place where mind & body meet. For example, a hostile thought will create a build-up of energy is the body that we call “anger”. The thought that you are being threatened, physically or psychologically, results in emotion called “fear”. The more you are identified with thinking, the stronger your emotional charge will be. If you have learnt to keep yourself off from your emotions, eventually you will experience them as a physical problem, or disease. Ultimately most diseases are caused because you are at dis-ease with something, resulting in long lasting emotions. All emotions are modifications of only one root emotion “Fear”. It can also be called “pain”. There are two levels of your pain: That you create now & one created from the past. Pain is inevitable as long as you are identified with your mind. Most part of pain is unnecessary as it is self-created through unobserved mind running our life.
Mind created “ego”, The phantom self, it tends to protect you through the creation of ego, the feeling of “I”. The only way it can protect is by creating a feeling you are “Threatened” in some way…… and then finding “solution” to that “threat”. It is like a child creating a phantom situation of “war” through his plastic sword and toy solders that in reality are only toys & not real. But the creation of “ego” gives enough energy and occupation to the mind to keep working, its only requirement for survival. That keeps us in the world of duality, pleasure and pain, happiness & sorrow.
– Extract from “The Power of Now” Author: Eckhart Tolle
