Reshape Cognition Of Emotions Of Reward And Rejection
To Get Nirvana From Causality Of Gain And Loss
In understanding loneliness in new light and designing it in a positive and beneficial way, we also need to talk about our mechanism of emotions. Science clearly says, you are as lonely as you think and feel you are. Therefore, it has to be accepted that our emotional state of consciousness has got much to do with how we accept ourselves as. Emotions and cognition are inter-dependent realism for us. That is why emotional poise is so crucial for wellness. We can hit the poise if we understand the mechanism of our emotions well.
We all need to understand why poise of emotions are important in our life-living wellness scheme of things. It is also very important to know why the primary emotions of reward and rejection must not be associated exclusively or predominantly with tangibles of life. We have to accept as why it is ideal to come out of this cognition of emotions of reward and rejection, to get final emancipation (nirvana) from this causality – this cyclicality of gain and loss, reward and rejection. This emotion of reward and rejection is at the core of loneliness feelings and that is why a detailed understanding of the emotional mechanism of our body-mind structures shall help us in a big way to deftly handle loneliness.
Not many of us feel comfortable to accept ourselves as one of the many species on earth. The reality however remains that humans are also a product of millions of years of evolution and we are also largely a bio-chemical mechanism. Most of our behaviours and actions are the complex handiwork of different bio-chemicals, which we know as hormones. Evolution, as scientists accept, is a stupid engineering. It does not seek excellence but orchestrates simple patch up work to engender a species and its mechanism to barely survive. Therefore, most of our workings are simple hormonal action-reaction mechanism. The primary hormones are of reward and rejection. We all are induced to an action or behaviour because of the emotion of reward and get retracted from something because of the emotion of rejection and punishment.
Science has now begun to understand the complex functioning of hormones and how they affect our moods, our action-behaviour and overall feeling of wellness. We do not have to go into the details of different hormones and their associated emotions. But we have to understand that emotions and hormones are associated with each other in a very intricate causality. Emotions are affected by external factors in milieus and they in turn affect the secretion of hormones. The affected hormones then impact the emotions in associated way, which makes us see external factors in the milieus in an affected way.
Though it is a complex issue, involving scientific explanations, here we just simply have to understand that emotions and feelings are different entities. Emotions involve tangible and physical elements, mostly from the external milieus, we interact with. Emotions involve physical change in the environment. You see something and here comes the emotion of fear. However, what our body-mind mechanism does in response to the emotions come in the form of intangible and is known as feelings. The emotions and resultant feelings are also in a subjective causality, as they involve two different elements of tangible as well as intangible. This causality itself is very interesting and is an outcome of the causality between emotions and hormones.
For example, you once loved a person but off late, you have some troubles with that person. So, may be, when that person says something, and as you do not feel rewarded in his or her company anymore, you shall doubt his or her intentions in whatever he or she says. The words may be innocuous or even well-meant for you but as the emotion is under the influence of the feelings of doubt, you may experience unease about it. Therefore, your emotion of reward or rejection may shape and colour the factors in the external milieus. This emotion actually changes your cognition and this in turn changes the causality.
We have known earlier that scientists define loneliness subjectively, saying that you consider yourself as lonely as you feel. This feeling of loneliness is subjective because it is an outcome of the emotions you are in. When scientists insist that loneliness must be seen as an interior, subjective experience, not an external, objective condition, they wish to put the idea to the fore that your subjective emotions decide your cognition and causality, which in turn impacts your consciousness. That is why we are putting so much importance on the emotional scale on which you are. Understanding our emotions and how our hormonal mechanism impacts us can help us master the art to handle loneliness in an empowered way.
Now that we accept how important emotions are for our wellness and how hormones work in a stupid cyclicality, presiding over much of what we act and behave; we can design our life-living spheres in such a way that we remain in a perpetual state of emotional poise. We surely can rise above the cyclicality which hormones, emotions and external milieus work on us, affecting our consciousness, cognition and causality.
It is not that only modern science has made us know and accept all these. More than three thousand years back, the wise of humanity had understood that matters or any tangible entity in the external milieus have very little to do with our wellness and happiness. What mattered was the internal emotional state. There are so many intangible aspects within, which make us accept things which are tangible, in happy ways. Faith, affection, compassion, sense of mutuality, intimacy, etc are intangibles, elements of emotions, which make us accept all things tangible in external milieus positively. If we have trust, love and compassion for a person, he or she shall be in our wellness scheme of things and his or her company shall be rewarding for us. We then happily forgive and forget, even if that person has some weakness or troubled spot. As the wise say, ‘nothing is lost if love is not lost, nothing is there if love is not’.
Even in a race or a marathon, all runners may have the similar physical strength and physical training. However, that wins who has well-poised intangibles of confidence, perseverance, self-belief, etc. It is as clear as anything that it is always the intangibles of life-living experiences, which are decisive elements and factors in our cognition – the way we see and accept things in external milieu as well as within. That is why, we need to understand, whether it is love, sex or loneliness feelings, the ruling elements of cognition of the realism are always intangibles – those elements, which are in our mind consciousness, not real but virtual. That is why, in all these aspects of life, the wellness, happiness, satisfaction, worthiness, utility etc are all in our side – within us, within our mind consciousness, which is a virtual agency. In a very limited way, the persons, who are objects or subjects of our desires, are responsible for our wellness.
That is why the wise in all ages and all fields of wisdom insist that happy and settled people must always align their wellness to intangibles of life and never the tangibles or material. The material entities may give you initial thrill, but never the lasting sense of wellness and satisfaction. That is why we said in the start of this chapter that it is important that the primary emotions of reward and rejection must not be associated with tangibles of life. It is ideal to come out of this cognition of emotions of reward and rejection, based on material attainments, to get final emancipation (nirvana) from this causality – this cyclicality of gain and loss, reward and rejection.
We need to accept and internalize the fact that whether we feel rewarded or rejected, it has got much to do with how we accept these external factors. When we felt rewarded, the external elements – like a good friend, lover, neighbour, etc, too were just the objects, not the subjects as the real subject is the ‘I’, our own mind consciousness, who had this subjective cognition to accept it as some happy and rewarding thing. The emotions of reward were a mechanism of our body-mind structures as the hormones released in our body signalled the mind consciousness to feel rewarded. If the hormones were not there, you would not have felt the same.
So, the crucial point is – the mechanism of cognition, this subjective sense or feeling of being either rewarded or rejected is inside us. External factors in milieus outside us are just the objects. The real subject of our action and behaviour is within us. And, this cognition is a virtual function – a process involving intangibilities of mind consciousness. This mind consciousness we can master to not only reverse the cognition of reward or rejection, but also accept them in equanimity. This is crucial.
Be it science, or spiritualism of all times, the wise have insisted that this equanimity in its holistic cognition and causality is the most desired intangibility for the attainment of this very endowed and empowered higher consciousness. The Buddhist teachings, the Zen masters, the ancient Indian spiritual traditions, all in unison speak about the attainment of true and real possession of life – this equanimity and poise of purpose.
In modern scientific terminology of 3Cs, it is the same. Science says, consciousness is a virtual agency. It is a bridge between the body and mind. That is why consciousness always aligns with intangibles of life-living experiences for lasting wellness, happiness and satisfaction. The tangibles give only momentary thrill but ultimately become the causality of pain and loneliness.
There is this very pragmatic and self-evident realism that the powerful energy of joy in consumption and resultant emotion of being rewarded is entwined with its end in pain, discontinuity and ultimate sense of regret. There is this famous metaphor of equating it with the joy of itching. It starts with so much pleasure when we scratch an itch. If we continue with it, it finally ends up in sharp pain and even bleeding in very short time.
The idea is that the very core and perennial realization of painful mortality and regret of any gratification joy or rewarding feeling from consumption of material things, even while we are at the peak of its enjoyment, is there from the very start. The fruit of gratification and reward has seeds of pain and regret of its inevitable discontinuity loaded within it.
This is a simple causality, which we all see and can easily accept, about the modern cognitive sense about contemporary life-living in clutter culture. The more we indulge into material things, like connecting physically to the clutter culture, consuming more, mad multitasking, having more sex, etc, more lonely and rejected we feel. The more you scratch an itch, more initial joys and more ultimate pain and regret. The reward of tangibles ends in rejection feelings and ultimate pain of loneliness.
In the next chapter, we shall discuss in details as how science as well as all spiritual traditions advise us to accept a new higher consciousness, which shall have this ideal cognition for a wellness causality, leading us to the very desired equanimity and poise situation.
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