Dealing With the Strong Emotions

Dealing with Strong Emotions -
By OSHO

When a mood against some­one or for some­one arises, do not place it on the per­son in ques­tions, but remain centered.
If hate arises for some­one or against some­one, or love arises for some­one, what do we do? We project it on the per­son. If you feel hate toward me, you for­get your­self com­pletely in your hate; only I become your object. If you feel love toward me, you for­get your­self com­pletely; only I become the object. You project your love or hate or what­so­ever upon me. You for­get com­pletely the inner cen­ter of your being; the other becomes the center.
This sutra says when hate arises or love arises, or any mood for or against any­one, do not project it on the per­son in ques­tion. Remem­ber, you are the source of it.
I love you — the ordi­nary feel­ing is that you are the source of my love. That is not really so. I am the source, you are just a screen on which I project my love.
You are just a screen; I project my love on you and I say that you are the source of my love. This is not fact, this is fic­tion. I draw my love energy and project it onto you. In that love energy pro­jected onto you, you become love­able. You may ot be love­able to some­one else, you may be absolutely repul­sive to some­one else.
Why?
If you are the source of love then every­one will feel lov­ing toward you, but you are not the source.
I project love, then you become love­able; some­one projects hate, then you become repul­sive. And some­one else doesn’t project any­thing, he is indif­fer­ent; he may not even have looked at you.
What is hap­pen­ing? We are pro­ject­ing our own moods upon oth­ers. That is why, if you are on your hon­ey­moon, the moon looks beau­ti­ful, mirac­u­lous, won­der­ful. it seems that the whole world is dif­fer­ent. And on the same night, just for your neigh­bor, this mirac­u­lous night may not be in exis­tence at all. His child has died — then the same moon is just sad, intol­er­a­ble. But for you it is enchant­ing, fas­ci­nat­ing; it cre­ates pas­sion. Why? Is the moon the source or is the moon just a screen and you are pro­ject­ing yourself?
This sutra says, when a mood against some­one or for some­one arises, do not place it on the per­son in ques­tion — or on the object in ques­tion. Remain centered.
Remem­ber that you are the source, so do not move to the other, move to the source. When you feel hate, do not go to the object. Go to the point from where the hate is com­ing. Go not to the per­son to whom it is going, but to the cen­ter from where it is coming.
Move to the cen­ter, go within. Use your hate or love or anger or any­thing as a jour­ney toward your inner cen­ter, to the source. Move to the source and remain cen­tered there. Try it! This is a very, very sci­en­tific, psy­cho­log­i­cal technique.
Some­one has insulted you — anger sud­denly erupts, you are fever­ish. Anger is flow­ing toward the per­son who has insulted you. Now you will project this whole anger onto him. He has not done any­thing. If he has insulted you, what has he done? He has just pricked you, he has helped your anger to arise — but the anger is yours. If he goes to Bud­dha and insults him, he will not be able to cre­ate any anger in him. Or if he goes to Jesus, Jesus will give him the other cheek. Or if he goes to Bod­hid­harma, he will roar with laugh­ter. So it depends.
The other is not the source, the source is always within you. The other is hit­ting the source, but if there is no anger within you it can­not come out. If you hit a bud­dha, only com­pas­sion will come out because only com­pas­sion is there. Anger will not come out because anger is not there.
If you throw a bucket into a dry well, noth­ing comes out. In a water-filled well, you throw a bucket and water comes out, but the water is from the well. The bucket only helps to bring it out. So one who is insult­ing you is just throw­ing a bucket in you, and then the bucket will come out filled with the anger, hate, or fire that was within you.
You are the source, remember.
For this tech­nique, remem­ber that you are the source of every­thing that you go on pro­ject­ing onto oth­ers. And when­ever there is a mood against or for, imme­di­ately move within and go to the source from where this hate is coming.
Remain cen­tered there; do not move to the object. Some­one has given you a chance to be aware of your own anger — thank him imme­di­ately and for­get him. Close your eyes, move within, and now look at the source from where this love or anger is com­ing. From where?
Go within, move within. You will find the source there because the anger is com­ing from your source. Hate or love or any­thing is com­ing from your source.
And it is easy to go to the source at the moment you are angry or in love or in hate, because then you are hot. It is easy to move in then. The wire is hot and you can take it in, you can move inward with that hot­ness. And when you reach a cool point within, you will sud­denly real­ize a dif­fer­ent dimen­sion, a dif­fer­ent world open­ing before you.
Use anger, use hate, use love to go within. We use it always to move to the other, and we feel very much frus­trated if no one is there to project upon. Then we go on pro­ject­ing even on inan­i­mate objects. I have seen per­sons being angry at their shoes, throw­ing them in anger. What are they doing? I have seen angry per­sons
push­ing a door in anger, throw­ing their anger on the door, abus­ing the door, using dirty lan­guage against the door. What are they doing?
I will end with one Zen insight about this. One of the great­est of Zen mas­ters, Lin Chi, used to say, “While I was young I was very fas­ci­nated by boat­ing. I had one small boat, and I would go on the lake alone. For hours together I would remain there.” Once it hap­pened that with closed eyes I was in my boat med­i­tat­ing on the beau­ti­ful night. One empty boat came float­ing down­stream and struck my boat. My eyes were closed, so I thought, ‘Some­one is here with his boat, and he has struck my boat.’ Anger arose. I opened my eyes and I was just going to say some­thing to that man in anger, then I real­ized that the boat was empty. Then there was no way to move. To whom could I express the anger? The boat was empty. It was just float­ing down­stream, and it had come and struck my boat. So there was noth­ing to do. There was no pos­si­bil­ity to project the anger on
an empty boat.”
So Lin Chi said, “I closed my eyes. The anger was there, but find­ing no way out, I closed my eyes and just floated back­ward with the anger. And that empty boat became my real­iza­tion. I came to a point within myself in that silent night. That empty boat was my mas­ter. And now if some­one comes and insults me, I laugh and I say, ‘This boat is also empty.’ I close my eyes and I go within.”
Use this tech­nique. It may work mir­a­cles for you.