Checked Into Nirvana. Where Is Joy?

Eckhart Tolle lived upto his twenty ninth year in a state of almost continual anxiety interspersed with periods of suicidal depression. Then he woke up one night with a feeling of absolute dread. The silence of the night, the vague outlines of the furniture in the dark room, the distant noise of a passing train - everything felt so alien, so hostile, and so utterly meaningless that it created in him a deep loathing of the world. "I cannot live with myself any longer." This was the thought that kept repeating itself in his mind. Suddenly he became aware that if he could not live with himself, there had to be two - he and the "self" he could not live with. He was stunned by the realization. He became enveloped by powerful feelings.

Tolle had little memory of what happened after the powerful feelings overcame him. He woke up into a new world. His depression vanished. For the next five months, he lived in a state of uninterrupted bliss. While it diminished somewhat in intensity, for another two years, he sat on park benches in a state of the most intense joy. He felt that what he experienced was a form of enlightenment, of union with the eternal, somewhat similar to the experiences of Buddha. He quoted Buddha's definition of enlightenment as "the end of suffering". Tolle became a respected teacher, with dedicated followers in Europe, North America and India. His book, The Power of Now, was on the New York Times best seller list.

Both Tolle and Buddha reportedly experienced a sudden release from the intense pain of powerful negative emotions. Their joy was understandable. Across history, there were many stories of the intense rapture of sages, associated with a sudden release from the emotions of fear, dread, guilt or anger. In most cases, these were sudden happenings, when such emotions just dropped away and the person felt an intense sense of freedom. But, actually, getting rid of negative emotions could be very practical and down to earth. The mind perceives, recognizes events and then interprets those events as emotions. Emotions are just a set of nerve impulses, which fire when you recognize an event.

Paul Eckman, the world famous emotions scientist said that the evaluation that turned on an emotion happened so quickly that people were not aware it was occurring. "We become aware a quarter, or half second after the emotion begins. I do not choose to have an emotion, to become afraid, or to become angry. I am suddenly angry. I can usually figure out later what someone did that caused the emotion." So you have no control over the emotions that are triggered when you recognize an event. But, there were things you could do to prevent a surge of those emotions.

Begin with the small turmoils. Traffic snarls, minor discourtesies. They trigger bad feelings. Just laughter could help by relaxing you. But, most people find that difficult. Instead, you could do something similar - pump your stomach