My feelings are not God – a deep dive

Aum Namo Bhagavate Vasudevaya

Namaste.

So, last Sunday I gave a talk on—it was titled My Feelings Are Not God. But because that talk was kind of brief, and it is a big subject, I had mentioned that I would speak on this quote that I had read out, and I will speak on it in a little bit more depth, because it’s actually really, really, really important.

So, I was sent, by a friend, a quote from an American theologian. He’s meant to be a New Testament scholar. And this quote was from a book that he had read—ah, I’m sorry, he had written. And when I read it, it instantly struck me, because of how profound and how important it is, and how much it relates to the current world in which we live. So, I’ll read the whole quote out first, and then we’ll go through it bit by bit, and examine some of the parts that are components.

So, it begins,

“My feelings are not God. God is God.

My feelings do not define truth. God’s word defines truth.

My feelings are echoes and responses to what my mind perceives. And sometimes – many times – my feelings are out of sync with the truth.

When that happens – and it happens every day in some measure – I try not to bend the truth to justify my imperfect feelings, but rather, I plead with God: Purify my perceptions of your truth and transform my feelings so that they are in sync with the truth.”

With the dawning of the age of political correctness we see this phenomena over and over again, where, when you “hurt” someone’s feelings, you are therefore offending them, and your words are in fact violence because feelings were hurt. And of course, that has continued to grow and become so prominent in the world today. And it is so incredibly problematic, because once you embrace this, then everybody is able to say, “You hurt my feelings when you objected to what I was saying,” and then it’s sort of like, okay, so who gets to be the one to say sorry here? “I was wrong.”

It has become so utterly subjective, and what we are doing is beginning to completely dispense with the idea of any objective reality or truth. Everything has become utterly subjective in this type of scenario. And that, of course, is incredibly dangerous from a lot of different perspectives. It sets the world up for tremendous turmoil and conflict. But, from a spiritual perspective, it is the path to unhappiness, it is the path to perpetual suffering, and that causes tremendous pain to the actual seers of truth, the transcendentalists.

So, what I’d just like to do is we’ll go through this and unpack it.

“My feelings are not God. God is God.”

So right away there’ll be a quite a significant percentage of people that when they hear that, they just immediately turn off, because you’ve used the word “God.” The fact that it is a quotation from a Christian theologian, a lot of people will dismiss outright. And so, when I’m asked, “What’s the yogic perspective of this?” that’s sort of like, that’s quite an interesting question, because a true yogi doesn’t see things from a sectarian point of view. To dismiss outright someone, because they identify with being Christian, that anything they say is invalid or of no consequence, significance, importance, that is the expression of a prejudice that is so steeped in ignorance and arrogance that it’s like, it’s startling. But this is what happens.

A few weeks ago, and then a couple of times in some talks, I’ve referenced the Alcoholics Anonymous model, their programs for addiction therapy and how powerful the 12-step program is. It’s the most effective program that’s out there for dealing with all kinds of addictions. And one thing that’s kind of interesting, and I like very much, is how it references the idea of a Higher Power however that might be conceived of by the individual. From the Vedic perspective when they—there is the understanding that, yes, there is a higher transcendent truth and reality. How that higher transcendent truth and reality is going to be perceived or appreciated by individuals may really vary, and people may speak of it and describe it in different ways, but from the point of view of an actual yogi everybody is speaking of the same thing.

And just so that you maybe can really understand this fully, even a person who is a declared atheist, you will see that there is a love of truth, and it’s often manifest in science, in the pursuit of science or mathematics, or it could be in the form of beauty and art, or the beauty and the amazing complexity of music. From the yogic perspective that appreciation, and seeking these things, whether it is admitted or embraced by the individual or not, is understood to be the search for a higher transcendent truth or reality.

And so, when we hear somebody, even of a particular religious denomination, speak of God, we don’t necessarily think of God in the same way that that individual may, we may think of it differently, but we understand that we are speaking of the same thing.

This statement that, “My feelings are not God,” this is pretty much covered in the very first things that I said, where everybody is so overwhelmed by this subjective experience and my feelings—my feelings are to be honoured, they are worshipable, they are all important, they could never be wrong. And if you say something that runs counter to my feelings, then you are the most horrible, awful person, that needs to be canceled or gotten rid of. That type, to any degree, any degree, that type of thinking and feeling is what has been addressed here: My feelings are not God, they are not supreme, they are not the highest truth or reality. And he says, “God is God,” the highest transcendent truth, if you like, is the highest transcended truth, not my feelings.

“My feelings do not define truth.”

Whoa! This is a point of enormous angst now, because it seems like a good percentage of the population is completely embracing the idea that my feelings define truth, and here we have a counter proposition. And I would really, really encourage people to consider the reality of this, that my feelings do not define truth.

And one way to demonstrate that clearly, all you’ve got to do is hang out with a three-year-old for a few days, and watch the constant flow of different feelings, or how they want to relate to things. And somebody may go, “Well, yeah, they should be allowed to, and we should support and encourage that.” And it’s like, okay, well, let’s get a little bit older. What happens if you’re a serial killer? What if you want to engage in some horrific crime, where you take somebody hostage and torture and injure them, and cause tremendous fear and suffering, and it’s been done because their feelings dictated that this was truth, their feelings dictated that this is what you should do. If you do not have any subjective and outside framework or paradigm for what we would consider virtue, or right and wrong, if it’s only going to be dependent on your feelings, then that is already a hellish state, and it will produce countless, incalculable amounts of suffering.

So, what is going to be that subjective system of values that we are going to adopt? And this has become one of the big problems for society and the modern society, with the wholesale rejection of religion. And I’m not making a comment on whether that’s good or bad, or whether it’s justifiable or not. No, I’m not talking about that, but when there is a wholesale abandonment, particularly, of guiding principles, or somebody may say, “Well, that particular priest that was a pedophile, he wasn’t following those principles,” and it’s kind of like, yeah, obviously! He’s behaving like somebody that’s actually demonic, but because he is not following that, that doesn’t mean the principles that he’s not following are not of value. Just because those principles were embraced by the institution that he was part of, it’s not like his behaviour has been promoted or endorsed by those principles. In fact, the opposite is true.

And so for—and maybe at another time we can do some, have some discussion on this point, as to why and what validates the abandonment of religious institutions or principles. But if these principles are abandoned along with the embrace of the institutions, then what exactly is going to take its place? I am not making the argument that all morality or virtue only comes from religious institutions, although, that may be largely true, I’m not making that argument at all, but what are you going to replace it with? What is the agreed standard of virtue, of morality, of values, that society is going to embrace? Because unless there is some actual standard that everybody is agreeing to then we have big problems.

So here in this quote:

“My feelings do not define truth. God’s word defines truth.”

Well, many people will object to that, and I understand that. I don’t agree with it, but I understand it. I think it’s a little bit ill-advised to just abandon things on the basis of feelings, fundamentally, is what it boils down to.

So, someone may ask, “So, what’s the yogic perspective of that?” The yoga perspective is that, yes, there is a higher truth. There is an absolute truth. It is manifest from a transcendental platform. I’m not going to go into detail on that. That will sort of—that’s a big subject. And they describe how that truth becomes manifest, in the form of—the equivalent of what in English people would call scripture. They refer to it as shastra, the broad term shastra, and in the yogic terms almost all shastra falls under the category of the Vedas. Veda means knowledge. That’s the literal meaning of it, knowledge. This knowledge is understood to have been revealed to and taught by ancient sages since time immemorial.

And the system of Vedic teaching is not that a person should blindly embrace what is put forward as truth, but rather one should actually put it to the test by applying the principles and endeavouring to come to this point where you can actually see whether the truth is true or not. It has to be based upon personal experience.

The word shastra that is used in Sanskrit, it comes from this root shasts, which means actually, like an authoritative order. And a lot of people when they hear that they’ll go, “Oh my Gods!” because I want to be a rebel against authority, but that’s not how one should understand this. When it says like an authoritative order, it means like if somebody approaches you and says, “Look, I’m lost. I’ve been looking for this place. Do you know where it is?” And I say, “Yes, I know where it is.” And then they ask the question, “Should I go down this road to the end here, and then turn left?” And when I say to them, “No, you should turn right, and it’s about 50 meters past the corner,” so I’m giving an authoritative and firm—it’s actually an order, “No, don’t turn left. You need to turn right.” So, it’s in that context that this word shastra should be understood.

So, “My feelings do not define truth. God’s [words, or] word defines truth.” So this is how we would appreciate it.

Then he goes on with the quote,

“My feelings are echoes and responses to what my mind perceives. And sometimes – many times – my feelings are out of sync with the truth.”

So, this is kind of like the entrance into a really, really important part of all yogic teachings. The foundational precept or principle of yogic teaching is that you and I are not this body. This body that you can see here is not me. I am the resident within, an eternal spiritual being, and I am covered by two bodies, the gross physical body, which you can see, and the subtle body—it’s called the linga sarira—which you cannot physically see, but you can be intensely aware of. For instance, if you say something that is highly offensive or threatening to someone, and they become instantly angry, you can see that, yes, there is some slight alterations in their appearance of their face and their, perhaps, their eyes, but you get the sense of an intense reaction.

So you have this subtle body made of the, primarily, of the mind and two other faculties, called the intelligence or buddhi (this is slightly different than how most people in the Western world think of intelligence), and this other covering called the ahankara, or the false ego, the false concept of self.

We understand that—and the yogis were so expert in what perception was, how light enters your eyes, sound enters your ears, smell, sensation, so you’ve got all kinds of sensory perception that is constantly entering and residing within the mind. Then, within the mind, according to how we have been conditioned, there will be an emotional response or some form of response. You can have ten people that witness or experience the same thing and have ten unique different reactions to it. They may have different feelings about what is being perceived by everybody in this group, which clearly indicates the truth of what’s been stated here, that,

“My feelings are echoes and responses to what my mind perceives. And sometimes – many times – my feelings are out of sync with the truth.”

So this is like, whoa! I mean if people would actually be open to considering this truth, or this reality, or this, what has been stated, it’s actually quite frightening, because it basically says that you can get it so wrong, that your response to something can be so far off base that it’s not actually reflecting reality at all. If my feelings alone are going to be what I use to determine whether something is truthful, or how real, or how important something is, then this is fraught with danger, because my feelings are subject to change, to so many influences, to the type of value system that I have cultivated, what I think is important or not important. And when I become untethered or detached from any objective reality, then people can quickly descend into groups where they have intense conflict, because there’s no embrace of any objective reality, it’s all just based upon our individual perceptions and our feelings, which are reactions to what we perceive.

Then he goes on:

“When that happens – and it happens every day in some measure – I try not to bend the truth to [satisfy] my imperfect feelings, but rather, I plead with God: Purify my perceptions of your truth and transform my feelings so that they are in sync with the truth.”

That is so profound! And whether you embrace any religious inclination, or whether you want to go the AA route and embrace the idea of some higher truth or power which we can appeal to, to become a guiding principle for us in our life, it is really, really important to do that.

So, I just had a few verses here that I was going to read from the Bhagavad-gita. The first one is in relation to the idea of an objective truth, an absolute truth, and the idea of what this person describes as “the word of God.” So, in the Bhagavad-gita Krishna states:

“I am seated in everyone’s heart, and from Me comes remembrance, knowledge and forgetfulness. By all the Vedas I am to be known. Indeed, I am the compiler of Vedanta, and I am the knower of the Vedas.”

In terms of the need to exercise control over your mind and to embrace the reality that my mind can seriously mislead me, all you have to have experienced is a grave bout of depression, or know somebody in that state, or somebody with a severe mental illness, and you can see objectively how the mind can lead a person to the greatest unhappiness and distress. So again in the Bhagavad-gita, I’ll read a couple of verses. It states:

“One must deliver themself with the help of their mind, and not degrade themself [meaning degrade themselves with their mind]. The mind is the friend of the conditioned soul, and his enemy as well.”

“For one who has conquered the mind, the mind is the best of friends; but for one who has failed to do so, their mind will remain the greatest enemy.”

So this is like a really profound yogic principle, that our own mind can become our (meaning our, this eternal spiritual being within the body) can become our greatest enemy, because it can lead to our downfall, it can lead to great suffering and unhappiness, it can spur us to act in a way that is actually, could be quite horrific, and then we would have to bear the burden of the karmic result of our words and actions. This can lead to our perpetual entanglement and suffering. And so the need to objectively look at the mind and to endeavour to exercise control over it was of paramount importance.

And this idea that my feelings are sacred because they’re mine, and just because they’re there, and I should follow them and surrender to them, that everybody should bow down to them and embrace them, this idea is absolutely shocking, from the point of view of the yogic teachings. This point of view cannot lead to anywhere but enormous unhappiness, misfortune and suffering.

And then later on in this chapter we have the verse,

“For one whose mind is unbridled…”

—bridle being the, what you put on a horse to direct it. So unbridled means it’s not being controlled, it’s free to do whatever it wishes.

“For one whose mind is unbridled self-realization is difficult work. But he whose mind is controlled and who strives by appropriate means is assured of success. That is My opinion.”

I’ll just read one further verse, because this is what this gentleman and the quote is referencing. These are shastric, or Vedic, references. And if you actually objectively analyze them and dissect them you will see that they are always going to be in your best interest, that this is the clear pathway to peace and happiness and contentment, whereas the opposite is true when one disregards these principles and heads in a different direction.

“Thus knowing oneself to be transcendental to the material senses, [to the] mind and intelligence, O mighty-armed Arjuna, one should steady the mind by deliberate spiritual intelligence and thus—by spiritual strength—conquer this insatiable enemy known as lust.”

So, in the Bhagavad-gita Arjuna had asked Krishna by what is a person compelled to act, even very sinfully, as if you have no choice, no control and force, and Lord Krishna stated that it was lust, or in Sanskrit, kama. Kama doesn’t mean just—you know, many people in the West, they identify lust with sexual desire. While that may, in some ways, epitomize it, it is intense self-centeredness, where it’s all about me, where I’m just going to be so absorbed in this self-centredness, and all of my actions and the path I will choose is going to be driven by this. In that state one is considered to be overwhelmed by this great insatiable enemy known as lust.

And back to the very first thing that was quoted here, “My feelings are not God.” But when a person is in a state of consciousness where this lust, or this intense self-centredness, is at the forefront, then I will very much be experiencing that my feelings are all important, all worshipable, must be surrendered to, no matter what. In other words, I consider my feelings to be God.

So just to close out I’ll—one more quote from the Bhagavat Purana that speaks to the same subject:

“This uncontrolled mind is the greatest enemy of the living entity. If one neglects it or gives it a chance, it will grow more and more powerful and will become victorious. Although it is not factual, it is very strong. It covers the constitutional position of the soul.”

So, in brief what has been spoken of there is how the mind can utterly overwhelm the living being within and take us down terrible pathways if we strengthen it, or if we neglect to keep it guided and under some control. The fundamental principle is we should be using our mind as a tool, and our feelings and everything that rises from it, as a tool, where we consciously engage in a lifestyle that will produce wonderful outcomes, actual happiness. But once the mind takes over and we become utterly surrendered to and swept away by our feelings, then it describes here, “It covers the constitutional position of the soul.” One becomes absolutely blind to the reality of their spiritual existence, who they are as this eternal being within. That’s all gone. One is simply fixated on the urges of the body and of the mind and will tend to act in a way that will only produce unhappiness.

So, this is a very powerful quote, and I will read it just once again, and then we’ll close. And in spite of the fact that I follow a different path, when I see this truth proclaimed here by a Christian theologian I am in awe of him that he has this understanding and perception. I am—I have such great admiration for his clarity; and I can see that he is connected to this higher transcendent reality, this absolute truth. It is reflected in these words:

“My feelings are not God. God is God.

My feelings do not define truth. God’s word defines truth.

My feelings are echoes and responses to what my mind perceives. And sometimes – many times – my feelings are out of sync with the truth.

When that happens – and it happens every day in some measure – I try not to bend the truth to justify my imperfect feelings, but rather, I plead with God: Purify my perceptions of your truth and transform my feelings so that they are in sync with the truth.”

With that, I thank you very, very much, and I hope that you have enjoyed this discussion. And I know that you can be limitlessly benefited by contemplating upon this and applying it to your life. Thank you very much. Haribol.