When you look at a statue of the Buddha or the image of a great yogi with their serene smiles, it’s easy to think that they never experienced the same reactive emotions or negative thoughts that swirl around in your mind.

But, you’d be wrong.

The Buddhas and sages faced the same reactive emotions and negative thoughts that you face today.

Fear. Anger. Sorrow. Doubt. Overwhelm…all of those and more. The sages faced them…and faced them…and through persistent compassionate facing and meditation discovered something remarkable.

They discovered that every emotion & thought—no matter how challenging—can be transformed, healed, and expressed as life-giving energy. They discovered how to experience freedom—not by suppressing, defeating, or avoiding emotions—but by transforming them. They discovered that freedom can be realized in the midst of life’s inevitable ups and downs.

And they developed a method you can use to realize freedom in your life.

This method is based tapping into the source code underlying all emotions.

What is the source code that underlies all emotions?

First of all, let’s pause on the term source code. It’s a computer term that refers to program instructions in their original form (and I’m quoting here from webopdeia—because I’m a yogi, not a techie).

The sages traced emotions back to their source code—to their original form—and found that reactive emotions are simply life energy running wild.

There’s power, juice, creativity, and aliveness in that wildness.

But there’s also destruction, chaos, confusion and suffering. If you suppress the emotion—you suppress your life. But if you let it run wild, it destroys your well-being and happiness.

So what to do?

The sages discovered that at the heart of every emotion and every thought is an essential wisdom quality; at the still, radiant center of every emotion is a pure creative impulse.

When you lose your connection with that pure creative impulse, your life gets tangled up in reactive emotions and conflicting thoughts.

When you reconnect to that essential quality, to that pure creative impulse, reactive emotions and negative thoughts are transformed into wisdom, creativity…and bliss.

The sages realized that the secret of of transformation lies in attuning to the source code.

They called the underlying source code: mantra.

There is a life-enriching mantra pulsing at the heart of every emotion; there is a wisdom-bearing mantra resonating at the still center of every thought.

Mantra meditation attunes your mind to the original source code that lies at the heart of every emotion and every thought. Through the practice of mantra meditation, you untangle your consciousness from the reactive patterns that create confusion and chaos in your life.

That’s why the Buddha and the sages are smiling. Not because they never experience reactivity—but because they know how to transform emotion into wisdom and bliss.

It’s a wonderful discovery and an even more wonderful practice.

I know from personal experience; I’ve been practicing mantra meditation every day for the past 40 years.

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Ed: Bryonie Wise