Tyranny of the self

—*This transcript was automatically generated by AI and may contain errors. *— [00:00:13 - 00:00:22] My brother and sisters, there is somebody called Ed Battista and he has written some things [00:00:22 - 00:00:27] very eloquently and he has coined his phrase called the tyranny of feelings, the tyranny [00:00:27 - 00:00:35] of feelings and he describes it as follows. He says the tyranny of feelings consists of believing [00:00:36 - 00:00:42] that my feelings are justified because they are my feelings. My feelings are justified because [00:00:42 - 00:00:49] they are my feelings. My feelings at this moment take precedence over all other considerations. [00:00:49 - 00:00:59] I have the right to express my feelings any way I see fit and if I believe that you are causing my feelings, [00:00:59 - 00:01:08] you are obligated to modify your behavior in order to align with my desired emotional state. [00:01:10 - 00:01:20] Now effectively it means that he says that as we said here my feelings are supreme and [00:01:22 - 00:01:30] if I'm not feeling good and if I believe that you are the reason for that, then you must change [00:01:30 - 00:01:38] your behavior so that I feel good. Now Ed Battista says this very nicely. He says that this is the [00:01:38 - 00:01:46] benefit of the newborn child, of a very young child because that child is actually incapable [00:01:46 - 00:01:53] of taking care of itself. If it is left, it will perish. So it needs to attract attention [00:01:53 - 00:02:06] and it needs to dominate the moment and force the caregiver, whoever it is, to give it care. [00:02:07 - 00:02:16] So the child will do anything that it takes to get that attention and to get that caregiver [00:02:16 - 00:02:26] to do what this child wants. So this is the problem. Now therefore, [00:02:30 - 00:02:34] however, the problem is when you carry this forward into your adulthood, [00:02:36 - 00:02:45] adulthood, with a young child one understands this but with adults this becomes a major problem. [00:02:45 - 00:02:51] Now if you see, if you think about it, what does this have to do? For example, [00:02:53 - 00:02:57] I'll tell you ways in which this is counterproductive and bad. For example, [00:03:00 - 00:03:10] if you encounter a person who disagreed with you or if you encounter somebody who gives you some [00:03:10 - 00:03:18] adverse feedback, your teacher, your parent, your superior, your friend, your colleague, [00:03:18 - 00:03:24] gives you some feedback about your behavior which is itself negative and they tell you that, [00:03:24 - 00:03:29] this kind of behavior is not good for you, not good for anybody else, it's going to cause you hurt. [00:03:32 - 00:03:39] The tendency of people is that I'm no longer your friend because you are not saying things to me [00:03:39 - 00:03:47] that I like. I don't like this teacher because the teacher is not giving me supreme importance [00:03:48 - 00:03:55] and so forth. So you close the doors to your own development, you close the doors to your own [00:03:57 - 00:04:05] learning. I give you a short, a very, very quick self-test to see whether you are in this [00:04:06 - 00:04:10] state of mind rot. I call this the entitlement state of mind. [00:04:11 - 00:04:19] And the simple test is that when you encounter, say for example, an argument, you disagree with [00:04:19 - 00:04:26] somebody, what is your first response? Is your first response, I don't like what you're saying, [00:04:27 - 00:04:33] I dislike what you're saying or is it to say, okay, so that's one way of looking at this, [00:04:34 - 00:04:39] I have a different way of looking at it and you are very objective about it. It's not a question of [00:04:39 - 00:04:50] like and dislike. If for example, you suffer from the inability to concentrate, you have a short [00:04:50 - 00:04:56] attention span, you have an attention span deficit, you are unable to concentrate on [00:04:57 - 00:05:03] a given matter for a long period of time. Now just think about this, the words I'm using, [00:05:03 - 00:05:14] unable, short as versus long and adequate, deficit, what does this tell you? It tells you [00:05:14 - 00:05:20] that there is a problem and that you are, that problem lies with you. It's with your inability [00:05:20 - 00:05:27] to do something and therefore what must you do? You must take the medicine. You are the one who [00:05:27 - 00:05:33] has a headache. So you must take the medicine to cure your headache. Meaning, if I don't have an [00:05:33 - 00:05:39] attention span that will help me to succeed because we know that in life, the only way to success is [00:05:39 - 00:05:45] by being able to concentrate and stay with one thing, with one worthwhile thing for a long period [00:05:45 - 00:05:52] of time until you achieve the goal. Now if you are not able to do that, then it means that there is a [00:05:52 - 00:05:58] problem with you. So what must you do? Correct yourself, right? Get some help if you can't do [00:05:58 - 00:06:05] it on your own. But what is the usual response of the world today? It's a no, no, no, no. See, [00:06:05 - 00:06:10] the fact that the children or whoever, we tend to blame everything on children, which is completely [00:06:10 - 00:06:18] false anyway. Children don't have long attention spans, therefore teachers must reduce the duration [00:06:18 - 00:06:24] of their speeches. Classes must be for short period of time. Lectures must be for not more than ten [00:06:24 - 00:06:31] minutes and so on and so forth. So you have normalized something which was a deficiency. [00:06:32 - 00:06:41] It's like saying if somebody is unable to do a particular task, say you have got high jump, [00:06:41 - 00:06:47] long jump, whatever, and somebody is not able to do that, you say lower the bar. Now what happens [00:06:47 - 00:06:53] when you lower the bar? The whole standard drops, right? But this is what we have made [00:06:54 - 00:06:58] as the norm in our society and that's why society is the way it is. [00:06:59 - 00:07:03] So instead of that, what you must say is don't do it. Standard remains where it is. [00:07:03 - 00:07:09] If I am unable to concentrate, I must think about and say what can I do to concentrate? [00:07:10 - 00:07:17] How can I take it forward? How can I develop my mind in such a way that I am able to [00:07:17 - 00:07:27] concentrate on one thing with great intensity to resolve it? That is the way to go, right? Instead [00:07:27 - 00:07:34] of, as we call, as Ed Brattista says, the tyranny of feelings. Now very important also to understand [00:07:35 - 00:07:44] that a feeling is something that is mine, I own it. And if I can own it, what does it mean? It [00:07:53 - 00:07:54] means that God has made me subscribe, subscribe, like and become my supporter. [00:07:55 - 00:07:56] Do you want to become a supporter if Iright? I don't want to do responsibility, [00:07:56 - 00:07:58] I don't want to stand in front of my neighbors, I want to make a friends loveounbD or friend, [00:07:58 - 00:08:08] friend not. I want to be the quit the palmitets, I- I had to do 3 things at a time. I want to score [00:08:08 - 00:08:14] some money off of bank account or whatever. That's what I think. I don't want that, I think I [00:08:14 - 00:08:16] into the trap that they're setting for me. [00:08:17 - 00:08:19] So I'm not a puppet, I'm not a puppet, [00:08:19 - 00:08:23] I'm not going to hand over my strings [00:08:23 - 00:08:25] to the puppeteer outside. [00:08:26 - 00:08:30] I choose my behavior and I choose that behavior. [00:08:31 - 00:08:36] I choose how to behave based on my intelligent decision, [00:08:38 - 00:08:39] which is based on my wisdom, [00:08:39 - 00:08:41] which is based on what I have taught [00:08:41 - 00:08:43] and what I have been taught and what I learned. [00:08:44 - 00:08:45] And so forth. [00:08:45 - 00:08:51] Now that is the thing to think about and do [00:08:51 - 00:08:55] and say, this is what I want to do [00:08:55 - 00:08:57] and this is what will help me. [00:09:02 - 00:09:05] So the tyranny of feelings, therefore, [00:09:05 - 00:09:07] is a very big problem, right? [00:09:07 - 00:09:10] Now what happened, another reason it happened [00:09:10 - 00:09:13] is because we have learned or we have told ourselves [00:09:13 - 00:09:17] that we are helpless and that whatever happens to me [00:09:17 - 00:09:18] is because of somebody else. [00:09:19 - 00:09:22] Now that is where we, that is the mental state [00:09:22 - 00:09:24] we have to get out of and come back to saying, [00:09:24 - 00:09:27] what I feel, my feelings are my feelings [00:09:27 - 00:09:30] and they are my feelings because they are my feelings. [00:09:31 - 00:09:34] Nobody else can make me feel this way or that way. [00:09:34 - 00:09:36] The issue, however, is to understand [00:09:36 - 00:09:38] the difference between feeling [00:09:38 - 00:09:39] and the expression of those feelings. [00:09:40 - 00:09:42] So it's not the question of, for example, if I feel angry, [00:09:43 - 00:09:46] I feel angry, this is a, you know, it's a novel feeling, [00:09:46 - 00:09:48] nothing wrong with feeling angry. [00:09:48 - 00:09:51] In cases where you should be angry, [00:09:51 - 00:09:53] if you don't feel angry, there is a problem. [00:09:54 - 00:09:57] So, but however, my choice is [00:09:57 - 00:09:59] how do I choose to express that anger? [00:10:00 - 00:10:01] Am I going to rave and rant? [00:10:01 - 00:10:02] Am I going to beat up people? [00:10:02 - 00:10:06] Am I going to, or am I going to behave in a dignified manner [00:10:06 - 00:10:08] and tell people, look, this behavior of yours [00:10:08 - 00:10:11] is very irritating,