Beyond emotion to intention – Talk at Ohio State University

My most attended program for a Western audience was at the Ohio State University. Naveen Krishna Prabhu, along with an inspired team, has been conducting a weekly vegetarian cooking class, which has over the years blossomed into a full-fledged program. Over one hundred and fifty students attended the program where I spoke on “Focus on conscious intention, not circumstantial emotion.” I explained how our intentions are often sabotaged by our emotions, and how we can subordinate our emotions to our intentions using spiritual wisdom and meditational practice.

After the class, a Chinese girl asked, “How can we conquer all our fears?” I answered that fear is an essential psychological defense mechanism that alerts us to danger, just as pain alerts us to physical danger. Fear is not the problem; fearfulness is. When fear continues to be present even when there is no danger, then fear morphs into fearfulness. The way to overcome it is by filling ourselves with positive, protective, purposeful thoughts – and the most efficacious of such thoughts are thoughts about our spiritual core and the whole to which we belong.

This article is part of a series of articles about the recent Western tour. Full article can be read here