Be true to the situation, not to the feelings
Recording 04 of 10
The teaching on sensation, love, truth and the end of acting on feelings
Barry states that nearly all human beings live according to feelings, and that this is the root of unhappiness, dishonesty and confusion in love and life. The remedy is to be true to the actual situation, not to the emotional reactions that arise from the past.
LENGTH: 1 HOURS AND 44 MINUTES
LANGUAGE: ENGLISH
YEAR RECORDED: 1996
PLACE RECORDED: EINDHOVEN, THE NETHERLANDS
MAIN TOPICS
Being true to the situation, Feelings emotions and sensation, Love is not a feeling, Right relationship, Sensation, Raising children, Meditation practice, South of South, Practical advice for living, Returning upstream, Intelligence, Endings and letting go in relationship, Extra terrestrial experiment
SUMMARY
The talk begins with a clear distinction: feelings are not truth. Feelings about the situation are not reliable, they are reactive, unstable and personal. What is real in the present is the situation itself, and one must learn to see and act from that directly rather than from sentiment, expectation or emotional longing.
From there, Barry applies the teaching to relationship. A man and woman are together, he says, to enjoy one another. If unhappiness, compromise, dishonesty or recurring argument enter, then something in the partnership is not true. Love is not preserving a bond at any cost out of feeling; love is being true to the reality between two people. That may require questioning, honesty, firmness, or even parting if truth cannot be lived together.
He extends this same principle to children, separation, grief and personal suffering. Feelings turn events into private misery, while intelligence asks what truth is being shown through them. Sensation, by contrast, belongs to life itself: thirst, pain, joy, love, well-being, the directness of making love, the simplicity of eating. To live rightly is to cease emotionalising life and to return to being, where well-being is known without interpretation.
03 - The love that draws you home to 'me'
