What is emotional intelligence and what are emotions?

What is Emotional Intelligence?

Emotional Intelligence, is the ability to handle once emotions, and also able to be understand others emotions and respond (not react) according to the actual requirement of any situation based upon the understanding of others emotions so that social responsibility and inter-relationships gets enhanced.

What are emotions?

Emotions are technically neuro-transmitted signals or colloquially called as feelings that are generated by the inner tendencies after evaluation of the signals received by the five senses.

What are the inner tendencies?

In Sanskrit the inner tendencies are called as अन्तःकरण antaḥkaraṇa . These are mind (मनस् manas ), intellect ( बुद्धि buddhi), ego (अहम्कार् ahamkār) and impression (चित्तम् cittam).

What are five senses?

The five senses are: sound (शब्द śabda ), touch (स्पर्श sparśa), form ( रूप rūpa), taste (रस rasa), smell ( गन्ध gandha).

The śārīrakopaniṣat शारीरकोपनिषत्  verse 8 says:

शब्दः स्पर्शश्च रूपं च रसो गन्धस्तथैव च ।

त्रयोविंशतिरेतानि तत्त्वानि प्रकृतानि तु ।

चतुर्विंशतिरव्यक्तं प्रधानं पुरुषः परः ॥ ८॥

śabdaḥ sparśaśca rūpaṁ ca raso gandhastathaiva ca |

trayoviṁśatiretāni tattvāni prakṛtāni tu |

caturviṁśatiravyaktaṁ pradhānaṁ puruṣaḥ paraḥ || 8||

With the five subtle elements / tanmātras: shabda/sound, sparsha/sense of touch, rupa/form, rasa/taste and gandha/smell the total become 23 and in these 23 ways the prakriti is manifested or expressed itself. When we include the chittam into this then it becomes 24. With the Purusha or the avyakta (the unmanifested One) as the prime included all of it becomes 25 (see Figure-6).

Know that the manifestation of jiva expresses with the help of 24 primordial qualities with Purusha or the avyakta (the unmanifested One) as prime.

• Four: Manas/mind, buddhi/intellect, ahaṁkāra/ego, chittam/impression (4)
• Five elements of nature/ pancha bhutas: Earth, Water, Fire, Air and ākāśa/Ether (9)
• Five subtle elements / tanmātras: shabda/sound, sparsha/sense of touch, rupa/form, rasa/taste and gandha/smell (14)
• Five Organs of Perception or pancha Jnanendriyas: Eyes, Ears, Nose, Tongue, and Body/skin (19)
• Five Organs of Action or pancha Karmendriyas: Hands, Legs, Vocal apparatus, Urino-genital organs, and Anus. (24)
• Purusha/avyakta (25)

The amarkosha says kṣetrajña ātmā puruṣaḥ pradhānaṁ prakṛtiḥ striyām क्षेत्रज्ञ आत्मा पुरुषः प्रधानं प्रकृतिः स्त्रियाम् (1.4.310) - The conscious principle in the corporeal frame is ātmā; the Supreme being or the Soul of the Universe is the pre-eminent one and the fundamental one; and the Nature is the original producer of the material world. 

Spiritual Questions - Part 11 (What is Love?)

Q. What is Love?
A. The free tendency to expand and become One with everything.

Q. This definition is strange! Why do you say "free tendency to expand"?
A. When you have a tendency to expand with your will, there is ego in it; then it does not expand freely to everything around the whole cosmos. May be it expands to your nearest family members, may be pets, may be to some extent to friends - but not beyond that. Where as when it happens freely without any will, then it expands to the whole cosmos. Then, that is called as Love.

Q. When you mean to the whole cosmos, what do your really mean in that?
A. It means everything. It includes trees, shrubs, all types of animals, flowers, mountains, rocks, planets, galaxies, everything animate and inanimate; seen and unseen; perceived and unperceived, felt and unfelt.

Q. How to sense and experience such kind of love?
A. It is very simple. Just let go everything, even the I also. Just go beyond the mind also. Then it just flows. Flows like a perennial river, expands and engulfs like an ocean.

Q. What happens when such a thing happens, I mean when that Love is experienced?
A. May be in slang, I would call it as you are on the 9th Cloud always (not the general excited state) where others does not even know and they sense only a smile on your face or may be not that also. It is soft like a cotton cushion and as hard as a coir mattress. It is very peaceful, calm, serene, still and silent.

Q. I heard that sometimes it is very difficult to stay with an awakened person. Why is it so?
A. Actually it is not difficult. If there is no ego, then it is the most easiest way to stay with such a person. If ego enters, then there will not be any recognition or entertainment for that ego, that is when it becomes difficult to stay. It is as simple as that. With an awakened person you will be able to see your true nature very clearly. And, there will be no ego boosters from that person. So, either you (actually your ego) are crushed literally (because it is completely ignored without the knowledge of that awakened person) or you are loved (your True nature as Spirit) infinitely. For any normal person these ups and downs are too traumatic, that is when it becomes difficult to stay with an awakened person.

Spiritual Questions - Part 5 (What is stillness and doing nothing mean?)

Q. When I went to a certain temple, it draws me irresistibly...like a magnet. What does it mean or what does it tell me?
A. The one that stays only for a brief time because of some external object is not Truth. The one that stays permanently is only the Truth.

Q. How to overcome the veil to go into stillness?
A. Just do nothing.

Q. What do you mean, by doing nothing?
A. Just do no-thing. No thoughts, no emotions, no vibrations, just observe. Then automatically you will be in stillness.

Q. Is God satchidananda or stillness?
A. It is both and not also.

Q. How come so?
A. When you say God as stillness, yes He is that. When you say God as satchidaananda, He is that too.

Q. Then why do you say, He is not also?
A. Because the Truth is beyond the stillness and satchidaananda. One of the expressions of God is stillness and one of the expressions is satchidaananda also. Now when you are in satchidaananda or in stillness, how are you able to sense that you are in that state?

Q. I don't know.
A. You will not know when you are in that state. You will be able to know only when you come out of that state. In reality the Truth is that awareness that by which you are able to undergo through the experience of stillness or satchidaananda. And, that awareness is telling you that you are undergoing such and such experience. Hence, it is only the awareness that exists, nothing else. There is no experience, experiencer and the object that is being experienced.