A relationship based on emotions is a relationship based on ego

The following is an excerpt from a samvaad (dialogue) session with Acharya Prashant.

Question: What are emotions?

Acharya Prashant (AP): How do we identify emotions? If I am saying emotions, if I am using that word, how do you know that you are emotional?

Listener (L): You feel it.

AP: You feel it. How do you figure out that somebody else is emotional? Alright, sitting in front of you as I am, do I appear emotional to you right now?

L: Yes.

AP: How do you figure that? Here I am sitting in front of you, let say: I am a picture. Do I appear emotional? Could the picture be depicting something through which we can say, ‘Yes, he is emotional right now’?

L: Yes

AP: When and what? Let say: I am a picture here. Now, this picture probably does not appear too emotional to you. What would this picture look like when you would say that this fellow is emotional?

L: By expressing.

AP: By expressing. So emotion is something that you can see through the eyes. What can you see through the eyes? Can you see thoughts through the eyes?

L: No.

AP: So you can only look at the material through the eyes, not thoughts. So in that picture, you would only be looking at the body. You cannot get into thoughts. So the expression of emotions, the very definition of emotions, has something to do with the body. Alright, if for example, you can see material tears, then you will say that I am…

L: Emotional.

AP: Then you will say that ‘I am emotional’. Either sad or afraid or happy, excited, overwhelmed; but if there is fear in the mind, in the subconscious, would it show up in the picture?

It won’t!

But the same sadness that flows in the form of tears, is that not always present somewhere in the mind lurking behind? That is there, but when it is present in the mind, do you say that somebody is emotional? Anybody here who has never cried? We do cry, and we are likely to cry in the future as well, right? Then, when tears would be there, you would say that the fellow is…