Let me begin by explaining the heading. According to Rampa, one of the benefits of proper meditation is a realisation that we "are" really our soul, not the transitory specks we call incarnated bodies. That realisation is described in the phrase "Tat Twam Asi". Well, I am going to talk about something we are NOT: our emotions.
I'm going to begin this with an analogy.
Consider food. Right, done that? Shall we get on to the analogy then? :)
Well, it's a food analogy. Many of us tend to identify so strongly with particular emotions, or sets of emotions, or emotional reactions, that we forget we are NOT the emotions. It's a bit like saying, "I like icecream, therefore I am an icecream", or "I like chilli, so I am a chilli", or "I like fishfingers, so I am a fishfinger" (don't laugh too much at that one: both I and Jamie Oliver, the "Naked Chef", have a weakness for fishfingers!).
Many of us tend to say "I am an angry person", or "she/he is a calm person" - yes, folks, that right: we can make the mistake of overidentifying with emotions that we consider "good", or "desirable" in some way, JUST AS MUCH as we can with unhealthy emotions. It's like the simplification many people make when they say, upon meeting someone for the first time, "so, what do you do?", meaning "what employed/paying job do you have?", thinking that this somehow tells them what sort of person they have, when it is REALLY more about social status, and ignores (indeed, actively belittles the value of "unpaid" (in the sense of financially not adequately rewarded") jobs like child rearing, or home building, etc, etc, etc.)
Keep in mind that we NEED emotions: I've given a clue there when I mentioned "healthy" emotions. It's much the same as eating healthy food: as an ideal, we should be using "healthy " emotions, rather than "unhealthy" (there may be variations, where "unhealthy" emotions may need to be experienced/used for the purpose of causing or forcing growth of our soul, or for the purpose of paying off karma the hard way [as opposed to paying off karma an easier way]).
An issue to consider here is that we very, very rarely ever experience only ONE emotion. If we have done some personal growth/self awareness work, or have been counselled, we may know of , say ... half a dozen emotions that we use ("experience") in a particular situation, but the truth is that it is more likely to be dozens of emotions.
Let's chose an example of, oh ... say, a parent or grandparent expressing love for a child/grandchild. As a step grandparent, I know just how competitive this expression of love for a grandchild can be. If I was to put some numbers to it, the emotions involved could be, say: 70% love, 10% self gratification, 5% competition with someone they hate, 5% wanting to feel "holier than thou", 8% guilt/sense of duty and 2% boredom.
Wouldn't it be far better to get rid of the 30% crap emotions, and just leave the 100% love - a love which is OK with allowing other people to have a chance to show their love without feeling an urge to compete? The person in the example concerned might even find, in dealing with things like the 2% boredom, that they develop a far more rewarding life. The child may find that they don't have a series of successively larger, more expensive and spectacular presents, but that is probably a good thing for them.
When one has got rid of the crap emotions and been left with only healthy expressions of emotions, like healthy versions of self esteem, motivation and even competitiveness (yes, it DOES have a healthy expression), not to mention love, the basic point still remains: we are not those emotions: to continue my previous analogy, don't make the mistake of saying "I am only healthy foods". We are something beyond that, something which, at this level, needs those emotions just as much as food, water and oxygen, but they are not our essence. (This, by the way, can help with developing psychism: if one is trying to become more psychic when one has lots of unacknowledged/unknown/unresolved emotions, it is a bit like trying to tune into a radio station when there is lots of interference from other radio stations or static.)
The other issue here is that the 30% crap emotions exist: they have to be dealt with: the emotional energy has been created, it has to be recycled. The energy cannot be destroyed: it can be neutralised, but better still would be to recycle it - which directing it through Mother Earth can be quite good for. That lesson is one that Wicca, the identification I no longer use :), has been particularly good at teaching me. My past involvement with things like spiritualism/New Age suggested that the energy could be "dissolved", but I now tend to thing that is a bit of a simplification. I'll use that simplification for beginners, but it IS a simplification.
So, when it comes to emotions: they are necessary, they can be extremely beneficial, but keep in mind that we choose the emotions we wish to use (that is subject to a caution about habits, and levels of awareness, and core values, etc) and they are not all that there is to be about us. We might have to revise how we introduce ourselves to people, in that we may need to find more appropriate, meaningful questions to ask other than "what form of paid work do you have, and you're not meaningful if you don't have it?", or "what sort of emotions do you most commonly use?", with maybe something like "so tell me something about yourself", or better yet, say "my soul is ..., how 'bout yours?"
Love, light, hugs and blessings
Gnwmythr
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Tags: emotions, family, forgiveness, love, personal characteristics, personal responsibility, interpersonal interactions, judging others, psychic health, purpose, social status,
First published: Sunday 18th October, 2009
Last edited: Sunday 18th October, 2009
