Control of emotions is a very difficult thing. It is a very important part of self-study, but we cannot begin with the control of emotions, because we do not understand enough about emotions. I will explain: what we can do from the very beginning of observing the emotional function is to try to stop one particular manifestation in ourselves. We must try to stop the manifestation of unpleasant emotions. For many people this is one of the most difficult things, because unpleasant emotions are expressed so quickly and so easily that you cannot catch them. Yet unless you try you cannot really observe yourself, so from the very beginning, when observing emotions, you must try to stop the expression of unpleasant emotions. This is the first step. In this system we call all these unpleasant, violent or depressing emotions by the name of negative emotions. As I said, the first step is trying not to express these negative emotions; the second step is the study of negative emotions themselves, making lists of them, finding their connections — because some of them are simple and some are compound — and trying to understand that they are quite useless. It sounds strange, but it is very important to understand that all negative emotions are absolutely useless: they do not serve any useful purpose; they do not make us acquainted with new things or bring us nearer to new things; they do not give us energy; they only waste energy and create unpleasant illusions. They can even destroy physical health. Thirdly, after a certain amount of study and observation we may come to the conclusion that we can get rid of negative emotions, that they are not obligatory. Here the system helps because it shows that in fact there is no real centre for negative emotions, but that they belong to an artificial centre in us, which we create in childhood by imitating people with negative emotions by whom we are surrounded. People even teach children to express negative emotions. Then children learn still more by imitation; they imitate older children, older children imitate grown-up people, and so at a very early age they become professors of negative emotions. It is a great liberation when we begin to understand that there are no obligatory negative emotions. We are born without them, but for some unknown reason we teach ourselves negative emotions. - from a book: Fourth Way - P. D. Ouspensky
Posted on: Sun, 09 Nov 2014 12:20:57 +0000
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