6 The all-pervasive influence of the emotions

6.1 The need for detachment (see below contents).

6.2 Why me?

6.3 Detached, yet sensitive.

6.4 Fear and desire.

6.5 Anger.

6.6 Forgiveness.

6.7 Giving.

6.1 What is the all-pervasive influence of the emotions?

Every situation you experience can be analysed and understood as a specific arrangement of the ten conditions. The goal of the process of enlightenment is to free you, progressively, from the constraints of the ten conditions. The first stage of enlightenment gives you the capacity to sustain freedom from emotional and intellectual limitations.

This teaching emphasises the crucial importance of breaking free from the emotional constraints of your personality. Until you do this, you cannot begin to see the world as it is. As long as you operate within the emotional conditions of your personality you will have a distorted view of reality.

Prior to the first stage of enlightenment, one seeks satisfaction of emotional needs and desires; afterwards, emotional satisfaction is not such a priority. Before the first enlightenment, one’s view of the world is coloured by one’s own attitudes; afterwards, you see that the emotional difficulties you experienced were primarily caused by your own emotions, by yourself and none other. Before the first stage of enlightenment, you are driven to attain emotional satisfaction and fulfilment; afterwards, you learn to deal with your life freely and spontaneously.

Through your emotional projections, a process you only gradually become aware of, you create the specific aspects of reality which you experience. The purpose of this period of your life is to test your capacity to recognise, and break free from, your unconscious emotional projections. These tests are karmic in nature, and are designed to establish the extent to which you are detached from your emotions, the extent to which you understand your own nature.

Remember, reality can be understood as a unified, organic machine, and each of us is an essential component. Part of the functioning of the process is a constant testing of your capacity to remain detached and clear. By becoming detached from your deep-seated emotional responses, you will attain the psychological stage of enlightenment.

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