As I had hoped he would, Dirk submits a new list of questions. So let’s begin with them.
[Dirk’s questions included:
[Rather than continue in the vein we were before – I propose taking a less mechanistic approach. A series of questions may highlight the issues and better guide us.
[2-1) What are the purposes of emotion?
[2-2) What are the purposes of feelings?
[2-3) How do emotions and feelings relate to one another? Do they overlap?
[2-4) How do all of these together facilitate the connection between all-D and 3D and our greater purposes?
[2-5) With current events, what function does hope serve? Is it a function? Is it something else?
[2-6) How does hope relate to fear? … and to other emotions or feelings?
[TGU:] We remind the studio audience, so to speak, that the better the question, the better the answer. So, we may all learn more from objections and questions stemming from our answers than we would if we were to answer and have our answers accepted as gospel.
Dialogue, not monologue. Call and response, not indoctrination.
Exactly. The 3D response is as important now as the non-3D illustration. Even the few years since Seth has seen a real change in the dynamics. Old ways won’t serve as well. In short, be aware – one and all – that your participation in this newer form is important.
So, then, emotions and feelings, from another point of departure.
Let’s begin by considering the first four questions together, as they form a tight unit. After we deal with these, and with any objections or questions, we can continue from a platform that we will consider to have been well understood. To say that more specifically: Anyone suppressing questions or objections that arise will be doing the process a disservice, as it is responses that help us decide what has been adequately explained and what is still too subject to misrepresentation.
By which, I get, you mean not misinterpretation based in people having a different opinion, but on them having a misunderstanding of what has been said.
Correct. We do not expect to see unanimity. It is impossible in practice and, really, undesirable in theory. Unanimity would be essentially “lowest common denominator,” and that would be of little use in breaking new trails.
I think you just said, if you don’t see at least a few people being thrown off, you conclude that you aren’t driving fast enough.
A joke, but in a way almost true. This isn’t a ride along established pony trails, but an attempt to cover new ground.
Very well, to the new questions.
Rather than answer the first two as posed, we will answer slightly different questions, for the idea of examining the purpose of feelings and emotions will probably lead to less provocative results, at least initially, than examining the derivation of the two. Once understand where they arise, and thus how they manifest, it will become easier to see why they manifest, and then, how they fit into the scheme of things, which is more or less what “purpose” implies.
So, let’s look at the question of how feelings and emotions arise, and how they manifest.
For our present purposes, we are going to look at feelings as relatively long-term, and emotions as relatively short-term, reactions to conditions. This is certainly not the only difference between the two, but let us start here.
Feelings, as we have said, result from the fact that your lives are not blank slates as you begin, nor is the world you are born into a blank slate.
- The “external” world is biased by past events.
- Your own make-up is biased by the things built into your condition, your “karma.”
- The interface between what you are and what you experience the world to be, may be called feelings. Thus these will change as you change, and as the “external” world changes, but they aren’t likely to turn on a dime. They are more like background noise.
I’m getting that feelings are not so much background noise, but background. They are the note our lives are tuned to.
That’s an acceptable paraphrase.
Very well, these long-term themes, often seen as character, determine your default position – who you are when not stressed by an immediate situation. You “have a sunny disposition,” or you are “chronically disgruntled,” or you are diligent, industrious, happy-go-lucky, etc. We recognize that this does not seem to be describing feelings, but bear with us for the moment. The climate of your mental life consists of a relatively limited set of feelings. To the extent that you break new ground for whatever reason, people say that you “aren’t acting like yourself.” A transformative experience, or even the passage of the years, may lead you into previously alien territory.
An example might be my life after Gateway?
Your life after certain hopes and suspicions were seen to be realistic and certain doubts and resignations were discredited, yes. From outside it would have looked like this: He used to be this way, but now he isn’t.
Bob Friedman told me, some time later, “You never came down from Gateway.”
He was expecting something more transitory. He did not expect that you would lay down certain traits and pick up others, because that happens rarely in people’s lives, whereas sudden enthusiasms, that are likely to die down just as suddenly, are common. Your feelings about the nature and possibilities of life had changed, in effect. You were no longer exactly the person others had known, though the transformation was far greater internally than appeared externally.
I’d paraphrase that by saying that what expressed in my life had always been there potentially but had not manifested for lack of final conviction until I got that massive confirmation.
We can come back to that another time, perhaps. We intended to lightly sketch both feelings and emotions in this session, but let’s finish up with feelings now and do emotions next time.
We hope we have indicated how feelings arise. (If not, please tell us what is not clear, or not plausible.) How they manifest ought to be plain from your own experience of your lives. You feel different about things. That is, emotionally (but not necessarily intellectually) you live in a somewhat different world, accepting different possibilities. When your feelings change, the world is experienced differently and is interpreted differently.
I can’t tell if this will be clear and persuasive to others, but it is to me. But then, there may be logical objections I haven’t thought of.
That is the potential benefit of collaboration, of course. Next time (subject to possible commentary on feelings) we shall do for emotions what we did for feelings, sketch their origins and their way of manifesting.
I hear your appeal for more active collaboration, loud and clear, and of course I am in agreement. Very well, till next time, our thanks as always.