In the movie Equilibrium, if you saw it, they talked of how emotions are the cause of suffering but the moral of the movie was that we need our emotions even if they cause wars because there is beauty there and numbing ourselves to them would be the death of us. But perhaps the way the movie started out was on to something, not that we need to all be drugged but we need to come to a mutual understanding and way of behaving in order to not only survive another century but to survive without needless suffering. In "The Tao Te Ching" the tao is respresented as basically wu-chi which means nothingness or god or awareness or conciousness, whatever word you like and yin/yang, or big bang, or basically 'tai-chi', or 'doing', comes out of the tao. Yin/yang, good/bad, etc are of course duality but the tao doesnt have good or bad. The 'ego' or 'the mind' creates good/bad. So the question "To be or not to be" is really the heart of this, to be means to BE the human *beings* thats we are, this requires we remain truely concious and not operating on scripts, fear, etc. To "not be" means we choose not to accept this truth of our ability to just be. So it could also be said "to rule or to be ruled" or "to be together or to be separate, that is the question" Perhaps this passage describes this best: Through surrender, spiritual energy comes into this world. It creates no suffering for yourself, for other humans, or any other life form on the planet. Unlike mind energy, it does not pollute the earth, and it is not subject to the law of polarities, which dictates that nothing can exist without its opposite, that there can be no good without bad. Those who run on mind energy, which is still the vast majority of the Earths population, remain unaware of the existence of spiritual energy. It belongs to a different order of reality and will create a different world when a sufficient number of humans enter the surrendered state and so become totally free of negativity. If the Earth is to survive, this will be the energy of those who inhabit it. Jesus referred to this energy when he made his famous prophetic statement in the Sermon on the Mount: "Blessed are the gentle; they shall have the earth for their possession." --eckart tolle There's a book called "The sedona method" which describes how we can let go of our emotions and it lists our emotions in this order of lowest energy to highest energy (or enlightement): apathy, grief, fear, lust, anger, pride, courageousness, acceptance and peace. The last 3 'emotions' it goes on to say, aren't really emotions. Peace is actually who you are (which is why anyone can become enlightened and that it is said we will 'return' to enlightenment, because it is our true nature it's just that its crapped on by our conditioning since birth). And from your highest self, your true self, "Peace" you can then accept and be courageous and have no need for emotions "apathy, grief, fear, lust, anger, pride". all of those emotions just keep you 'stuck' and is where all the problems in the world arise. Note i say 'problems' not 'challenges'. challenges are a fact of life but they can be delt with from a place of peace rather than resistance. This is KEY. So if we keep operating from our emotions (remember the mind creates drama, drama isn't your natural state, it's only when you follow/become attached to thought) then the human race won't surive much longer. we have the capability now to destroy the planet (and have been slowly but surely) but *what* will press the button? Just some food for awareness Your natural inclination may be to resist this as just saying that "to be" means you won't truely live and that nothing will ever get done, but surrender isn't the same as resignation. Anyone who has ever read "The Bagavad Gita" knows this is the common misperception. And if you are resisting peace ask yourself why and if you have kids or ever did have kids ask yourself what you'd really want for them, a dramatic world or a peaceful world. That all being said, gun katas are still cool.
And I loved the scene at the end when he took out all those guards in the corridor. Some really superb action sequences, I'd say it was easily as slick as the matrix.
First I'll apologise for skipping over most of the topic - I'll come back to it later. I'll just say I thought that film was flawed in a billion ways. They supposedly eliminated emotions but the bad guys were still "angry" or "****ed off" or bad emotions, just the "caring" ones eliminated... Worst of all worlds... Edit - reading the topic now. Yeah, that sounds better. Harnessing emotions and training yourself to deal with them is a lot better. Banning emotions is like banning electricity incase someone gets electrocuted...
Hmph! I'll read it again tomorrow. Although a second scan says you didn't account for all emotions, I'm still too tired to think right so I'll leave it until then.
oh boy. Gotta love a philosophy thread that degrades within 2 posts to "I loved when he beat the crap out of those guys". Maybe next time not making the link to an action film would be wise ! Anyway, your post makes interesting reading, and while I believe the concept of "spiritual energy" to be merely a convenient way of presenting something intangible (i.e. a state of mind), I agree. I have been trying for several years to cease being controlled by my emotions. I'm not attempting to cut them off by any means, as I believe them to be very important. I take notice of and accept my emotional response, however, I will not let emotion only prompt me into action. I search for the most constructive input I can make to a situation. If I have nothing constructive to add, I will try to remove myself, or at the very least not do anything negative. Remember being told as a child "if you've nothing nice to say, say nothing at all"? Same concept. See? Your mother is smarter than you thought This is I believe the essence of the "spiritual energy" of which you speak. The ability to channel any form of emotion into a positive contribution, or in situations where positive contribution cannot be made, the realisation must be made that inaction is more positive than destructive action. And no smart alec comments about inaction against an assailant. If a person is intent on destruction, then action against that person that is sufficient to prevent their destructive action can be positive. The overall concept being to work towards equilibrium, or net positive effect. Your actions should not result in an increase in negative effect. It's not easy, and I fail regularly, but I feel it's making me a better person merely by the attempt.
It may help to remember that emotion is 'energy in motion', energy that was brought about by mere thoughts. So if you can control your thinkin you can control your energy. But lets not forget that most emotion doesnt need to end up in action. The chinese principle of 'wu wei' shows that the highest state requires no action and if there is outward action it will be done effortlessly and with single minded energy. But conservation of energy is extremely important, because the important things that demand energy will have access to energy instead of not having access to it thus resulting in illness. Energy is like money, it doesn't matter how much you make if you spend it all. This is true efficiency and true mastery.
I myself find eastern religions impossible to rationlise from a western persepective, I have enough trouble rationalising western ones as any more complicated than a mountain gorilla's view on life. Maybe you guys are different, but I consider eastern religions to be intended to work within an existing eastern cultural perspective, which would require one grew up in the east, to be appreciated in the desired context. Though I think an eastern spouse would rate a close second of being the least "lost in translation."
We don't even have words that describe certain truths of life that people in the east have words for. This is because western culture hardly focuses on anything thats truely important and real. So those of us who want to get beyond the illusions of the world end up borrowing from eastern philosophy, that simple =] But it's certainly not necessary to borrow from eastern philosophy to realize these things but it could take many lifetimes to realize all that which has already been realized, and written, by others.
Although I was a fan, (check the title) the logic is flawed like every distopia (Animal Farm, The Giver is most comparable). I've come to think that emotions that cause bad things are just normal and to be controlled by humans not drugs. Something like Equilibrium takes the human out of the control part. Certainly it is hard to master your emotions and achieve enlightenment or whatever you want to call it, only with that kind of determination will you ever reach it. The magic pills would just give us bland people with less self control than humans today. You wouldn't have to calm yourself down, the pills would do it.
"We don't even have words that describe certain truths of life that people in the east have words for. This is because western culture hardly focuses on anything thats truely important and real. " Uh, can I suggest some reading in Western philosophy, thought and religion?
I do plenty, this is how i know that we literally do not have actual words to express many things. Our language is incomplete
Off the top of my head right now 'mushin', 'wu-wei', 'sung', etc All we can do is try to describe concepts like these using many words and even then we're often left confused.
