Re: [BardonPraxis] Exercises in Mental Discipline of the Emotions

["Rawn Clark" <rawnclark@...>]

Dear Allen,

>> There is one thing concerning emotions that confuses me. During
really *successful* meditations, I find myself overwhelmed with the
emotion of (lack of a better word) Divine Love. Everything seems so
perfect, I cannot help but cry. I am in the NOW so to speak when this
happens. I am then exactly where I should be. This emotion feels like
something I should be striving for and not something I can observe.
Sometimes it comes like a flood and too beautiful to detach from. What
then? Is this only a trick of the mind? Because if I feel this,
achieving a perfect EOM for example becomes trivial. Such peace in this
emotion... <<

Emotional discipline must encompass *all* of the emotional responses,
including those that are "too beautiful to detach from". This doesn't
mean that your experience is in any way negative or must be suppressed.
Instead, it must be penetrated more deeply.

Its pursuit however, should occur in its own context, as a specific
exercise and not during an EOM session. Indeed, the emotional
experience that you're describing would constitute an interruption of
the EOM state. If this has arisen during EOM practice then, like all
distractions, it must either be let go of so that you can continue EOM,
or you must intentionally exit the EOM in order to explore it properly.
Otherwise, you will not be able to progress any further in the deepening
of your EOM state.

This emotion is an effect, not a cause. I suggest that you look beneath
the emotion for its cause. Beneath that *feeling* of immense joy is a
very important realization about the nature of existence. It is the
perception of that realization which causes the feeling but your
absorption in the feeling itself masks the *direct* perception and
prevents your *direct* experience of that profound realization.

My best to you,
:) Rawn Clark
18 Dec 2003
rawnclark@...
rawn@...
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