The A-H tape I have is an introductory (free) one; I think I could purchase another on this topic and get more detail. Maybe that lack of detail os why this is puzzling to me. But I don't see anything to argue with about listening to your inner self/guidance/whatever. So on the section called "Our Emotional Guidance System" A-H says the following:

When you are setting forth the thought of something you are wanting, and feeling positive emotion, that positive emotion is communication that is projected to you from your inner being. And when you are thinking of something you are not wanting and feeling negative emotion, that negative emotion is communication that is projected to you from your inner being. And so this emotion that you feel is actual guidance, or communication, that comes forth from the inner part of you. Now all physical beings that are now upon the earth are receiving, without exception, communication from their inner being, in the form of emotion; but that communication can broaden far beyond a feeling of positive or negative emotion, which is essentially guidance of "yes" or " no"; it can broaden to clear and full communication regarding any subject that is important to you. You literally have access to infinite intelligence, you see.

from "Introduction to the Teachings of Abraham" © 1998-2006.

OK so I don't want to get into any discussion about the source and its validity, I'm only interested in the concept, and to me this is a new concept of emotion. Of course, I've never had a clue where emotions come from. They are just there. Right? I think we all might think that access to guidance would immediately be access to infinite intelligence. I think it is novel and intriguing to consider that all emotion could be guidance. That doesn't explain the really strong emotions we can develop to ..anything. Maybe the ego takes over the emotions and the awareness of the initial guidance is then gone. But those reactions even to minor things sound like messages about something you don't want to create. So maybe the sad thoughts are just a message to turn your thoughts to things you do want to create.

I talk to myself so much inside my head, I never did understand how I was supposed to know if the thought was "the word of God" or just more of my randon talk.

LR your comment on what you saw in Secret sounds like you are quoting A-H! But then wasn't Abraham the inspiration for Secret?

Hi all. Lucy I didn't know that Eastern philosophy considered emotions as annoyances, but I've had a couple of boyfriends considered emotions annoying...

I am with you on this one Lucy as I've discovered material which supports your material, that indeed, emotions can be seen as an important communication from your self to your self. Frankly, I too used to wonder what the heck they were. In our society, it seems we are more technical minded, as well it's easy to find that emotions are annoying. but to see them as communication, a type of message to yourself, this places one into a direct path of self discovery I think can only turn out well, even if it is a negative emotion, I think there are messages there too. I rather consider I may have an entire rote on my hands when I consider an emotion. there are times we have gut reactions; I see this in the stomach or solar plexus area, I notice a "thud." if a thud occurs its like its a weighty emotion sitting there and I may be grounded in that case until I discover what I'm trying to bring my attention to.

as example of a guidance intuition; pardon, if I repeat this experience: I needed a roofer and was getting several bids rounded up. I grew impatient and just wanted to get the roof over and done with. (impatience can be my doom)  this young con fellow came out to do a low bid. I pulled into the driveway and he was waiting for me. now this feeling came from observing the way he walked. He walked too fast and betrayed an over eagerness to greet me. thud. something told me something was not quite right.
I did not obey my feelings of the thud. I did hire him and he took off with some supply money. So this is an example how we may be protected by a feeling if we listen to it, but I was very new at the idea of listening to feelings. I wanted to trust people, when I should be trusting what I feel.
Yet I am not being negative and saying poor me. not the case! I eventually tracked him down, I even went obe and found him to deliver one of my specialty lectures, which made me feel good, lol, but did not make him do right. I went through the court system and won, and the whole thing taught me to practice patience, and practice listening to what my feelings are saying.
otherwise it's like wearing a sign "kick me."

Lucy I don't know for sure who inspired the secret, it may well have been AH. I have heard nothing but good things from that section.
I do know the secret has always been around for centuries but only now as a whole it's going around quite efficiently, in different words perhaps, but it's getting around.

Bets, maybe that guru was in your life so you could see you don't need a guru? it kind of works that way sometimes. at least for me.

Ian, perhaps its true, I concede spiritual progress will often uproot conflict, which is certainly not pleasurable. it seems, personally, I will go thru cycles of pleasurable growth and then a period of more intense conflict as I resolve a fear perhaps, which is an emotion I suppose, related to what Lucy's talking about.
yet I would hope, and I do see evidence of this, that the periods of angst grow shorter in duration while the "this is fun!" grow longer. So I am thinking this about all of us.

love, alysia

Hi Bets-
Your chakras will take care of themselves - they are part of the connections by which you are here, but they are not in control. You can emphasize and increase what they do by focussing on them, which is more or less what we do when we decide to increase the population with someone. Or you can just maintain a comfortable balance amongst them with respect to ties to others.

The manner of c onnection through chakras, or "cording", if you prefer the term, is emphasis on connections through specific chakras by which we either bind ourselves or allow others to bind us to some pre-set "chakra posture" in our relationships. You can eliminate all that by ceasing to project expectations, or interpretations, and simply interact spontaneously instead of in a planned our contrived manner. That will still give moments in which this or that chakra gets stimulated, but that simply means that some kind of interaction is happening. Love, as an example, often feels like the inability to adequately merge with others, a sort of weepy craving sensation that would do credit to any tragic opera. It's normal when it spontaneously arises. However, trying to encourage feelings will point you off into material phenomena. They'll come and go on their own.

We all tend to have similar sensations. Often they relate to what we're doing in a specific manner that is unique to us. As one example, I tend to get frustrated and upset just prior to some logical discovery, or the solution to a proof I've been working on. Now, when I start feeling that way I start looking for something new and worthwhile, as opposed to focussing on the feelings. Maybe that would be similar for you - or maybe not. ? - But my impression is that all we need to do is to continue with what we're doing, and all the rest will follow.

dave

Thanks vajra,

that helps!

Bets

Hi Lucy. I'm no expert, but I'm aware of no reliable distinction between intuition and emotion that's just a reaction to what's rattling around in my mind at a given time. Stories like Alysia's repair guy point up the problem, one we've all experienced only some of us are not aware enough of our feelings to read what's going down. (even retrospectively)

I think the basic difficulty is that intuition (or higher knowing/communication) comes through on exactly the same channels of perception as everything else does - visual, sound, touch, thoughts, emotions or whatever. Meaning we need to learn to distinguish what's genuine, and what's not.

There's no easy answer I suspect, other than to say that I think a lot of valid communication gets missed, and lots of static gets mistaken for communication.

The most basic improvement I suspect we can make starts with meditation. If we can reach a state of stillness with lots of space, then I think we can more precisely feel and understand what comes through.

A little demo/test - if you have a cluttered and noisy mind then see what happens if you try to slowly recite a short verse you know well off by heart in your head. If you have decent stillness you will find yourself precisely enunciating every word and phrase. If not you'll find yourself dropping words, slurring words, feeling an illogical urge to rush to the finish and so on.

Releasing the suppression of emotion is important too. Re. some of the unblocking approaches I mentioned above - spiritual healing, chakra opening/balancing, tonglen towards both yourself and others, releasing ties to people that hurt/take your energy and so on.

As is releasing very strongly held beliefs and urges, as they inevitably generate a lot of emotional and thought 'noise'. It's not for nothing that higher states of consciousness imply an ability to be easy with 'groundlessness' - that is they transcend the need to grasp/cling to strongly held beliefs or ends for egotistical reasons.

The classic suppressed emotionally constricted self loathing Western mind will often simply on a blanket basis block all coming through that channel, and demolish what's left using some sort of intellectual so called pseudo rational conditioning ('that's impossible') - with psycho physical consequences too. Don't suppress, even if you're a bit 'loud' that way - rely instead on the meditation to progressively calm things down.

When you start getting some emotional feed it then becomes necessary to nurture it. Watching out for it, acknowledging and being receptive to it seems to encourage it. But it's also necessary to be very discriminating until over time you learn what's real and what's not. Don't reject, but don't head over heels accept/believe and act on it either - rest easily with the message, but allow time for it to become clearer. I find that the real thing is usually supported by other coincidences, synchronicities and so on.

My 2C anyway.....

PS there's the odd bit of groundless joy coming through now Alysia, but it's taken quite a while to get to that stage..

Hi Bets. Just to say that I think it's exactly what you say that makes emotion unhealthy - when we grasp at or become attached or addicted to certain patterns of behaviour. Even to the point of fuelling the emotion because we have come to derive a certain satisfaction from it.

These emotions can be apparently quite unpleasant - for example the chronic victim stokes his/her sense of outrage all the time. Some is socially sanctioned - we've for example come to regard anger as both acceptable and a sign of strength (watch any kids cartoon) when in fact it's a sign of fear and weakness. Being angry is not much fun, but we can still get addicted to the feedom to lash out it provides or whatever.

Just be careful how you deal with this issue though. I think it is possible through mindfulness to in a healthy way catch ourselves heading down the old familiar road, and so be in a position to not go there. i.e. you'll feel the initial flare of anger or whatever, but will resist pouring gas on the flames

Be careful though, because there's a very fine line between doing this, and actually suppressing the emotion. And if you do suppress it it can be damned hard to re-establish connection with it again once the suppression becomes subconscious or automatic. The unfortunate reality seems to be that no matter how well suppressed an emotion is the feeling it's the result of will find an out. It'll probably do no good for our health either.

Meditation as I've said is the key tool to reduce unhealthy mind energies. The tendency fades over time. Contemplation (resting lightly with a topic during meditation to see what floats to the surface) done properly can help provide insight into what we are doing too, but care is needed to ensure it doesn't develop intensity and become just more obsessive thought which will have the opposite effect to that intended....

we all have a piece of the puzzle, its kind of neat reading all this talk.

that reminds me. briefly Lucy, Bets, Ian, the higher self can be seen to deliver intuition and I remember that feeling. shiver me timbers? some pleasant shivers around the neck and ears, sometimes going all the way to top of head, whenever I read something that was ringing a bell for me, that I needed to read, or TV, but usually the mood is contemplative and TV does not provide that.

I don't know, intuition when its first blossoming is like finding a drink in the desert. mostly thru books, but not all books. so we have our books especially for us alone.
so it can be a physical sensation. but I believe the feeling of intuition would be first a mental thing then making its way to emotion, to physical level.

what helped me back in the 80's as concerning emotions. I figured out there were basically only two emotions. love or fear. I wrote down all the names of emotions to see if this worked that way: like pity, anger, impatience, condescending, love, joy, ecstasy, what other emotions do we name?
maybe some are just attitudes in the sub area. I started to look at what anger was, and found an angry person was defending something by being offensive in their behavior, so they would be self protective, if one feels very strongly about needing to protect themself, they are feeling fearful that they do not have some security.

so thus, anger turned out to be fear. or put another way anger can be seen as a feeling of "I am helpless to change this." as in Lucy's case, she is directing her anger or feeling of helplessness unto a situation whereby a woman and her children are starving.

so her anger is something on a different level than the anger of say, a man who is angry and decides to rape and pillage, thereby projecting anger unto others.

feeling unable to act or do something is still got some insecurity behind it, some fear, and is not love. so I figure theres levels of fear, levels of love, or say, degrees of love, degrees of fear, but only two emotions.
so if I'm not feeling PUL, which is the pure kind, has no thought around it basically, then if I look inside, I might be feeling something like a small fear and I would have to track down its source.

then if I figured out what was bothering me, I could either do something about it, or talk to myself, or sleep on it, theres all kinds of ways to make yourself get over the hump, so to speak. gladden yourself. hot bath. meditate. emotions do change rather quickly.

actually theres this other state I like to get in, but I don't stay there 24/7, but I write better when I get there...theres no emotions at all!! just a quiet flowing, a calm steady feeling of quiet joy. I love writing. but I know others will have their own way of experiencing that feeling from higher self, which actually doesn't have any problems there to solve, as HS knows everything is just the way it supposed to be. but that doesn't mean we just ignore the world that is suffering, but if we suffer too cry too much for them, then we are no good to help them either. thinking about the serenity prayer, where theres certain things we can do, but we need to know what is out of our hands, and what can be done in the moment.

thats great Ian, you say you are into some grounding experience? not quite sure what you mean but just guessing.

Bets reminded me of the temple feelings. thanks. so my consensus point I guess is that an emotion has a communication, a message to figure out usually, not about another person or a government, but usually it's a message from you, to you to figure out why you feel that way. like a gloomy feeling. it has a message. it would be perhaps, tell me dear lord, is the world really going to hell in a handbasket?

so by looking at the feeling of gloom, I found the thought and changed it from an affirmation to a question. then release the question to higher self then see what happens. tomorrow usually always gets here and looks slightly better. if we keep adding up slightly better days into a big pile, soon enough it starts to make a difference slowly into the world.

god I talk too much! love you guys 

I wish to complement Bets for starting this thread as I get alot from it. I think its important to appreciate people here for contributing what they do, if their intentions are to not tear down our beliefs, in any way, but to help us build towards what may be true for all of us, such as a discussion what is emotion, what is feeling, and how can we use our emotions to better ourselves or discover something.

as regards Bet's question what is the difference between an emotion and a feeling, I think it's a degree again. and Ian said this himself.
when I'm trying to define something what I do is a take off a word itself. the dictionary, believe it or not, helps! haha!

to take apart the word emotions, is to make it a verb that has action. emotions is to emote something. for instance a steam engine (please, not making reference to myself, lol!!!!!) a steam engine produces steam which is an energy produces power to move something along. in the same way humans emote an emotion which moves them along.

the problem is with this, does an emotion rule your house of consciousness or do you rule your house from higher thought? this is more difficult a question than it first looks because emotion can be very powerful, translating to various intensities, we often call it the person may be over reactive. we see this kind of person to the extreme beating his wife up or kicking the dog.

then the difference of a feeling is the subtleness. or the degree. to say I feel, then others say "I think." they are expressing different things. One shows their penchant for feeling, the other expresses their penchant for thinking.

yet as Ian points out, most belief systems have feelings attached to them. We can feel more attached in an emotional sense to something, some material, a book, an experience perhaps of personal measure, to this material which produced for us a revelation leading towards a transformation of our belief system and in turn a new self image arises, even a new personality perhaps. Yet it's not a new personality, because we are the sum total of our experiences from birth, even it can be said from before birth, but speaking of this one life, we carry the child within, who was young and accepted what it was told as a subconscious belief system.

so we have the life review, what every soul does upon transition usually or in old age it begins.  My theory is, after having written my book, it seems to me the human can do the life review earlier than old age and be one jump ahead that way, and also by a new thing called self retrievals, of which TMI does. this is a slow process though, but if consistent enough, there comes a time, nothing is hidden in the sub conscious area to discover and no more self retrievals to do. so the mind becomes less burdened with those past situations which in essence become released and transmuted, in other words, less emotion comes up to solve when you dwell upon something that occurred which hurt you, and so you wanted to blame the other person for that hurt.
the higher self knows how to free up your mind in this process.

when the mind is freed up, retrievals of others is easier to do because we can see we are so similar to them, there is understanding which is like PUL.

Part of the process of enlightening, or what I just call Lightening up, is to remind yourself of some truth you have accepted for yourself. in psychologist circles it may be called having an affirmation. for some reason, we like the affirmation, but do not really believe it yet. when we get to feeling down, we may pull it out and look at it and remind ourselves it seems true, but is it true? so we are still believing the old program while trying to run the new software and get used to it. if we want to create, or learn to create our own reality we keep to what we want to believe, we call this focus point.
or we can call it the will to do, or the setting of intention, or we can say it is the ability to make a firm decision which direction we will take to unfold ourselves.

if you are a collector of affirmations, like my daughter collects these, they start to point to where you are heading. btw, Ian, my daughter collects Buddha affirmations. if she starts to believe them, she can look to the truth of what somebody else said, and not upon her failures in life to attain what she wants. she does not meditate so these private moments with her favorite affirmations is very important.

lol. I may be in that flow thing Ian. I will get off and let someone else talk...don't u guys love this board layout?
this is the result of several folks speaking to Bruce, not just one person, not even me, but I can assure you we have community, we have growth here, we have genuine sharing. love, alysia