crossbow
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The inadequacy is in my words, Bardo.
Perhaps an example may assist: (Please excuse the long post. I hope it assists someone.)
Two fears: A man is travelling in a late night train carriage, there is another man sitting further down the carriage. Two thugs enter and accost the other man, standing over him and demanding money, then for fun they bash him and leave him broken and bleeding on the floor. The first man, who is witnessing the attack upon his fellow traveller, is gripped by what he thinks is fear; his throat is tight, his stomach churns, his larger muscle twitch and his smaller muscles shake. He does not recognise his strength for what it is, and misinterprets it as fear and inadequacy. He shrinks into his seat and hopes not to be noticed by the thugs, lest he is next to be bashed. at the next stop he hurries from the train and catches a taxi home. Some days later, when his emotions are quiet, when his mind is at rest, he feels what is his soul moving within him, and realisation dawns. He realises he could have helped his fellow man, could have saved him from the bashing, could have used his briefcase, umbrella, his own hands and fists and voice to fight the thugs and help his fellow man; and even helped the thugs by showing them truer courage than what they only know, and could have shown them mercy too, shown them that the trait that they admire most - strength - can be a trait of good men too. He feels regret and shame. And then in many months time, again he rides upon the late night train. Again some thugs attack a fellow passenger. He feels the same "fear" that he felt last time; but at the same time and in the background of his being, he feels another fear, that he did not feel the last time. One fear is the fear of his earthly health and life, the other is the fear of disappointing his soul. One is loud and one is quiet. One is course and one is fine. One is temporary and one is lasting. This time he makes a different choice. He follows the promptings of his soul, his earthly fear is changed to strength, for strength is what it really is, and he steps up with clear head and strong heart and saves his fellow man, although he fights hard, he is fair and merciful and does no more harm than necessary, he demonstrates to thugs that goodness can be strong and that mercy is not weak. Although he beats off the thugs he treats them and the other man like they were all his brothers. And men see strength, goodness, courage and fairness that they have never seen before. And all have grown, even if only a little bit.
Two types of emotions: There are the emotions we are familiar with, and these are course, weak although they seem strong, temporary, loud, swing horizontally between opposing pairs, and they are of the earth life. They are felt in the emotional/astral/second body and are not felt by the soul after the emotional body is shed.
And there are "soul powers" (what might at first feel like "emotions" of soul, but they are powers, not emotions), and these are fine, strong though at first seem weak, permanent, quiet, flow down vertically and then outward (love/PUL), and are an ability/power of soul, regardless of what bodies the soul may or may not have on.
Emotions are paired in opposites, to teach the soul: Each of the soul abilities/powers are dormant, until their associated earthlife emotion is experienced along with its tied and consequential opposite emotion, and from the swinging and attrition between the pairs of opposing emotions, grows a soul realisation of its own powers that are associated with each pair of emotions. It is like a pendulum, between the two and up at a right-angle, like up the string of the pendulum to the point from which it swings. The swinging between the emotions irritates and awakens the place in soul from which it swings. Then the swing ceases and the soul power ("soul emotion") flows down and out, like down the stationary string of the pendulum. This is how emotions wake up the soul powers. Monroe spoke of this, though in a different way.
Exercising intelligence - perception/recognition: The ability to differentiate/distinguish to finer and finer degrees, and the exercising of this ability, is one of the most useful skills to develop for all manner of occult work, be it phasing, tuning, leaving the body, and comprehension of the subtle things of life, and the subtle worlds and their subject matters. For differentiating/discriminating is the fine tuning of the awareness, and it enables the awareness to grasp the finest subjects, and penetrate the finer worlds and their workings. We should exercise this ability, make it finer and finer, on all matters.
And also practice the opposite exercise - that of widening the scope of awareness; taking in the biggest picture.
And then between the ability to expand/widen the awareness and the ability to finely discern, is the noticing of individualities and generalities, patterns, associations, sequences, distinctions and similarities.
This is the exercising and developing of the base intelligence of consciousness, what is underneath and distinct from our education, knowledge, culture.
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