CHAPTER VII
POLARITY OF THE EMOTION
We saw that the man is constituted by several bodies and, all his dynamics in the face of the earth is processed in his soul that, in his turn, is constituted by two vehicles that include several phases of the mental and of the emotional. It is the soul that links the spirit to the physical that, by his turn, has two bodies - the physical and the vital.
It was objective of the last chapter, the study of one of the components of the soul, the mental, from the functional point of view. We saw her duality and their limitations.
Today, we will analyze the second component of the human soul, that is the emotion, also from his functional point of view, focusing particularly his duality, because in this phase of our studies we are trying to show the reflex in the man of the Universal polarity, in other words, the reflex of the division of the One in two opposed principles that gave, as result, the creation of the Universe.
The duality of the emotion is easy to notice. Confirming what was already mentioned, sometimes we are taken by feelings high, altruistic and, other times, there sprout in us emotions linked to the selfishness, egoism etc.
It would be enough to mention some of their polar principles:
|
Altruism |
selfishness |
|
Diligence |
laziness |
|
Charity |
envy |
|
Humility |
superb |
|
Detachment |
avarice |
|
Anger |
meekness |
WHICH OF THEM IS THE GOOD? WHICH OF THEM IS THE EVIL?
The concept that the Westerner has of these two principles is quite erroneous, quite deficient. Nor everything that seems to be a good is a good and nor everything that seems to be a bad is a bad. We should go in the direction of the concept of justice, which is the balance among these two forces that could also call: -
GOD AND DEVIL.
When we speak about well, the Westerner thinks soon about something of the column of the left. When it is spoken about bad, he thinks about something of the column of the right. But we need to begin understanding that the good and the bad are always relative values.
This duality of the human nature is registered with clearness inside of the philosophy. The chapter of the axiology appeared only and exclusively because of the duality of the emotion. It is enough to observe that the human being doesn't get to contemplate in a neutral way the world in which we live. The things that surround us provoke in us a desire of approach or of removal, of attraction or of repulsion. It is this emotional duality that puts the man always in favor or against some thing. Not to decide for a position is an abnormal state.
The chapter of the dialectics that studies the knowledge processes that proceed by opposition and surmounting of contradictions, affirms that each thing brings in itself its own contradiction. Each thing is taken to transform in his opposite. For instance, the life marches for the death, the activity takes to the exhaustion, the child walks for the maturity and, then, for the old age and the death. Everything reaches an end that is opposed to the beginning. Everything is fed, animated, maintained and destroyed by his opposite. In Hegel's (1.770-1.831) language, philosopher that established the foundations of the modern dialectics, each thing is at the same time thesis and antithesis, what would be to say that each state of being has a positive aspect and other negative one. The present moment of each thing is a synthesis, but this synthesis is the product of a game of opposite forces. When a certain state arrives to the extremity, it generates the opposite; it creates the germ of the self correction. If we analyze the example already mentioned of the fruit, we will see that he is the synthesis of a process. Before, it was flower and it can come to be a tree. There was a negative process that took the flower to wither. Then, there was a positive process that transformed the flower in the fruit. Now, there will be a negative process that will take the fruit to disintegrate, to deteriorate, for the seed to appear. Soon afterwards, there will be an evolutionary process that will take the seed to become a tree. It is the continuous game of the opposites.
Everything goes transforming, modifying because of that internal law of dynamics, provoked by a contradiction inherent to the own thing. A force that impels to the progress and another that takes to the decline. In the internal nature of the man the same phenomenon is verified. He progresses, he changes, and he develops, because of the fight among their psychic elements - emotion and mind - whose components are polarized.
To place well the reality of these positive and negative principles, we can fall back upon the Oriental philosophy, particularly to the one of Lao-Tse that has a notion more balanced of those values. The Acupuncture that is based in that philosophy affirms that two energies exist in the Universe that circulate in our vital body and, also, in the physical through the nervous system, and that are called Yang and Yin. We are going, provisory, to put Yang in the column of the left, column considered as Good and Yin in the column of the right, considered as Bad. It happens that the Acupuncture affirms that diseases exist provoked by the excess of Yin, which is understood by being beside the Evil. But it also affirms that diseases exist provoked by the excess of Yang that is beside the Good. It is difficult to understand that the positive principle can provoke disease which is something so negative, but it provokes. And she says that, to cure a disease with excess of Yang, either we take off some Yang or we add a little of Yin. From the philosophical point of view, we could not place these values in a fixed way. They are not antagonistic principle s, but complementary. And the ideal condition among them is the one of balance.
Then, for the Oriental, what is a disease? It is the excess or the lack of Yang, or the excess or the lack of Yin, in agreement with the needs of the organism. By analogy, what is a bad? It is the excess or the lack of any one of these moral values in relation to the needs of the situation that is being lived, of the circumstances in which we are involved.
It means that it is not the value in itself but, what matters, is the application of the value. For instance, patience - should we always be, unconditionally, patient? Will there not exist moments in when we should be really impatient? Altruism - should we give everything, without measures?
It means that the Good and the Bad don't exist. Good is an intermediate state, is the point of Justice in the application of any one of the values.
They are words of Mario Roso of Luna (1.872-1.931), renowned occultist and Spanish Theosophist: "As there would say a mathematician, the Good and the Bad are not except two conjugated variables that determine a constant integrative always unknown, since what we call of good and of evil are relative contents."
The polarized emotion and considered in its aspect of unbalance, with predominance of the negative, gives a state of being that receives, in theosophy, the name of Selfhood. Selfhood is that principle that makes the man to consider himself as the center of the Universe, around whom everything should rotate. There exists an interesting phenomenon that takes the man to acquire this state of Selfhood, phenomenon that is governed by one of the laws of the dialectics, that is, by the state of existent opposition among the things. The man, through their physical perception organs, establishes a relationship with the environment. It happens that the environment is changeable, and is always interpreted by the degree of the man's conscience, degree of conscience that also changes, but whose change the man doesn't notice. We don't notice, we don't understand the modifications that are operated in us, not even the physical alterations that would be easier to be registered. Then, little by little, the man goes on acquiring the idea that everything changes, except himself... only he is permanent inside of a world completely changeable and, because of that, he develops the sense of selfhood, that is the principle of the separatism, of the being as individual, with needs that should be satisfied at the whole cost, even if in detriment of the happiness of those that surround him. It means that the man became, in essence, a being extremely selfish, egocentric. The egoidade was necessary in the beginning of the evolutionary process, because it strengthened the principle of the self-defense, of the survival of the more forts, so that is sharply expressed in the primary instincts - defense, aggressiveness, procreation.
Reinforcing the idea already exposed when we treated of the reincarnation, let us see what is happening in the grounds of the human emotion. The man is always impelled to act trying to satisfy his emotion. If we observe, we will see that what moves the man to the action is the emotion, and she can only react in two ways. There exist things that please and things that displease. Naturally, the man tries to repeat the actions that please and to avoid the actions that displease and he ends, then, entering in a vicious circle-action that produces pleasant emotion, pleasant emotion that takes to the repetition of the action. By this way, the man settles in that type of behavior well explained by the conditioned reflex, that was studied by the scientist Pavlov (1.849 1.936), physiologist and Russian doctor. He made experiences with animals verifying that they would accomplish any wanted thing if they were rewarded emotionally in the end of the experiences. It is the system of educating those trained animals that appear thereabout at circuses.
Well then, the man's emotion reacts in the same way, she wants to be always rewarded. For the breaking of this vicious circle, action that produces pleasure and pleasure that incites to the repetition of the action, it is necessary to appeal to other internal principle that is the one of the Superior Will, principle that comes to be the pivot of the self accomplishment. Only through the use of this great weapon the man will get to leave this rudimentary existence that seeks the feeding of the emotion and he will be able, then, to elevate to the category of a being that looks for to reach the fullness of his personality. It is important to observe that not all that displeases is bad and not everything that pleases is good. In this internal game there needs to be a control of the mind, in his aspect reason, discernment. We should meditate a lot about the dynamics of these three internal values - mind, emotion and will - in his united performance. In this chapter, we are, didactically, trying to do an analysis of the basic emotion from the qualitative point of view, as possible static. This more specific analysis of the mental and of the emotional can take the reader to understand better the next chapter, when we will treat of the dynamics among the factors of the soul.
Every human being brings inside of himself this pulse for the search of a satisfaction. Some look for wealth, others prestige, some surrender to the lust, others to addictions, but, all, equally, when they reach the goal, the interior pulse is not satisfied, on the contrary, most of the time, it provokes depression, bad feeling, a need for new experiences with new hopes of finding satisfaction.
Acting like this, in a way to just satisfy the emotion, the man went entering more and more for the grounds of his negative emotion, that is, in spite of extraordinarily intelligent, he is a selfish and surprisingly animal in their emotional reactions. The state of being of the current man is very well acted in the legend of the maze of Minos. The individual that entered for that maze, in the island of Crete, no more would find the exit road. And, in the end of the maze, he would come across the monster Minotaur that would devour him. In a fight between Athena and Crete, the son of the king of Crete is killed and, to compensate this tragedy, Minos, king of Crete imposes those 7 boys and 7 girls would be annually given to the monster. Teseu, being present at the embarkation of a group of convicts that were going to Crete, proposed to go together and to defeat the Minotaur. The king of Minos receives the cortege in his palace and when his daughter, Ariadne, sees Teseu, falls in love with him and delivers him a yarn, whose thread he would go loosening along the mazes in order to find the way back.
This thread of Ariadne symbolizes the mental and the Minotaur the emotion. As the man doesn't get to find alone the road for his liberation, the Eternal, with in times and times, in other words, cyclically, orders expressions of himself, such as Krishna, Orpheu, Odin, Zarathustra, Buddha, Christ, that are humanized divine beings and that come to bring us the laws, that should be followed so that the man gets his depolarization. They are the thread of Ariadne that, waking up the mental of the man, will free him of the maze in which he is.
As we saw when of the analysis of the mental, none of these negative values can be abandoned. They constitute one of the two indispensable poles of the Universe, they make part of the great Universal synthesis - one is the thesis, the other the antithesis. If we abandon one of them, we will never get the synthesis. What is necessary is to get that these two opposed principle be balanced, neutralized. Then, there won't be neither good, nor bad, but only the justice, the Law, the road of the middle; the thread of the razor about what H.P.B. speaks.
Whenever this happens, the man will reach his primitive state of unit, when then, also, automatically, will reach the state of peace and of happiness that we all longed for, because he will penetrate again in the terrestrial paradise from which was expelled in the occasion when his nature was polarized.
Through the work of the internal organization we should transform rational mind in Wisdom and emotion in Universal Love. As a result of this true alchemy, that is a gigantic work, of a lot of lives, we will go approaching the understanding of what is God, because we will go reaching the potentialities of that Primordial Unit that created the Macrocosms, that is the Universe with all his complexity, and the Microcosms that are we, also a true Universe, still not trespassed by the resources of the rational mind.
When the man reaches the perfect balance among the factors of the mind and of the emotion, he will turn immortal, he will be deified, for it will begin acting in him, in the whole fullness, his superior principle, his spirit, that is a particle of the own Divinity.
The balance of those values is what will take us to know the true God that is the perfect state of Justice.