Emotions

I often wonder if emotions are in fact the spiritual textbooks of life. I firmly believe that each and every individual comes to this realm with certain life lessons to be learned. That is the one thing that makes each of us different from each other.
And as a pagan that sense of individuality plays is a huge factor within my personal beliefs.
However the one thing that every creature on Mother Earth has in common is the presence of emotions.
I think about how every creature on Mother Earth has some level of emotion. This can range from the basic need to kill in order to survive, and every creature on earth engages in this particular activity to some extent if one is to believe in Animism, to the more complicated emotions of love and hate for instance.
As humans, emotions play a huge part in how we perceive others and how we perceive ourselves. We use
emotions in every aspect of our lives.
We even go so far as to set parameters for these emotions. Those who show little or no emotion are said to be cold blooded and those who exceed the accepted societal levels are said to be hot blooded.
Everything else seems to fall somewhere in between.
As a witch it is my purpose in life to seek out and to understand the Great Mysteries. As such, how can one ignore a power that is so prevalent within all of life?
In support of this musing, we have a history of admiration for those who have reached a certain plateau in regards to their personal emotions. I refer to Gandhi, Buddha, Mother Teresa and other such folks.
Each of these individuals became as one with their individual selves and then went on to become spiritual teachers.
Did they stumble onto something in regards to emotions that would serve as a lesson to the rest of us wandering souls?
Could something that has such a powerful influence in every creature on earth be one of the Great Mysteries of life?
And if one were to embrace this musing as having some validity, how are you as an individual doing with this particular life lesson?
Let's face it; many of our emotions are enacted through a response to an outside influence. Even our thoughts are generally in reaction to some event outside of our psyche.
Having said that I wonder how many folks really are individuals per se? For in reality we are all connected to each other by way of emotions.
Can this connection in some way be an indirect connection to Deity?
For another commonality is that all life in this realm was created by deity. Can emotions be the common bond that serves to keep us all in one classification in the grand scheme of things?
Does finding the ability to rise above the pettiness of undesired emotions put us one step higher on the spiritual level?
Are certain emotions such as hate, jealousy, egotism, envy and so forth, merely a subterfuge to see if we can actually "get it" spiritually? Are such emotions as these really necessary in our lives?
You may say "no" and yet we express them in some form practically every day of our lives.
In general, lessons are pieces of information that we are trying to learn in order to improve our lives. And so wouldn't such obvious lessons such as emotions play an integral part in our spiritual lessons?
If so, I ask once again, how are your lessons coming along?


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