what are emotions?
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Peace be upon you Sawtooth,
See now I think it takes a thought to trigger the emotional (reflex) reaction.
Please elaborate. I am not sure if you were agreeing or disagreeing. Number one above states
- The initaitor of the event which is a situation that comes to the person in the form of a thought, an emotion, an external object, a challenge, etc.
So there are many "triggers".
I want to be clear regarding your response.
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I blieve the reflex action (IE turning red when embarrassed) does not occer until one acknowledges the instigating factor (something like a woman being told her skirt in tucked into her pantyhose) threough thought.
Consider me disctracted at the moment so I will understand if what I just said did nothing to illustrate my point
But I don't think we are in total disagreement, just maybe a step off.
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Peace All,
Nice topic.
Kyle, your 5 step chain reaction is excellent. I agree that step 2 is where the key lies. We must realize that we are always in control of our emotions. Reaction is always based on how we decide to interpret external stimuli, and this is usually based on past experience.
I think the key to peace is to eliminate this past referencing as often as possible, to not judge the situation based on past experiences, but to take every stimulus as a now experience.
An example
You walk into a store and right behind you is another person. You decide to hold the door open for the person. He/she walks through without comment. No "thank you". Do we get pissed off? I mean, how rude, right?
Here I am taking the time and the thought to be nice to my fellow human and he/she acts like I'm the doorman.See, that's where step 2 comes in. We have a choice in how to react. I held the door open because I wanted to. The person's lack of response has nothing to do with my action. Furthermore, he/she could have simply been distracted in thought, or perhaps unable to speak, or uncomfortable in public, or inflicted with a psychological condition. And of course, there's the possibility that the person is just a jerk.
In either case, our decision in how we interpret the external stimuli affects only our own self. If we decide to get upset, or angry, or bitter, we are left with the residual effect of that emotion. The person whose action initiated this emotion is completely unaffected by our own state.
So what is the point of getting all worked up?
We must realize that the mind conditions itself based solely on the past. We have the ability to change that conditioning every moment that something happens, simply by quieting the mind's routine and becoming self-aware.
Peace,
Tay -
Peace All...
oops how about this comment
Emotion is a result from a contact between mind and a discerned objects. the process is roughly sketched like this- First the awarenss element of mind works like a radar which recognised an existence of object (thanks to the element of Will). Object is described as any entities (material or immaterial) which can be perceived by five senses and mind-imaging including fantasy, dreams, future plans, etc.
- As the five senses contact with the object, the neuron impulses work and delivered the information to our brain. The Brain which had some unknown connection with our 'mind' transfered this chemical information, and our mind interpreted this as three major things
a. Bad/Ugly
b. Neutral
c. Good/Beautiful - Reacting on a) the emotion surge as hatred; reacting to b) neutral emotion aroused (indifference, serenity, etc), and reacting to c) love, likeness, and desire aroused.
- As the emotion progressed, the mental mechanics moved up to influence our Will (what we do next speak or do? praise or scold? exterminate or maintain or just sit down? bored or interested?) On this junction the key lies that is to recon the mind that react to the emotion; and thus knowing the nature of mind, emotion, contact, object which influence our happiness or sorrow in life. twisted
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The 'tiny' emotion drives unconscious movement like shifting toes in nervousness, wincing when lies were revealed or any damage taken, shifting hands in the laps in waiting room, pinching the uppermost part of nose in dizziness (usually after removing glasses ), rubbing our chins and sometimes just rubbing cheeks; swinging our leg back and fro in humdrum mood, the movement of eyes in nervy and fear, the smile when we are happy and irritated or forced to smile;
even our eye balls move when we are closing our eyes long enough...
what cause it? wink -
Emotion is a misguided reaction; Emotion is anti-islamic that disturbs peace or salamath.
You mean LOVE and COMPASSION is anti-Islamic?
I wonder why God starts his scripture with the words "In the Name of God Most Compassionate..."
Regards,
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Emotion is a misguided reaction; Emotion is anti-islamic that disturbs peace or salamath.
Well now there's a reason to take up Islam.
Seriously though, if god went to all the trouble to give us emotions why would we deny them? Without emotion you have no empathy, no passion, love, fear, anything. You become a vegetable
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Emotion is a misguided reaction; Emotion is anti-islamic that disturbs peace or salamath.
You mean LOVE and COMPASSION is anti-Islamic?
lotetree,
Yes, love and compassion is not life but fear for Allah is. Again, fear for allah is not emotion but a dear need of man if he has to evolve, correct himself and march ahead in the straight path.
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Seriously though, if god went to all the trouble to give us emotions why would we deny them? Without emotion you have no empathy, no passion, love, fear, anything. You become a vegetable
sawtooth,
What man shows as love, passion, fear and such that are very constrained and weak and has no consistency. In no time it might take a reverse course causing confusion and chaos that we see around the world today. Man's efforts to show love passion has no effect upon peaceful life. With all our show of emotions, we are dead already, leave alone being vegataions. Fear HIM alone for Guidance and consistency.
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But without emotion there is no desire. It is desire that causes us to want peace. Without emotion there is no empathy. it is empathy that allows us to stop from hurting our fellow man or to understand where they are seeing things from. Without emotion we become robotic, able to rely only on instinct. there would be no reason to comunicate, no difference between us and the animals. I think you are missing the big picture entirely and only looking at some utopian outcome if man had no emotion or ignored them completely. there is a movie with Sandra Bullock and Sly Stalone where they are living in a future society where happy is the only emotion expressed. the outcome is NOT what one would hope it could be. Emotion and thumbs are what make us human.
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The Qur'an told us to watch and comprehend the signs of the nature and universe. Of course the emotion is our small (and private) universe. Surely God would give us emotion for us to understand them, not for us to label and scold them as anti-something. (
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Seriously though, if god went to all the trouble to give us emotions why would we deny them? Without emotion you have no empathy, no passion, love, fear, anything. You become a vegetable
sawtooth,
What man shows as love, passion, fear and such that are very constrained and weak and has no consistency. In no time it might take a reverse course causing confusion and chaos that we see around the world today. Man's efforts to show love passion has no effect upon peaceful life. With all our show of emotions, we are dead already, leave alone being vegataions. Fear HIM alone for Guidance and consistency.
One example of how religion can make ya nutters.
No offence but NO SHITE!! We are human, we are not created to understad things on a larger scale or else we would. the chaos and confusion is why we are here. It's an education, this life we llive. We are individuals seperated by emotion. I cannot comprehend denying emotion. Life would become worthless and without lessons or reward at all. you must be a miserable human being.
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Peace be upon you Tay,
Kyle, your 5 step chain reaction is excellent.
I cannot take credit for that, this is taken from the teachings of Ra Un Nefer Amen, whom I often refer other to.
In either case, our decision in how we interpret the external stimuli affects only our own self.
Most times we dont even have time to interpret, our response is already conditioned as an AUTOMATIC reflex. Thats the point the author want to drive home. You walk in your house and find your wife in bed with another man. So you go downstairs, make some tea, sit down and say "hmmm, well i could go upstairs and kill them, or I could act like I never saw them, or hmmm let me see.."
No! D right then and there you snatch someone up by thier neck, because our being is conditioned with automatic responses. We have seen the same things being done on TV and so on that we are WELL CONDITIONED to respond a certain way.
so you find yourself saying to the judge, "next thing I remember I was covered in thier blood".
Emotions are a trance state, thats why two people who are arguing with each other cant understand each other, but we always have the answers to other peoples problems. D
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Peace be upon you Sawtooth,
You are misunderstanding what I am saying. I will elaborate further.
If you study your being, you will realize that there is a part of you that WILLS and a part that carries things out. Hasn there been something in your life where you said "i'm not doing that anymore!" but you kept right on doing it?
Anyway, what is being said is when an emotion comes to you, it should be ignored first, then we shoudl use REASON to decide if this "thing is correct or not, if it is correct THEN we ALLOW emotions to follow. For example, the emotions tell yuo to eat ice cream every night before going to bed even though you are 100 pounds overweight. You IGNORE that emotion and reason if eating ice cream is thr right thing to do, since it is not, you continue to ignore the emotion.
If you ever had any type of addiction, you will know that yuo must IGNORE the thoughts calling you to it, then they slowly lose power over you until one day you no longer have the craving. (a good movie to watch is A BEUATIFUL MIND)
What most of us dont understand what CHOOSING and DESIRING. Desires involve emotions, choosing is when there is no emotion involoved. If you are at a crossraod and trying to CHOOS if you are going left or right, then someone comes and PUSHES you to the left, you did not choose. Well thats the same with EMOTIONS, you might THINK you chose it, but it was emotions that DROVE you to do it.
The bottom line is that we do not deny emotions, we only prevent them from LEADING US, they are only to be servants.
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Emotion is a misguided reaction; Emotion is anti-islamic that disturbs peace or salamath.
You mean LOVE and COMPASSION is anti-Islamic?
lotetree,
Yes, love and compassion is not life but fear for Allah is.
So in the Name of God most Compassionate - is a load of nonsense?
Again, fear for allah is not emotion but a dear need of man if he has to evolve, correct himself and march ahead in the straight path.
Are you REALLY SERIOUS?
Fear is an EMOTION. It is a primitive survival instinct.Regards,
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Peace all,
nothing against emotions, on the contrary! But for sure part of our work down here is to direct these emotions in the right manner.
lkYes we all need to cultivate POSITIVE emotions like LOVE and COMPASSION and come to terms with negative emotions like HATE and ANGER. Experiencing intense emotions is also beneficial becaused it can lead to catharsis. See link
http//en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catharsis
Natural emotions should never be SURPRESSED because suppressed emotions will always express itself in most deviant forms.
Regards,
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The bottom line is that we do not deny emotions, we only prevent them from LEADING US, they are only to be servants.
Whats wrong being led by LOVE and COMPASSION? If we all are led by LOVE and COMPASSION the world would be such a nice place...
Regards,