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Be prepared for an initially-disturbing aspect of investigating the subconscious mind. We are likely to be very upset when we first become aware of powerful negative emotions in ourself.
If we see ourself as being a nice guy, then what we have done in life is to accept our positive emotions, so that we are aware of them, but we have kept our negative emotions buried in the subconscious mind.
We find it easiest to identify emotions that are very influential in our lives, even when we are not aware that we have them. When I first identified hate in my subconscious mind I was shocked – it did not fit into my self-image of being a nice guy. It took me a long time to accept this reality. All emotions (with the exception of equanimity) form into pairs of opposites. So if one emotion is powerful in your life, then the opposite member of that pair will also be powerful. If love is powerful, then so is hate.
The standard way of handling this difficulty is to split the focus of our emotions. We divide reality up into good and bad aspects. We assign our powerful positive emotions to the good side of reality, and assign our powerful negative emotions to what we consider is the bad side of it. So ‘spiritual’ people love god (and subconsciously hate the materialism of the world) ; or we love the world, and hate god (because of the sorrow that exists).
When we do not split the focus, when we alternately love and hate the same issue or the same person, then we have a problem ! – we have to endure an emotional roller-coaster.
The adolescent finds it easy to focus love on friends and hate on enemies, but often finds it extremely difficult to handle his/her love-hate relationships with the parents !
However, hate is essential to spiritual development. When a person goes into deep concentration and contemplation on any topic, the emotion that sustains this absorption is hate. In this situation, hate produces a mild sense of calmness in the mind.
Love is the basis of equality and uniformity, whilst hate is the basis of separation and difference. So our evaluation of what goodness and badness means will undergo a re-orientation when we explore the subconscious mind.
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@2003 Ian Heath
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Ian
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