Emotion and the Self

What are emotions?  Why do they seem to control us?  How do we understand the origin of emotional response? Emotion comes from a very deep sense of insecurity and fear.  The ego self is formulated by our experiences and any activity that touches that sense of self is subject to emotional response.  We believe that their are positive and negative emotions and so we seek the positive and avoid the negative.  But the very fact that we seek or avoid brings on the activity of both.  One defines the other and so their is in reality neither positive nor negative, their is only the response of self imagery.  Since we live in images, those images are what invoke response.  One is constantly accepting or rejecting according to the image of self and what it knows or believes.  If you are in the absolute moment is their self image? If you are in the moment is their an emotional response?  If you are referencing images that are born of the memory of opinion and judgement then response will be emotional.  If your mind is in the moment not referencing the past how will there be emotion?  To die to the emotion of the past is to find the truth of love.  For love is not an emotion, it is not a memory of the past brought into the moment. We must die to all emotion, the good and the bad.  When we do, we find the freedom of the moment and understanding that goes beyond the self that knows, that is caught in the imagery of the past.

A person can realize that emotion has nothing whatsoever to do with the truth of love. Emotion is a reaction to something you like or dislike. One must see the opposition that is the basis for all emotion.  If I like something then that always implies that I dislike its opposite or what I perceive to be its opposite.  If you like someone then you dislike someone else.  Thus sentiment and emotion breed cruelty.  All these emotional opinions that we are psychologically caught in breed envy and jealousy.  And how can their be love when you are envious of another, so I compete with you which is a form of jealousy.  If you truly realize this in the moment, if you see it in yourself as a reflection of the other, then you can be done with.  It doesn't take time, we don't need to analyze it.  We see, we act and it is over, we wipe it out.  And now perhaps for the first time we find the "true reality" of love.