November 20, 2013
by proactiveawareness
HJ: Positive and negative emotions are really two sides of the same coin — the coin of acceptance. Negative emotions arise when we do not accept events, circumstances, things, etc. in our life as they are. Positive emotions arise when we accept our reality/experience exactly as it is and embrace the moment. Both relate to our lack of or abundance of acceptance. We can access this profound state of acceptance once we have internalized the realizations that come from viewing our lives/the world from a non-dualistic perspective, which simply means that we stop viewing things in terms of right or wrong, good or bad, etc.
For some people this can be hard to understand because their entire personalities and worldview are predicated on classifying events, people, things, etc. as either good or bad, right or wrong, however, this is actually a distorted view of reality, despite what the media and society would have you believe. The truth is, like Morty points out below, events only have as much meaning as we ascribe to them and by nature are neutral/meaningless in and of themselves. We can choose to impose distorted views of right and wrong on things, but that does not make it so — that is just our subjective opinion and it keeps us highly polarized and locked into constantly experiencing negative emotions as the experience of life does not meet our standards.
However, as mentioned, you can be freed from the oscillations between positive and negative emotions, and move firmly into a state where you experience only positive emotions or an ‘enlightened’ state of contentment, by moving into a mindset of non-duality and accepting events as they actually are — opportunities for growth in our awareness and understanding of the self. Simple as that, just like flipping a switch. Like anything in life, it’s only as difficult as we make it for ourselves. Read more of this post