Re: Turnips in Terror?
Jun 13, 1998 05:52 PM
by Dr A M Bain
Bart Lidofsky <bartl@sprynet.com> writes
>Note that in Theosophical literature, the emotional principle is
>considered to be farther from the Atma than the mental principle.
Agreed, whether in theosophcal literature or not!
> This
>can cause confusion in humans unaware of this.
Which is a very large number of people.
> We tend to confuse the
>thoughts that emotions generate with the emotions themselves.
Occultism trains one to be able to make this distinction, which to most
minds is possibly impossible to notice (the conjuction within the psyche
is too close). The method is basically a great deal of self observation,
especially of the 'mechanical' side of human being-ness, which is a much
larger percentage than most of us would care to consider. This is my
experience. I forget it very often!
> Therefore,
>when we consider animals and even plants as having emotions, it is
>necessary to fight the automatic assumption that they react to those
>emotions similarly to us.
I don't know about 'fight' - question, maybe. No, question as a matter
of course! I think they *do* react to those 'emotions' similarly to us.
It's a biological or biochemic feedback reaction. Of course a plant can
show fear of fire - all living things find fire to be life-threatening, even if
not atma-threatening (which of course is isn't).
Alan
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