As a follow through from yest's post, a natural question would be.....what's detachment, mindfulness, self actualization. If an emotional graph is aspirational, how does that fit?
I use the word 'mindfulness' to denote all of those above.
That is what comes with the 'hovering awareness'. What hovers? The 'I' that is watching all of these happen, is aware of it happening, and yet retains it's space and it's identity. The 'I' is still separate from those emotions. Experiencing them, not giving away control, staying separate in it's 'being'.
The 'I' is like the substratum on which this dance of life happens, and that's where rests the detachment.
In fact the word 'substratum' offers a beautiful analogy. As earth is the substratum on which the seasons play out, yet pretty much remains itself. It enables the flow of the seasons, be they the disruptions or the expressions of beauty, through all their varied manifestations.
At the extremes of the emotions, as said in Buddhism, sit the 'aversions and cravings', that's the space to watch for, as they can shake even the substratum. They can take over the mind and then they become the master and the 'I' the slave, and that's trouble.
There's a quote which brings this out best, in fact I heard it during the Vipassana 'Even Buddha gets a headache'.
What does that even mean?
That until you have the body, until you are alive, you will 'feel'.
It's about 'how' you handle it....which takes over which.....and it's a journey. It's about, (to the extent possible) retaining the 'I' and yet being able to experience life... and watch the play of the emotions that makes life on earth, as a human, as a body, as a mind, as a heart. It's when you can understand your own emotions for what they are, that you also understand the others. A space that enables an authentic 'non judgmental'. It's when you can care deeply enough to 'live and let live'.
It's paradoxically the deepest space of joy and freedom.
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