EMOTIONS
THEIR IMPORTANCE
Our discussion of the causes of suffering brought out the fact that many of them derive from the emotions: for example from jealousy, envy, fear and anger on the one side; or from love, compassion and remorse on the other.
But emotions are not only important because they underlie much human suffering, they are vitally important for the much deeper reason that they represent the real motivating forces of the personality. As such, they are the parents of behaviour: of thoughts and actions, of virtue and error.
The driving force of evolution is the attractive force, the force of Love, the mightiest of the emotions.
The evolutionary ascent of the Aether has been made possible by the power of thought, by the ability to think and hence to learn, to innovate and to adapt, but the motivation for this ascent has been the Love emotion.
It is emotions, then, that set the target. And it is thoughts that achieve it. Emotions and thoughts, thoughts and emotions - these are the very stuff of the Aether.
And since all Aether manifests itself as activity expressed by vibrations, then both emotions and thoughts must consist of vibrations.
THEIR EVOLUTION
Both thoughts and emotions are non-material, like the Aether which is formed by them. Therefore neither can be examined directly or objectively. Any subjective examination of how they have evolved must necessarily be based on our human experience and therefore confined to the latest of the major evolutionary advances, the advance from mammal to man.
For example, we look at a rabbit nibbling in the field. Can we enter into its thoughts? Can we imagine it comprehending our thoughts? Of course not. Our thoughts are on a different wavelength, immeasurably more sophisticated than those of the rabbit .... but now the rabbit has spotted us and fear has laid hold of him. His fear we can understand. His fear we can enter into.
Or again, that dog of yours can comprehend your fear, your anger or your delight, though he cannot enter your thoughts.
So there we have it. Our thoughts have soared above those of our animal forebears, but our emotions - or rather some of our emotions - have not evolved so far.
We have deduced that the true definition of vice, or evil behaviour, is behaviour which, though appropriate to an animal, is inappropriate to a human being. So, since emotions cause behaviour, then such evil or primitive behaviour must be caused by primitive animal emotions. It is such emotions then that father the vices.
Fortunately, this is not the whole story, for there are other emotions - higher emotions that are scarcely to be found amongst animals and which must therefore have evolved with the emergence of the Aether of man. These are the truly human emotions and they father truly human behaviour, that is, behaviour which is good or virtuous. Pity or compassion is one such, hope is another.
But of course we cannot put thoughts and emotions, the two constituents of Aether, into separate boxes. For they are both vibrations and it is a matter of common experience that the one reacts upon the other: that our emotions are swayed by our thoughts, and that our thoughts are coloured by our emotions. Thus behaviour is the child of thought as well as of
It is our human experience that while the causes of a particular emotion can be complex, the emotion itself is relatively simple. It is possible that it is their basic simplicity that gives emotions their power.
On the other hand, thoughts can be of immense complexity. So it is not surprising that thoughts seem to play a less important role with respect to emotions in an animal personality than they do in a human one.
Since emotions and thoughts are both vibrations, we can deduce that the emotional vibrations are comparatively basic and simple, while the thought vibrations are more complex and of a higher order.
All Aether evolves through a cycle of births and deaths, alternating between material and aetheric existence. Material existence takes place in a 4-dimensional environment created by Alpha-Holon the SuperAether and guided by His natural laws. It is in this material phase of existence that the Aether acquires knowledge and experience. Aetheric existence, on the other hand, takes place in an ideoplastic environment, fashioned and moulded by each individual Aether. This is the phase where the Aether reflects on what it has learned and develops its own individual creativity, its ability to innovate and adapt.
Creative innovation arises from thought, not from emotions. Emotions motivate, but they do not create. In general then, we must suppose that it will be thoughts that predominate in the aetheric phase, with emotions playing a less important role. Conversely, emotions must play a relatively more important part in the school that is earthly existence.
This prediction is borne out by the fact that emotions can be aroused on the material plane by agents which are strictly material and cannot therefore operate on the aetheric plane. Such agents are chemical stimulants, such as drugs and alcohol. In addition, there is a whole range of emotions which are drastically affected by material (not aetheric) well-being or the lack of it.
We can thus describe the two phases of existence:-
EMOTIONS
ATTRIBUTES & MATERIAL
=
BEHAVIOUR PERSONALITY thoughts
THOUGHTS
ATTRIBUTES & AETHERIC
=
BEHAVIOUR PERSONALITY emotions
While human thought towers above animal thought, the human personality contains emotions which are still animal. So our description of a newly human personality experiencing its first incarnation as a human being would be this:-
ANIMAL EMOTIONS
"BAD" HUMAN PRIMITIVE
=
BEHAVIOUR HUMAN BEING human thoughts
The effect of an individual Aether's first incarnation as a human being will be that when he/she dies, he/she will carry memories of human thoughts and experiences and, above all, of human communication. All these will have started to arouse human emotions. As incarnation follows incarnation, the strength and importance of our animal emotions will decline, giving way to human emotions, until finally we have become wholly human. So our description will have become this:-
HUMAN EMOTIONS
"GOOD" HUMAN MATURE
=
BEHAVIOUR HUMAN BEING human thoughts
Now, having graduated from the School of Earth, we have reached what might be called the 'saintly' level of aetheric development and are qualified to make the next leap - up from the human plane to the angelic plane, where as a 'new' angel, our description would be:-
HUMAN EMOTIONS
"BAD" ANGELIC PRIMITIVE
=
BEHAVIOUR ANGEL Angelicthoughts
and so the evolution of the soul continues:-
ANIMAL THOUGHTS 
ANIMAL BEHAVIOUR AND ATTRIBUTES
ANIMAL EMOTIONS BAD HUMAN BEHAVIOUR AND VICES
HUMAN THOUGHTS GOOD HUMAN BEHAVIOUR AND VIRTUES
HUMAN EMOTIONS BAD ANGELIC (saintly human) BEHAVIOUR AND ATTRIBUTES ANGELIC THOUGHTS GOOD ANGELIC BEHAVIOUR AND ATTRIBUTES
ANGELIC EMOTIONS
NATURE OF THE EMOTIONS
Now we must carry our analysis further.
First, a question : "What is it that marks off good or positive emotions from bad or negative ones?"
Both good and bad emotions are basic simple vibrations, so there cannot be all that much difference between them.
Take the prime emotion, the master emotion, Love. This generates the attractive force, which reaches out to Alpha-Holon and to all His parts. At the human level, Love operates most powerfully on those closest to us, on our friends, on our children, on our mates and, closest of all, on ourselves.
Self-love in proper measure is quite essential to human individuality and to human dignity. But excessive self-love manifests itself as some very nasty emotions indeed: envy, jealousy, anger, fear and hatred are all faces of the same emotion of exclusive self-love and they breed the vices of cruelty, avarice, selfishness, unkindness, indifference.
But conversely, if the love emotion is directed too violently outwards, away from the self, it manifests itself as doubt, self loathing, inadequacy, depression.
We have already reached the conclusion that the negative emotions and the evil behaviour they give rise to, are hangovers from earlier animal existence, are simply emotions and behaviour which were appropriate to the animal condition but are not appropriate to the human condition.
How dare we say this? Surely evil is evil and good is good?
The answer is that the supreme good is to love Alpha-Holon and to respond to His Love, to His attractive force, without which neither our evolution nor our very existence would have any meaning. To obey this supreme imperative, every individual Aether has to spend intervals incarnate on the material plane. And to incarnate, the Aether must have a material abode, a body, which must be able to survive by reproduction. This is why, as Darwin divined, the struggle for survival has always been central to animal evolution. But it is a struggle. It involves using every dirty trick in the book to survive. The struggle for survival is supremely a battle of selfishness, though it is a selfishness which serves the high purpose of Alpha-Holon.
But when an Aether has advanced from the animal plane to the human plane, it has reached a level where the imperative is no longer to struggle to survive on the material plane, but on the contrary to train to become free for ever from the necessity to incarnate. Angels do not dwell on earth, because they no longer need to: indeed, they would find wholly intolerable the struggle for survival with its innate selfishness, its necessary evil emotions and evil behaviour.
Yes, selfishness was essential to our past animal condition, but it is wholly unnecessary and inappropriate to our present human condition. It follows that the most urgent and important of the lessons we have to learn is to curb our selfishness, to bring under control the emotion of self-love - not to eliminate it, for that would be to deny Alpha-Holon's purpose as manifested in our divine individuality, but to reduce it to the level of the love which we extend to other members of the family of Alpha-Holon. This is why Jesus made the core of his teaching the command "Love equally both your neighbour and yourself". Once we can achieve such a reduction or sublimation of self-love, we shall comprise emotions which are truly appropriate to our human status and which father human virtues and good human behaviour.
We have deduced that what we call the emotions are the fundamental vibrations of that complex vibrational entity which is the human Aether. We could liken these basic vibrations to the energy waves of the material universe, as exemplified by the carrier waves of a radio transmitter. On the aetheric plane, these basic vibrations comprise the love emotion, radiating out to generate the attractive force. Such vibrations will have a simple wave-form whose chief characteristics are symmetry and harmony - so long, of course, as nothing disrupts their propagation and transmission.
But what if an Aether tries to confine its love vibrations, in an excess of self-love, (whether by an act of will or through force of habits forged by eons of evolutionary struggle)? The result will be that some of these radiating love vibrations will be reflected back from the boundaries of the individual Aether, bouncing back to provoke interference patterns and disharmony.
This represents a triple misfortune for the individual soul.
First, the reflected vibrations distort and weaken the radiating love vibrations and therefore weaken the attractive force, so that the Aether's evolution, its progress towards Alpha-Holon, is slowed down.
Second, its vibrational structure is thrown into disorder. The basic harmony, which it experiences as happiness and joy, has been transformed into disharmony, which it experiences as unhappiness and misery. Moreover, the higher thought vibrations (analogous to the information carrying waves which modulate the carrier wave in a radio transmission) are adversely affected. Unharmonious thoughts breed more disharmony of the emotions and the vicious spiral spreads internal disorder and misery.
Third, this sickness of the Aether transforms some of the love vibrations into counter-attractive emotions such as hatred.
LESSONS FROM THE EMOTIONS
These conclusions about the emotions hold important lessons for our daily living.
The first lesson is that thoughts affect emotions. By thinking positively, then, we can generate positive emotions. By thinking human thoughts, we generate human emotions. By thinking loving thoughts, we strengthen the love emotion.
The second lesson is that there is in fact only one basic emotion, only one true emotion and that is Love. All other emotions are either variations or distortions of this one emotion. Positive thoughts are ones which are in harmony with the love vibrations and therefore enhance them. Negative thoughts are thoughts which do not harmonise with the love vibrations and therefore diminish and distort them. Conversely, the love vibrations give rise to complex higher harmonics, which surface as thoughts which are harmonious and good.
For example, you look at a rose. You are aware of it. You create its beauty in your mind. This beauty is attractive and your love emotion reaches out to it. The love vibrations harmonise with the thought of beauty. And the thought of the beauty of the rose harmonises with the love vibrations. Then your soul, both thoughts and emotions, vibrates in harmony and you know peace and delight.
The third lesson is that you can practise the untrammelled radiation of the love emotion only by breaking down the walls of the self, only by flinging wide the windows of your Aether towards Alpha-Holon and all His parts.
The fourth lesson is that on the aetheric plane thoughts play a more dominant role than emotions. This underlines the importance of developing our capacity for disciplined and creative thought, because thoughts, as higher harmonics of the Aether, can create and control the emotions which are its fundamental vibrations.
The fifth and last lesson is that, since Alpha-Holon radiates out love vibrations to all His parts, we must for ever strive to keep the Aether's windows open to Him. For the outward flow of our little vibrations, as they try to harmonise with the inflow of His, are what generates the attractive force, the life-line of our being. We promote this by prayer, our telepathic communication with Alpha-Holon.