Emotional Mastery or Enlightenment

[How to be wise]

Is achieving Emotional Mastery going to automatically lead to Enlightenment? Or is it possible to achieve full Emotional Mastery without becoming Enlightened. 

[AlwaysBeNice]

Emotions are just relative functioning, i.e. sometimes anger is great, sometimes it's more dysfunctional/inappropriate, who is to say when you have 'mastered it'? You can't, or you can, but by arbitrary standard, and it would be just a string of words. 

So nothing leads to enlightenment, 'enlightenment' is (coming to) realize or acknowledge empty Witness, not bound by perceptions, so what is happening right now. ; )

[Hellspeed]

1 hour ago, How to be wise said:

Is achieving Emotional Mastery going to automatically lead to Enlightenment? Or is it possible to achieve full Emotional Mastery without becoming Enlightened. 

Enlightenment is the mastery of emotions and your body/mind.

[How to be wise]

18 hours ago, AlwaysBeNice said:

sometimes anger is great

Anger is never great, wtf are you talking about? 

[i am I AM]

@How to be wise I think anger can be helpful in motivating self to do the work, but there are alternatives I find more helpful. On the other hand, it won't help to stagnate and stay attached to a specific item (emotion, belief, method, etc.), will it?

[Joseph Maynor]

I never understood what “emotional mastery” actually means.  It sounds good, but try to find its precise meaning.

Enlightenment leads to a certain kind of improvement in how you react to emotions, but is this really mastery?  Mastery implies a certain kind of control, like the Egoic self is no longer at the mercy of emotions which is just not true.  

The Egoic self is always at the mercy of emotions, even post-Enlightenment.  It’s the true Self that realizes all Ego (not just the Egoic self) is an illusion and remains unattached to all of it.  The true Self watches the Egoic self struggle with emotional mastery like you as an observer at a zoo might watch too monkeys throwing bananas at each other.  It’s fascinating, but doesn’t really have anything to do with you.

Edited November 4, 2018 by Joseph Maynor

[Jack River]

Yeah intelligence that observes emotional response doesn’t control as that is conditioned reactionary movement away from what is. Emotional mastery sounds like thought trying to put order in itself by using the same movement pattern that causes disorder itself. As in to direct in a certain direction, as in control, emotion/thought reaction itself. When I here emotional mastery what comes to mind is discipline. As that dicipline to me is mind directed. There is a discipline that arises as a result of this intelligence/awareness, but doesn’t seem to be mind/direction oriented. It’s freedom which is its own dicipline. 

Edited November 4, 2018 by Jack River

[Jack River]

Emotional awareness doesn’t operate in that conditioned pattern of emotional response. It actually stops operating totally when it’s sees the conditioned pattern at work. Eventually I noticed that the emotional reaction does lessen too depending on the quality of awareness. 

[How to be wise]

@i am I AM Lol how can anger motivate self to do work...

@Joseph Maynor @Jack River By emotional mastery, I simply mean being able to be joyful and peaceful no matter what life throws at you. There is no situation where you will feel any negative emotion. Basically, it’s the end of suffering. 

[Jack River]

1 minute ago, How to be wise said:

@i am I AM Lol how can anger motivate self to do work...

@Joseph Maynor @Jack River By emotional mastery, I simply mean being able to be joyful and peaceful no matter what life throws at you. There is no situation where you will feel any negative emotion. Basically, it’s the end of suffering. 

Gotcha dude..Action/reaction is born of division between subject/object of experience. No division actually in reaction to itself then no conflict/suffering. 

[Jack River]

There is only Conflict/suffering when there are two things(subject/object) to conflict. ?

Edited November 4, 2018 by Jack River

[Jack River]

Actually calling up on anger in order to watch it is most excellent way to observe and learn how anger/thought co-operate as a process. If that’s what @i am I AM was suggesting. Especially for someone looking to see as a fact that the thinker is the thought. Feeler the feeling, and such. 

Edited November 4, 2018 by Jack River

[DrewNows]

@How to be wiseHey good topic!

To me, emotional mastery is still going to be surface level as it only focuses on emotions. Emotions are "never wrong" as in they are always going to be justifiable from one's given perspective. All emotions, even anger, can be a great tool. Someone could always "look on the brightside" and claim to have emotional mastery.

With enlightenment, a perspective is seen through/transcended without any "controller" suppressing/manipulating any emotions. The actions/interpretations creating emotions will no longer be there (no personal attachment/psychological thought)

But in the end...they are both just "ideas" and if you want enlightenment to mean emotional mastery, it can 

 

[Jack River]

22 minutes ago, DrewNows said:

To me, emotional mastery is still going to be surface level as it only focuses on emotions. Emotions are "never wrong" as in they are always going to be justifiable from one's given perspective. All emotions, even anger, can be a great tool. Someone could always "look on the brightside" and claim to have emotional mastery.

Fosho

 

23 minutes ago, DrewNows said:

a perspective is seen through/transcended without any "controller" suppressing/manipulating any emotions. The actions/interpretations creating emotions will no longer be there (no personal attachment/psychological thought)

But in the end...they are both just "ideas" and if you want enlightenment to mean emotional mastery, it can 

 

Yep. Agreed dude

[How to be wise]

12 hours ago, Jack River said:

Action/reaction is born of division between subject/object of experience. No division actually in reaction to itself then no conflict/suffering. 

It looks nice on paper, but the difficult question is how to live it in your everyday experience. It’s true that all suffering comes because of the distinction between self and other.

9 hours ago, DrewNows said:

@How to be wiseHey good topic!

To me, emotional mastery is still going to be surface level as it only focuses on emotions. Emotions are "never wrong" as in they are always going to be justifiable from one's given perspective. All emotions, even anger, can be a great tool. Someone could always "look on the brightside" and claim to have emotional mastery.

With enlightenment, a perspective is seen through/transcended without any "controller" suppressing/manipulating any emotions. The actions/interpretations creating emotions will no longer be there (no personal attachment/psychological thought)

But in the end...they are both just "ideas" and if you want enlightenment to mean emotional mastery, it can 

 

When I say Emotional Mastery, I mean somebody who will never feel any negative emotion no matter how bad the situation gets. If somebody feels any negative emotion to begin with, it is not emotional mastery. A lot of enlightened teachers haven’t got that one down. They still sometimes have negative emotions when something bad happens to them.

[Hellspeed]

12 hours ago, Joseph Maynor said:

I never understood what “emotional mastery” actually means.  It sounds good, but try to find its precise meaning.

Enlightenment leads to a certain kind of improvement in how you react to emotions, but is this really mastery?  Mastery implies a certain kind of control, like the Egoic self is no longer at the mercy of emotions which is just not true.  

The Egoic self is always at the mercy of emotions, even post-Enlightenment.  It’s the true Self that realizes all Ego (not just the Egoic self) is an illusion and remains unattached to all of it.  The true Self watches the Egoic self struggle with emotional mastery like you as an observer at a zoo might watch too monkeys throwing bananas at each other.  It’s fascinating, but doesn’t really have anything to do with you.

Yellow stage point of view. ?

[okulele]

On 11/3/2018 at 10:45 PM, How to be wise said:

Is achieving Emotional Mastery going to automatically lead to Enlightenment? Or is it possible to achieve full Emotional Mastery without becoming Enlightened. 

I am pretty sure you can stop attaching yourself to negative emotions (which would be emotional mastery I guess) and still be attached to the physical body, to mind, to bliss etc. - therefore not completely free.

[Jack River]

8 hours ago, How to be wise said:

It looks nice on paper, but the difficult question is how to live it in your everyday experience.

Well that’s just it, this process of division looks for a way out but from the standpoint of division. So every move it makes sustains itself. Asking how to apply is looking to thought for answers and another reaction itself. Whats needed is total/holistic insight into this whole process/movement. In that that process movement literally ends dude. This seems to be rare. Not because only a few can do it, but because only a few seem to be willing. 

8 hours ago, How to be wise said:

It’s true that all suffering comes because of the distinction between self and other.

Fosho, but that’s not quite what I mean. I mean the division between thought/thinker, “me” the experiencer and the experience of for example anger, jealousy, and such. The inward division.  

[Forestluv]

However you describe "Emotional Mastery", it is *within* everything. It is within "enlightenment". Could "Emotional Mastery" lead to this awakening? Sure, it could be one of many inputs that contributes to the awakening. It could also be a distraction to the awakening.

In general, I've found that relaxing the personality allows for a mind in which the awakening process can flourish. I've found activities such as meditation, yoga and listening to nonduality teachers help to relax my personality. In contrast, attachments/identification to ideas, worries, analyzing, conceptualizing etc. stimulate my personality and is a distraction to the awakening process. The sneaky part here is that "spiritual concepts" can seem so "good", so "healthy" and it's easy to believe in them - which is a distraction.

To me, "Emotional Mastery" has a control feature to it that I would consider a trap. Who is doing the "Mastering"? Well, probably a fragment of the self. I suppose it could lead to progress for self improvement or early stages of awakening. Yet, at intermediate and advanced stages, I would consider it more of a hindrance. One reaches a stage in which it becomes about self dissolution, not self mastery. 

[kieranperez]

On 11/3/2018 at 2:45 PM, How to be wise said:

Is achieving Emotional Mastery going to automatically lead to Enlightenment?

No

On 11/3/2018 at 2:45 PM, How to be wise said:

Or is it possible to achieve full Emotional Mastery without becoming Enlightened. 

No.