Love, Humor And Gratitude. Isn't This Also An Illusion?

[Ranz Kafka]

Let's assume: the identification with thought (including emotion) is creating a life of suffering that can be described as a sine curve of highs and lows. Is enlightenment transforming the sine curve into a flat line?

And if so: What about humor, love and gratitude? Aren't those ego, too? Will those fade?

This week I was having breakfast with my parents, we made some nonsense jokes and I just felt grateful for my wonderful family. I thought: " The small things! Wow! I am loving this live! " But suddenly the next thought was: "This is an illusion too, isn't it?" This made depressive ( I know, depression is also ego). And I still cannot find a proper answer for that even after having read several books on enlightenment.

My ego is afraid of becoming an empty shell. How can enlightened people laugh, love and be grateful?

[ProblemSolving]

Basically everything is an illusion. Especially this forum that we visit using a computer and displaying data on a screen. Well, I used to think about this sine curve for a long time, till I realized that this is also an illusion. Enlightenment isn't an element that does something particular. In my humble opinion this term "enlightenment" is way too vulnerable towards false beliefs. Anyway, I am not trying to go off topic. Emotions are emotions. If we don't have emotions, what do we have? I believe that emotions are everything. Enlightenment in that case would just be a possibility to get closer to inner peace, happiness and all the other things that people truly desire. But that is something that every person must find out for themselves. So: 

1 hour ago, Ranz Kafka said:

How can enlightened people laugh, love and be grateful?

  They just do. In case they truly want it. 

[cetus]

17 minutes ago, Ranz Kafka said:

My ego is afraid of becoming an empty shell. How can enlightened people laugh, love and be grateful?

@Ranz Kafka Don't feel this way. There is always you and everything that is meaningful to you. "You" would be everything in every way. Enlightenment is nothing new to you. You know it very well already. You just "think" you don't. It's a remembering of what you truly are. This realization is like finding your way home after a long journey only to find that you never left. Enlightenment is a shared space that everything happens within. It surrounds you always In the stillness of the now moment. Reconnect with what you truly are through stillness of mind and you will remember in ways the mind can't imagine. It's a home coming. Nothing wrong with that at all.

[Leo Gura]

Well what do you think will happen when you're dead? You think love, gratitude, humor will exist? They will be gone forever. Just like when you go sleep each night, the entire world disappears. And it's not depressing at all. It's peaceful. Absolute peace. It's only depressing when seeing through the filter of ego. The problem is you've been avoiding contemplating death. You're distracting yourself. You're not facing it. And the truth is that it's coming. It will happen before you know it. So you might as well face up to it.

But also, whatever genuine gratitude or love is currently in you, is not of the ego. It is of the Nothingness that you really are. Ego only limits it. Notice how you killed off the love and gratitude you were feeling at the breakfast table by activating ego. The ego got lost in thought stories and so the love was replaced with fear, confusion, and depression.

When ego is seen-through, gratitude and love are the default states until the body dies.

The real question is: How can unenlightened people laugh, love and be grateful?

And the answer is: They can't! Not really. Because they have to spend every waking minute of their life worrying about protecting the ego from death.

[Ayla]

@Ranz Kafka , people that are "liberated" ( I like this word better ) still experience all spectrum of emotions. The only difference is that they are aware that this is just life "being happened" and nobody is either the object or the subject of the happenings. 

Live your life. There's nothing "outside" of it. 

[WelcometoReality]

@Ranz Kafka The emotions will be there, joy, sadness, gratitude. There simply won't be any clinging on to certain emotions and pushing away others.

Sadness will be embraced in the moment it arise as lovely as joy would be.