Teacher: Teacher Ophelius

Today we have a message about emotions—this mysterious and most misunderstood part of your personality and what it means to have a healthy balance of this precious commodity that often drives your actions and fuels your passions.  I say precious because on some worlds, emotion is nearly absent from the personality and those that have more of it are considered gifted.  On Urantia however, there is an abundance of emotion in the mortal personality which can sometimes become out of balance and cause all kinds of misery for those who are controlled by it and for those who initiate and react to its more negative side effects—the cause of much grief on your world.

Emotion is by far the most difficult part of the personality to manage, while at the same time, it is one of the most blessed functions of the mind that allows you to feel things that are good and beautiful like love, joy, compassion, elation, laughter, and others.  On the negative side there is fear, anger, judgment, pride, selfishness, and indignation to name a few.

Many of you use emotion as the first go-to tool when dealing with experiences that intrude on your comfort zone—a crutch really to be used in place of real thought where you quickly perceive and consider all sides of a situation and project the outcome in your mind of your reaction to the event at hand, and therefore, wisely choose the best reaction to the situation. Herein lies the problem in that it is wise to react spontaneously to those events that make us feel good (love, joy and laughter), while it is unwise to react quickly to those things that intrude on our beliefs and expectations before the outcomes can be properly calculated which can carelessly cause harm to you and others.

Self mastery is the art of managing this complicated system of emotion.  Like habits, repeated thoughts and actions burn-in neuro-pathways in the brain like well trodden paths and it is difficult to change these habits of behavior once they become a part of the personality.  Often it is through pain that we learn to avoid these paths and walk new ones that allow us to feel less pain or discover a better way.  This is the learning process, yet some of you refuse to learn out of pride or avoidance of real thought and are doomed to repeat the painful experiences of unrestrained emotion (those of the negative kind).

Learn to recognize the difference between a positive situation or event and a negative one, and wisely choose the spontaneity of positive reactions and defer the negative type to a deeper thought process where outcomes can be weighed before the lips unleash careless misery for you and for others.  He that is master of himself, is greater than he that captures a city.

Peace to you,

The Circle of Seven