Anger is not always wrong

[Joseph Maynor]

15 minutes ago, Natasha Tori Maru said:

Okay this is why you are quite charged. Read what I wrote again - at no point did I say it was unrefined. More that we can always refine our views. Not you per se. All of us. The conversation is an opportunity for me to refine my thoughts also !

I didn't say it was unrefined - you assumed.

I don't think I'm charged.  I'm actually tired and getting ready for bed.  Good night.

[Natasha Tori Maru]

3 minutes ago, Joseph Maynor said:

I don't think I'm charged.  I'm actually tired and getting ready for bed.  Good night.

Then 'tis not so

Have a nice night

[gettoefl]

You have to see that anger is self harm. The other is not affected. To see this makes for re-evaluating. Why do I insist on punishing myself for no positive worldly outcome. I should get serious and heal my madness. The opposite of anger is forgiveness. Everyone is doing what I would do in their shoes. They are helpless to do otherwise. I however am not helpless. Because I value truth. And anger is a blockage to truth. Since if I say I am angry. It's a self-deception. I am deluded and as a consequence see not truth.

[Human Mint]

Anger is not separated to being contempt in my view. And contemplating further, it is tied with truth. As a mechanism to align with truth.

6 hours ago, Joseph Maynor said:

Tell me where I'm wrong again please.

You're wrong in giving a fuck, probably.

Is a good thing to contemplate. Anger is a function of your level of consciousness for sure. If you have a limited perspective on things is almost as if you're calling anger in your life. And of course, most can't help themselves but to have a limited perspective on everything.

Edited 10 hours ago by Human Mint

[No1Here2c]

4 hours ago, Joseph Maynor said:

You said you definitely disagree with me and now you're denying disagreement.  I don't want to start a conflict here but this is what I'm referring to when I mention denying anger.  Minimizing conflict while engaging in it.  I get it, it's important to get along.  I'm all for that, but nobody does that 100%.

How much of this may simply be interpretation?

Does internet disagreement automatically come with perceived anger for you?

Why would you assume the typing of word behind the other end of the web are driven by anger?

Edited 10 hours ago by No1Here2c

[No1Here2c]

4 hours ago, Natasha Tori Maru said:

we can always refine our views.

an opportunity for me to refine my thoughts also !

I didn't say it was unrefined - you assumed.

Assumption & interpretation is a killer

4 hours ago, Natasha Tori Maru said:

I just couldn't see where you argued a clear case that anger was arising outside of ego. I felt like that conversation went by the wayside and didn't even get started.

Id like to hear this one too... must be challenging to describe.

@Joseph Maynor

Edited 9 hours ago by No1Here2c

[Joseph Maynor]

My broader claim is that emotion doesn't arise from ego alone.  There's cognition in emotion that comes from beyond the ego.  Anger is just a species of feeling which doesn't always arise in ego alone.  This is why we get angry when we're not aligned with Truth, Love, Beauty, or Wisdom.  I still stand by my earlier thesis that criticism is preceded by anger.  The reason I'm pointing this out is there seems be a pole-measuring contest in spirituality as to who shows the least amount of anger, and I don't think is the test.  It's good for relationship, business, and getting along.  But even in business you need to be angry at yourself sometimes if you need to improve in certain ways.  So the thesis that anger is prima facie wrong or misguided I find false.

[Joseph Maynor]

9 hours ago, Natasha Tori Maru said:

Oh right, got it. I just couldn't see where you argued a clear case that anger was arising outside of ego. I felt like that conversation went by the wayside and didn't even get started.

I'm certainly not minimising conflict. I don't mind conflict.

That is fair.  I got tired and didn't have the energy to continue this discussion.  I look at it like this.  We all agree that there's an emotion in direct experience that we would call anger.  I would challenge the assumption that people don't know how to distinguish anger.  The only remaining question is what causes the anger or where does the feeling arise.  The common assumption I'm challenging is that anger arises solely from identification with ego.  I think anger is a guidance signal that comes from Consciousness or the Divine or whatever you want to call it.  So, yes sometimes anger comes from ego but sometimes not.  This is what I wanted to say.

[Natasha Tori Maru]

@Joseph Maynor cool 👌🏻

Can you give some examples of emotion / feeling arising independently of ego?

Might be good to define ego etc while we are at it

[Human Mint]

Well ultimately you're the architect of your emotions. That's independent of the ego. But the ego clings to one particular emotion and believes it.

This means your emotions are a byproduct of the narratives you held in your mind.

We see this in politics constantly. Someone brings a narrative cliché in current politics and it automatically contaminates the conversation with anger.

Edited 4 hours ago by Human Mint

[Joseph Maynor]

38 minutes ago, Natasha Tori Maru said:

@Joseph Maynor cool 👌🏻

Can you give some examples of emotion / feeling arising independently of ego?

Might be good to define ego etc while we are at it

Spinoza gives a good account of this which is a good pointer, although I do not entirely agree with this account myself.  He makes a distinction between God/Nature and Modes of God/Nature.  Those modes would be egos like humans (or complex adaptive systems more generally), but also things that don't behave like egos too in the way we think, i.e., rocks.  But even rocks fall and maintain their state to the degree they can for Spinoza, so they behave like a system too and have intellect and extension paradoxically as Attributes as all modes of God/Nature do.  

He doesn't deny feeling or emotions (affects) as he calls them.  He makes a distinction between passive and active emotions.  Passive emotions are the emotions that are caused by identification with the Mode subbing in or superimposing itself for the Whole or God/Nature (similar to Advaita Vedanta).  This is how many spiritual enlightenment people think of emotions, vis-a-vis, they are caused by superimposing the finite onto the Infinite.  And when that intellectual (thought) /bodily (extension) mistake is made, we get erroneous backfire in the form of passions or passive affects (passive emotions) as he would call them.  They are passive because they arise due to confusion about what we are more fundamentally (God/Nature for Spinoza).  These are the "bad" or spiritually avoidable emotions.

Active Affects (Emotions): Here's the cool part of Spinoza that is on point with what I'm driving at.  It's best to narrow the question here to humans vs. God/Nature.  Or maybe more abstractly but without losing grounding the finite and the Infinite.  If the finite or human has an intellectual Love of God/Nature, then all passive affects fall away and the emotions that remain are called active emotions.  These active emotions are pure and clean of the "passions" because they are part of right Understanding and are felt as a Mode of God/Nature, and God/Nature is all Modes. 

In conclusion, the intellectually clear emotions that finite perspectives feel are not categorized with the passive emotions or passions that arise from misunderstanding.  Thus, the active emotions you feel that are spiritually aligned with God/Nature are legitimate emotions of the Whole or Infinite.  (I think Infinite is a good word for Spinoza.)  

 

Edited 4 hours ago by Joseph Maynor