Schadenfreude

[en-el hak]

Wiki says: "Schadenfreude is the experience of pleasure, joy, or self-satisfaction that comes from learning of or witnessing the troubles, failures, or humiliation of another"

I find myself feeling this emotion off and on. It's like a subtle emotion, rather than explicit. Instantly I recognize it, I know it's not right to feel this way and I feel bad. Since we are all one, experiencing subtle joy over somebody's agony should be wrong.

It's obvious that this feeling depends upon survival instincts, right?

[Zigzag Idiot]

Everyone does this.

Seeing it in oneself is real honesty. You can't really love unless you forgive yourself.

I observed the guilt from my Schadenfreude.

It feels good on the other side.

[Zigzag Idiot]

Besides it's just coming from a case of mistaken identity.

The i's of our multiplicity.

We are not our thoughts.

We are not our emotions.

We have them.

[Zigzag Idiot]

 

 

[Nahm]

1 hour ago, en-el hak said:

I know it's not right to feel this way and I feel bad

You might find clarity in considering there truly is no right and wrong. That would mean you don’t ‘know it’s not right’, but that you believe it’s not ‘right’, which reveals judgement (you believing you ‘know’ right and wrong in an absolute sense).

With the belief illuminated and therefore ‘out of the way’, you can intuit directly of the feeling. In knowing the feeling, when the feeling is bad, it’s readily seen that there is a belief being held, which is not true.  

“It's obvious that this feeling depends upon survival instincts, right?”

Soon, it will become more obvious that the feeling is relative, that there is thinking involved, and the relative “bad” feeling is relative to your true nature being so good. 

 

[Zigzag Idiot]

@Nahm ?

 

From Maurice Nicoll

TRANSFORMING NEGATIVE STATES

“Sly Man. . .notices distinctly that he lies, for example. He observes
it over a period and does not seek to disguise it to himself, to justify himself. He notices it, sees it, acknowledges it, accepts it, and so swal- lows this particular pill. Then he must digest it. It tastes biter in the mouth. But once digested it becomes sweet...It seems paradoxical to say that if you will accept what you disapprove of you reach a higher level. People imagine that by increasing their sense of self-merit and virtue, they get higher. On the contrary, they descend. This is worth thinking about.” V. 3, p. 1000

TRANSFORMING NEGATIVE STATES II

“G once said: ‘One emotion can only be conquered by another emo- tion.’ . . . The feeling of helplessness and the feeling of nothingness that come from the realization that one is a machine have nothing to do with negative emotions. At the back of negative emotions lie an- ger, violence, suspicion, bitterness, internal accounts, and so on. But behind the emotion arising from the realization of mechanicalness lies peace. And it is this emotion that can overcome negative emotions.” V. 3, p. 1013

EMOTIONAL CENTRE’S LANGUAGE

“What language does the Emotional Centre use? It uses the language of visual imagery. The Emotional Centre does not know any intellec- tual words or theories, but it understands visual images. For instance, if you are in danger and feel nervous, and you meet a man who is visibly quiet, it helps the horse—that is, the Emotional Centre. The calm man is a visual image and this affects the horse and calms him.” V. 2, p. 465 

[en-el hak]

Dear @Zigzag Idiot & @Nahm thank you for your elegant replies, I'll keep those in mind.

16 hours ago, Zigzag Idiot said:

We are not our thoughts.

We are not our emotions.

We have them.

16 hours ago, Nahm said:

With the belief illuminated and therefore ‘out of the way’, you can intuit directly of the feeling. In knowing the feeling, when the feeling is bad, it’s readily seen that there is a belief being held, which is not true.  

 

@Zigzag Idiot Nicoll's studies sounds really interesting, I'll try to have a look at them.

[Nickyy]

21 hours ago, en-el hak said:

Wiki says: "Schadenfreude is the experience of pleasure, joy, or self-satisfaction that comes from learning of or witnessing the troubles, failures, or humiliation of another"

I find myself feeling this emotion off and on. It's like a subtle emotion, rather than explicit. Instantly I recognize it, I know it's not right to feel this way and I feel bad. Since we are all one, experiencing subtle joy over somebody's agony should be wrong.

It's obvious that this feeling depends upon survival instincts, right?

What you're doing is called spiritual bypassing. You have made a subtle ideology out of a spiritual insight. This is really common and mostly unavoidable for seekers on the path. 

Make this unconscious and habitual and you trigger the dark night of the soul. 

I went though the dark night of the soul for 10 years, where my sense of identity was focused around trying to be spiritual and perfect and demonized anything that was remotely identification based.

 

Notice that you have made an identity by making unconscious behaviours "wrong". You won't be able to let go of it until you see it for what it is, the ego that is trying to control your life. 

 

Schadenfreude isn't in and of itself "wrong". It's just a condition. It can't be any other way, because physical reality is conditioned and habitual. Every time we idenitfy with a value we create an ego around it and this pattern just takes over. The way out of this is to understand that humanity isn't a state of freedom, that other people don't have any choice to be zombies unless they chose to take on a spiritual path. 

 

Just understanding and accepting conditioned reality for what it is and dropping expectations of anything otherwise should take you out of any potential egoic identity that could trigger the dark night period. 

[mandyjw]

I remember a conversation I had years ago on another forum that had nothing to do with personal development, and I expressed my assumption that everyone recognized that very tendency in themselves. They enthusiastically corrected me and let me know I was bad and abnormal. 

This tendency goes deep, we enjoy being mad, we enjoy drama. Why else would people want to see any movie ever made or read any story? We enjoy misfortune, drama and conflict as long as it's made purposeful and transformational in the end. Only as long as we are a comfortable distance from it, of course. 

Being made in the image of God comes with all sorts of strange effects.