We admit on being in moods, in shifting responses and reactions. It could range from one extreme to another, and what is interesting is that we see ourselves to be the same all the time. Despite the constant shifting between moods.
But we are not. A person in a storm of anger is not the same person hugging a new puppy. But it is more complex than that, for what we don’t perceive is that any mood and any reaction does not come separate, just by itself. Anger alone, suspicion alone, antagonism alone, love alone.
No response or attitude is single, they all come as part of a group, meaning that if you experience emotional hurt it comes as part of a big family, in which we would find also emotions such as: revenge, low self-image, personal involvement, emotional pain, self-pity, anger, antagonism towards the offender and more.
Those ‘families’ are called states, at any given time we are in a state, a high state or a low state. Being in a negative-dynamic state or a positive-dynamic state. This are the main cardinal two states, and what is possible to experience in one cardinal state is completely impossible to experience in the other.
For example in a negative dynamic state is impossible to feel empathy and sympathy, they are only possible in the positive-dynamic state.
Or if one is in a high state it is impossible for him to experience competition.
We live in states, and it is the state which determines everything that happens, because it could only happen within the parameters of the particular state that one is in.
The whole idea of inner work is not to change one particular characteristic with a better one, to work on bad qualities and exchanging them with good ones. This is a waste of time. We cannot do anything about individual qualities in oneself, we can only deal in states, only states could be altered not separate qualities.
And when in communication –and you change your state from negative-dynamic state – to a positive one, a whole field of possibilities is opening up.
The same with dropping from a high state to a low state – what was possible in the high state is impossible in the lower state.
So, the challenge in life, and especially in upgrading life, is not to focus on individual responses or qualities, but on the ability to shift from one state to another.
We should learn to deal in states and become masters in juggling between states, and if we succseed to shift from undesired state to a desired state, than what we wish for is in this new altered state.
Gabriel