Role of Heart or Emotions in personal and social Changes

Inthe ancient Roman world the social system that prevailed was slavery.  Men considered men as animals. The slave owners considered the slaves as animals and these owners used the slaves for all works, sometimes for the jobs which were done by animals. So the slaves had not only been deprived of all kinds of human considerations but they had also been driven into the state of irrational or abnormal mental state because of the social treatment they had been subject to. So in behavior there was not much difference between the animals and slaves in those days. Mentally, most of the slaves lead a beast like life. Most of them were without clothes or some times nominal. They used to expose to all kinds of weather and gained high immunity against any kind ofweather. They could sleep in nights anywhere in any situation whether it is in the severe winter, blistering summer or heavy monsoon.    In those days one of the most popular means of income was cattle rearing.  The owners of folks used slaves extensively in this area as shepherds but their lives were as same as that of the sheep, sometimes lower than that of the sheep. The shepherds would lead folk kilometers away searching good place to graze them.  At this time shepherds would eat what allowed to sheep, no better food, and slept in open places along with his sheep to prevent stealing sheep and to keep away cruel animals that might attack them innights. This situation made them away from social life and become like animals.Social and economic immorality together weaved the weft and warp of the then socio-political system.

To this social system the greatest revolutionary, Jesus, that world has ever seen came. He approached the society and the injustice prevailed in it from a different point of view. He approached this ground trodden people not with long teachings and scriptures but with a heart full of emotions and emotional involvements. Look into the book of Luke chapter 8 in Bible

Jesus Heals a Man with a Demon

 26 Then they sailed to the country of the Gerasenes,²  which is opposite Galilee. 27 When Jesus³  had stepped out on land, there met him a manfrom the city who had demons. For a long time he had worn no clothes, and hehad not lived in a house but among the tombs. 28 When he saw Jesus, he cried out and felldown before him and said with a loud voice, “What have you to do with me,Jesus, Son of the Most High God? I beg you, do not torment me.” 29 For he had commanded the unclean spiritto come out of the man (For many a time it had seized him. He was kept underguard and bound with chains and shackles, but he would break the bonds and bedriven by the demon into the desert.). 30 Jesus then asked him, “What is your name?” And he said,“Legion,” for many demons had entered him. 31 And they begged him not to command them to depart into theabyss. 32 Now a large herd of pigs was feedingthere on the hillside, and they begged him to let them enter these. So he gavethem permission. 33 Then the demons came out of the man andentered the pigs, and the herd rushed down the steep bank into the lake anddrowned.

Look,where had this man been living? He was deprived of house and all social contacts, he was in abnormal state. No ordinary man approached him. But Jesus became ready to visit him. In those days it was an extra-ordinary deed approaching such a slave with a philanthropist’s view. Masters approached this sort of slaves only to torment or to kill. Because of this situation, either by surprise or by fear he cried out to Jesus asking what he was going to do with him. What made him to visit this mad man? In those days nobody gives a title,award, crown or anything to those who mends the lives of mad slaves. So it is not any such vested interest or personal gain motivated him but the compassion,one of the positive emotions. Emotional involvements make changes. But most of our deeds don’t have the support of positive emotions. If there is any emotion that supports our deeds, that is the desire for personal gains or achievements -selfishness. It will not work in the case of making personal changes. Whether we want to make personal change in our own life or in anyone else’s, we should posses the positive emotions. The set of positive emotions is the right tool to make changes in persons and thereby in society. And these emotions should motivate us. No other tools can make permanent changes. Permanent changes cannot be brought about by guns, bayonets or bombs. The people who try to do so are in the place of the abnormal slave mentioned in the above scripture. They are lead by abnormal psychology; they are slaves of some social, political or economical immorality. They don’t have the tools of positive emotions - love, compassion,mercy, faith, hope, enthusiasm, romance etc.

Jesus’ compassion and love towards this diseased   freed him from his bond. Look what happened? The herds ran and fell into lake and drawn away. When the man became free from the social immorality the same reflected upon the economy. The herds lost. Later we can see when we read Bible; all the villagers came to him and begged to leave that place. Why? They afraid the change Jesus tried to implement. That would reflect not only in social structure but also in economy. Everything would change upside down. That was their fear.  Without personal changes no social change, real changes begin from individual changes, emotional changes in personals. When such changed persons increase quantitatively and reach a particular level, a sudden qualitative change will take place insociety. Simply focusing on economic change or growth without focusing personalchanges and thereby social change, is foolishness. As the men, so the socio-economic system is. Think about a nation infested with revenge, hatred, jealousy, enmity and all. What will be the result? Communal as well as racial conflicts and riots will be the order of the days. How it will make growth in any area? So basically positive emotional involvement is necessary in human life, and that leads to the necessity of training in good doctrine. Don’t misunderstand;learning some doctrine will not bring change. Because change doesn’t come from brain but from heart, means not by knowledge but by emotion. Ex: a criminal can be changed sometime very easily by the emotional involvement (love) of a ladybut not by moral teachings and trainings. Napoleon Hill says in his book “Thinkand Grow Rich” (The first book of practical success psychology in history), a lady either make or brake a man(The opposite is also true). He mentions the importance of the emotional support she provides in the life. As I quoted from Bible some may think about the verses Mathew 28: 19-20. And may claim teaching has importance. OK, let us have a look. It says like this “Therefore go and makedisciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teach them to obey everything I have commanded you.” In the first line we can see what he instructed first,to make disciples, means make change in persons then only the teaching comes to practice. Don’t think go teach and make disciples (changes). It is not possible. The thing is opposite.

If we are motivated with right positive emotions, it would make tremendous changes not only in our life but in others also, no doubt. It will make possible enormous social changes. Jesus’ such positive emotions are still working powerfully. Actual change means change in emotional patterns, emotional habits.That will make changes in behavioral patterns and thereby in relations, means social change. Look how did this mad man in the above scripture behaved in the end?  A successful life means, drive away negative emotions or keep away from negative emotions. It will take a lot of effort, time and help from others to make such emotional changes in personality.We ourselves cannot control our emotions and make changes in them. We need some selfless friends who are interested in making changes in us. Like Jesus in the above example. Then we can also help them in turn, means it becomes a bilateral process, a social process. We need to create a small group specifically for this purpose and meet together, discuss everything without canopy. The involvement should be based on positive emotions. The activities should aim the emotional welfare of the group. The other results will come up spontaneously. One more thing we have to bear in mind that we need the essential awareness about all emotions. I have seen people using emotional concepts interchangeably. Compassion and sorrow are examples. Compassion often leads to sorrow but sorrow is not compassion. Sorrow is selfish, that is the result of the thought of ‘I lost’, but compassion is selfless thought of about the state of others and it is positive. So dealing with emotions needs much preparation and awareness, otherwise it will be like the sharp weapon inthe wrong hands. And don’t take the emotional fault and problems of the group members to the street or to other groups that will not help, but will hurt and will result in negative emotions. That is another principle.

Wealth and Faith

What is spirituality? Lead a righteous life. Then what is righteousness? Do the right things in all our relations, social as well as environmental. Then what is right in all our relations? At this point we have to think about our existence then only we can answer it properly.

Existence is the performance of two opposite functions, internal and external. But both are related each other. We can think a little bit more about it. If the internal functions are not performing well in individuals; not only in individuals but also in entities like society, organizations or nations; it can exists no more. OK,is it possible to exist individuals if the performance of internal functions are going well? Yes, but the question is that whether the performance of internal functions go on with out any interference? No, we have to perform some external functions to maintain this internals. Means without external there is no internal, they are correlatives. And if there are internal, there should be external too. In nut shell, whatever we perform externally is for the sake of the performance of internals. Therefore when we perform functions externally we have to ask or check to know whether it is for the optimum function of internals. If it is more than this scale or less than that, we are not doing the right things, we are not righteous. When we encroach environment we have to make sure that it should be for the existence not for more than that, means it should not be to quench our greed. Whatever wealth you amass it doesn’t matter, you will not be able to consume them beyond the amount of what you need to exist or beyond the capacity of your internals. If you consume everything that attracts you, lead by Eve-Psychology, then you will be blessed with some troubles having beautiful and sweet names (totally they are known as “Life Style” diseases). Why? Doing nothing, having much; not the right thing, not righteous or not at all spiritual.

Anyway the truth is that our internals have inevitably been influenced  externally .And we cannot exist without this process. Means our internal world depends always on an external world. So, we have to relay on the immediate and tangible external world to maintain our existence, but when we interact with this outer world , it also interact with us and attract us more and more. We gradually become the integral part of this world and this world become an inseparable part of us. This is not right otherwise not righteous. As I mentioned in one of my earlier posts. We should not be controlled by material world, one more world is working in us. If we are controlled by this material world, then we will not have any control over outer world. Then what to do?

We have to think , or ask a question, whether it is this tangible world is the external force that help us to exist, or any other element exists that helps even this tangible world to exist? We can see this tangible world, itself, is functioning by the help of an intangible external. Some principles. Then which is better to rely on, immediate external or the absolute external-the intangible? Means, which should be considered as important or primary? Not the tangible external but intangible external .That doesn't mean without material means we can exist. If we have material existence we have to rely on material external to maintain it. But, again, which is primary and which is secondary? If the intangible external is primary then the tangible external become the secondary, means we depend on it only for the sake of material existence, we will not exploit the nature and society like anything and invite undesirable consequences. These consequences are not new for human race, it happened even in the time of Noah, the flood. Our priority should be for the intangible external,then we use the tangibles for this priority. If it is in the reverse order, our priority will be for the tangible external. The intangible become the secondary, so we try to use it for our tangible priorities. Any way these both cannot be our masters at the same time, says Bible. We love either one of them and consider the other as secondary and neglect in practical life.

Most of the people who believe in an intangible force for the sake of their material priorities. They belittle it considering it as a tool to exploit the world. Then the consequence is not far away. We have to remember the history, the french revolution. The God, church and everything became the tool to amass wealth by exploiting the society and nature, there in France. That made the revolution an inevitable consequence.

We have to understand that no material gains bring us happiness. Happiness is a state of mind, or in a better language, it is a psychological phenomenon, we can maintain it. Look at a child, why it is happy? Because of the possession of great wealth? No, we use the easy one word answer 'psychology',  not 'economics'.

So with wealth we will not have happiness, the principle of happiness is not wealth. And if you need wealth for the right purpose, it will come. Dream about such a project, a purpose, then the needed wealth will come along with you. Remember not for the wealth, but for the good cause, you give the priority.

Foundation and Superstructure

These are the another correlatives in divine principles. The strength of foundation decides the the strength of superstructure. Not the other way, think about a weak foundation and strong superstructure, every kind of natural attacks will affect it. Whatever the strength superstructure posses doesn't matter.But if the foundation is strong , even if the structure is weak it will not fall away easily, the foundation will hold it.And as long as the structure stand on the foundation the structure will serve the foundation as a guard to certain extend.Means, they have an action and reaction between them.

There is a very beautiful advice from Jesus in the form of foundation and superstructure in Bible, Mathew 7: 24-27, as follows:

24“Therefore everyone who hears these words of mine and puts them into practice is like a wise man who built his house on the rock. 25The rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house; yet it did not fall, because it had its foundation on the rock. 26But everyone who hears these words of mine and does not put them into practice is like a foolish man who built his house on sand. 27The rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell with a great crash.”

What does it mean? As long as we have some sound doctrines as our foundation, nothing will influence us adversely? Or we can stand with it against any kind of adverse situations? It doesn't mean that  following a sound doctrines is like staying there in Canaan where milk and honey flow abundantly. Shakespeare's drama "The Tempest" prophesies us the truth. If we are as innocent as Prospero and his daughter Miranda, then our place will be,sometimes, there in the  solitude of a remote island. And if we are Antonio and his son Ferdinand,  who send these innocent souls to the solitude of  island, then we might be in a luxurious royal cruise, the life floats smoothly and lavishly. But neither Antonio, nor his son Ferdinand, nor any of his crews could stand against the tempest that sent by the order of Prospero. We can see Ferdinand leap into the sea saying "The hell is empty, All devils are here", he felt that devils are around him in the royal cruise, because he couldn't stand against the situation. But Prospero and his daughter Miranda could stand against the situations in the solitude of a  remote island more than twelve years .

Here Jesus mentions two type of foundations one is rocky the other is sandy. The peculiarity of sandy foundation is that it can be influenced very easily by the environmental changes, but rocky is not. The question is that whether our principles or doctrines are so flexible that our situation can twist or water-down  it or  can we stand against, holding the doctrines, to make a  twist in situation ? In  most cases; whether in persons, societies, or in nations; we can see a sandy type foundation. According to the situations view will change. And those who adulterate their own view time to time will call this phenomenon as pragmatism.And what is the result of following this "pragmatism"? They cannot make any twist, break through or change in situation positively.

If we can look back into the history, we can see that all the great men survived the baptism of fire in their life because they held on the principle they believed in, Gandhi, Nelson Mandela, Abraham Lincoln are some of them. The name of Jesus, I needn't mention here as an example for that.