The Supreme Doctrine - neo-alchemist

EMOTION AND THE EMOTIVE STATE
neutralisation, with the inhibition of the emotive state which is, by its very
nature, negative. This man experiences plenty of joys, but these joys file
across in front of a background of sleep, of absence; the background which
conditions them is not a real, profound, flexibility (or relaxation of the
emotive state), it is unconsciousness, by inhibition, of the deep spasm. (It is
analogous to the courage of the man who does not perceive danger.) And this
is possible on account of the congenital weakness of the need of the
Absolute, a weakness which renders the compensations sufficient and
everlasting.
In the case, on the contrary, of the man in whom the need of the
Absolute is intense, the compensations are effectively established with
difficulty (this man is too exacting, his appetite for egotistical affirmation is
too revendicative in quantity and in quality) and these compensations, if
nevertheless they are established, are little used. Also the trial is rarely very
drowsy, perhaps never. The further this man's life proceeds the more his
possible compensations deteriorate beyond repair; his trial knows no more
suspensions; this man more and more clearly envisages everything that
happens to him, all his situations in face of the Not-Self, from the angle of
self-doubt; in his subconsciousness, never asleep, he lives unceasingly in the
expectation of an illusory verdict on which he feels that his absolution or his
final condemnation depend. His self-respect is incessantly in question in one
direction or in the other; he is touchy, and this constant excitation
corresponds with the permanent activity of his subconscious emotive state
and of his irritability. Whereas the man who has little craving for the
Absolute is calm, the man who has a great need of the Absolute is hyperexcitable,
overstrained. Everything concerns his Ego, he envisages everything
that he perceives from the unique angle of his self-respect.
Let us finish this passage by affirming that the emotive state can only
be negative, a spasm of distress, and that the activity of the subconscious in
which this emotive state operates is in relation to the need of the Absolute
and consequently to the need of intemporal realisation. The presence of
distress and the need of satori are intimately connected in any given
individual.
After satori if a man still experiences emotions he no longer
experiences them against a background of constant distress; and this
modification of the background is a modification so immense, so
127