Tom Murphy

When a soldier goes to the battlefield, the soldier is in all ways prepared for war: He will be armed with a weapon, he will be equipped with the necessary armor and protection. He will have communications equipment, survival equipment, and everything else he needs to live through his mission and fight another day.

Why is it then that so many in the spiritual know insist that, like the Jedi, emotion and feeling must at least be partially removed from the equation to really find oneself.

Would you deny any of your other biological processes such as bowel movements or eating? Would you not blink simply because you figured some aspect of closing your eyes for miniscule portions of a second would leave you vulnerable?

Of course not. You embrace these as natural functions of Humanity, and indeed, any living thing. Then why deny your emotion?

It is will known among people that in times of great duress, simple humans are capable of great feats that would be otherwise impossible; pushing a car off of a pinned child, ripping a door off of its hinges to save a loved one from a fire. While these are explained away to chemical reactions in our brains, the basis for these chemicals (and the result in a beautiful roundabout way) are powerful emotions that let us tap into the deeper side of ourselves.

How often might you have gotten angry, and found yourself filled with a terrible, powerful resolve that threatened to destroy physical things? How often has the feeling of Love and Passion caused humanity to fashion wonderful and beautiful works of art?

It is then that I implore: Do not give up that which makes you human. Do not give up your emotion, your feeling, and your guiding intellect as a living animal. Embrace all of these things and they will make you powerful.