Dear Anita,

The words ’emotions’ and ‘feelings’ are commonly used inter-changeably, so I distinguish them by ‘lower’ and ‘higher.’ They are not lower and higher in value or morality, but in frequency. When having a dialogue with people who agree, I simply write emotions, feelings and eternal qualities.

As I use the terms, some but not all emotions are fear-based. All have local origins within an individual or the disturbed mass consciousness/astral planes surrounding the earth, and all are unstable and stormy energies in motion. All are experienced as reactions triggered by stimuli, and are fast changeable. A person may experience awe in one moment and disgust in the next, expectation is followed by disappointment, exultation by despondency.

All higher feelings (feelings) are love-based and stable. Some have human origins while others are universal, non-local characteristics of Nature which I call the eternal qualities. I theorize the e-qualities emanate from the creative source and are ‘picked up’ by humans when in the flow.

None of the feelings are triggered reactions. They may be experienced as a response, such as compassion for an under-nurtured child or as an action in the flow, such as giving nurture to the child. Or they may fill the space in a person that was blocked, when judgment is dropped. A person tightened by resistance who lets it go may fill with the warmth of presence.

Embracing the greater flame means shifting from being driven by emotions to being powered by feelings, and experiencing the love of the one Being as one’s own love.