Another factor that makes our world dead is our reactivity. We not only have old concepts of who we are and what the world is, we also have reactions and opinions about them that make our concepts even more rigid, opaque, and out of touch with the actual present alive world. Whenever something happens in your experience, you have to categorize it as happy or unhappy, as bringing pain or pleasure, as good or bad. You could have a favorite star, like Sirius, and every time you look up at night you look up and admire that star; you don’t see the other stars or the sky, just this special star that brings you pleasure. Or you could believe that there are malevolent aliens in the sky and be afraid to ever look up and see it. You see the people you know as good or as bad, because you are seeing your idea of them. And your reaction makes it that much harder to see what is real in them; it solidifies your concept of them. – Diamond Heart Book Four: Indestructible Innocence, ch.12
If you take just one reaction and be that, and that’s it, you are not a complete human being. You are not seeing the other person as a complete human being. You are seeing a mental relationship that has been extracted from other situations. The fact that there is always love for the other person regardless of what else you feel comes from the fact that it is your nature to love. Your heart is always there. You might not be aware of it, but it is there. Although you might not hear the beating of your heart, it does not mean that your heart is not there. Having a heart is part of being a human being. You cannot lose it. Never. If you lose your heart you cannot live any more. It is just like saying to someone, “Well, I do not love this person and that’s it.” What does that mean? Does that mean that you lost your heart? There is no such thing. You can never purely hate a human being without love being there; it is not possible. You might not be aware of the love, you might be blocking it, but it is there. – Diamond Heart Book Four: Indestructible Innocence, Ch. 11
If you imagine the human consciousness to be like a translucent prism, it refracts light without distortion. The personality that develops through conditioning alters the prism. The light of Being has to move though the dross of our memories, reactions, and identifications. Through the occlusions, the light appears not only dimmed but distorted as well, and manifests as reactive emotions rather than palpable qualities of immaculateness. – Karen Johnson, The Jeweled Path: The Biography of the Diamond Approach to Inner Realization, Ch. 9
One thing you have learned that will be very useful in your lives is how to handle a reaction to someone or some situation when you notice that you are having it. It is important to allow that reaction, feel it, and at the same time to not act on it. Do not act out on that emotional charge, and don’t suppress it either. Be aware of it and, when you can, inquire into it in order to understand it. See what the truth of your experience is. You can be in it, feel it, and let it open up—whether it is anger, disgust, disappointment, agitation, or even positive feelings of joy and pleasure—and then follow the energy back to its origins.
Have you ever noticed that emotions have an energetic charge? Any kind of reactivity has a charge to it. When you allow yourself to be with your emotional charge, the feelings can open to new and deeper experiences if you approach them with interest and openness. Emotions can trap, distort, and limit the energy and thereby limit our experience when we do not approach them in the right way. Liberating the energy of our emotions liberates our consciousness. – A. H. Almaas and Karen Johnson, The Power of Divine Eros: The Illuminating Force of Love in Everyday Life, Ch. 10