Passion stands for the intensity of energy that the mind works with.

Since very early childhood, moral values are kept impinging on the psyche by the culture. It does so by continually going on hammering them until they permanently get nailed inside the mind and make it what it morally stands for.

They suppress the natural instincts of life.

Now, the natural instincts are always endowed with a great intensity of energy in them.

When instincts are suppressed, their energy is suppressed too.

It, very soon, discovers a way to express itself; albeit, in a distorted way.

The way is that of emotions.

Emotions are a mask on the instincts, but the two express similar content if not the same.

Only that the emotions are acceptable to the culture, whereas the raw instincts are unacceptable to it.

But emotions always take a circuitous path by beating about the bush, whereas the instincts address the passion of life simply, to the point.

Emotions are distorted instincts expressed in, basically, a dishonest way.

Our culture is a culture of hypocrites on earth!

We do not have enough guts to face the intensity of raw instinct in its face.

So, when we feel sexually attracted to the opposite sex in an intense way, we call it love and hold it in a very high esteem.

We equate love with God, but sex with Devil.

This is only one of the examples. There are hundreds others, but I took sex since it is the biggest bugbear in the eyes of our decadent culture. It is sex only that is the most suppressed instinct too!

Again, when we identify ourselves with something or someone whether we are attracted toward it or not, we still call it love and once again, hold it in a very high esteem. Its best examples are love for parents, love for one's nation etc. etc.

Attraction and identification are 180 degree opposite to each other - when one is, the other is not; the more the identification, the less the attraction and vice versa (that is why, we do not get sexually attracted to our sister!).

How can the two opposite phenomena be defined as the same emotion - love? But our culture does so!

How does it affect the passion 'of' life?

And, how does it affect the passion 'for' life?

The more the masks of emotion, the less the intensity of passion!

Emotion has its nucleus in the self, simply because it comes out as a reaction to personal suppression - uniquely different for every single human being.

So, emotions turn one egocentric, hence selfish.

Passion has its nucleus in the entire length and breadth of humanity, since it comes out as a natural expression of an instinct that is common to the whole humanity.

Hence, it turns one selfless as well as more humane.

Passion deals with here and now; emotion wants to secure the future.

Which one is more cultured - an intense or an emotionally sensitive man?

You simply cannot be two in one.

You will have to choose one out of the two - whether to succumb to the pressure imposed by the culture upon the individual mind in order to color it in its own and go emotional; or to listen to the language of the nature and wage a war against the unscientific ways of the contemporary human culture in order to come out of the trap of all emotional folly and turn a passionate human who lives her/his life guided by the unpolluted instincts of curiosity, intellect and the biological joy right now and right here!

G.B. Singh
http://www.thirdeyehealth.com/vision-correction.html