“What Disgusts You?” (Quora)
Michael Laitman, On Quora: “What disgusts you?“
Disgust emerges when there is a discrepancy between oneself and what is outside oneself, and when there is antagonism with that “someone” or “something” outside of oneself.
In other words, disgust is a feeling that appears when we feel what is outside of us as not being our own.
We then hate and distance ourselves from that person or phenomenon.
However, when we feel someone or something as belonging to us, we sense the opposite—that we love them.
Therefore, so it happens that we can feel disgust toward many other people and phenomena, and feel whole with ourselves, but this is merely a natural outcome of our egoistic human nature that places a self-serving filter over our vision, making us see what is only most self-beneficial.
If we felt the depth of how our very nature is completely egoistic, self-serving at the expense of other people and nature, and that it makes us constantly see flaws in other people and things around us and not in ourselves, we would then feel this egoistic nature as the most disgusting thing that needs correction.
Such a revelation, however, requires prior guidance toward attaining its opposite form of love.
In other words, if we setup society with a goal to establish ties of mutual responsibility, consideration, and ultimately, love among people, aiming to view other members of society as our own family, and organize our media, society and educational programs to develop such connection, we will then develop a wiser view of what should disgust us more than anything else: that the egoistic nature residing in each and every one of us constantly operates in an opposite direction to loving others, and it is the cause of all our suffering.
Appreciating values of mutual responsibility, consideration and love over the many values of self-benefit, such as wealth, fame and power, would let us progress to become more loving, considerate and positively connected, becoming disgusted in our egoistic motives and views that act to divide us along the way.
Therefore, it is natural to feel disgusted with other people and phenomena in the world that appear negative to us in many ways. But if we try to love each other, and build a supportive environment that guides us toward loving one another, we will then discover a more positive form of disgust: a disgust in our egoistic quality that shuts us off from the love surrounding us.
It is a more positive form of disgust because it serves to make us want to change ourselves to become more loving and considerate—necessities for better social connections—and by doing so, experience much happier, safer and more harmonious lives.
Above photo by José Martín Ramírez Carrasco on Unsplash.
