This expression 'emotions are the path' comes from Mahamudra Buddhism (possibly Dzogchen also) but I don't want to come at it particularly from a Buddhist perspective.  But that's where it comes from - so I thought I would establish that.   What does it mean?   What is emotion?  The word emotion comes from 'ex' meaning 'out' and 'motion' which itself comes from a PIE root *meue which itself means to 'push away'.  So overall it has the sense of pushing away.  So even though you can think of enjoyable emotions like joy for instance, there is still an underlying sense of pushing away or being pushed away.  So emotions have their base in duality and separation - whether pleasurable or painful.   Sometimes emotions are described as 'conflicting' or 'conflicted' which implies a push/pull in the motion.  Motion itself is simply the expression of energy.  So there is energy being discharged within ourselves which leads to separation of one feeling from another, or you could say separation between our sense of ourselves and our moods or actions.  The conflict being that we think of being a certain kind of person and then act differently because of conflicting emotions.  This can cause more problems with identity later when we try to justify to ourselves how we acted and so on.  So you can see a grand mess evolves.   When faced with this there are probably three stages of response.  Firstly trying to stop or control the emotion.  Then wanting to transform them into something better.  Then lastly waking up to precisely what is going on and why.  The first two are ok and natural but not really much use.  It's the last one where emotions become the path.   This does not mean that your individual feelings are particularly important.  They are just patterns of movement of energy.  So for instance, you might feel particularly angry about something and want to express it.  But that is missing the point.  If you are just indulging in the strength of yur feelings you aren't learning anything - even if there might be some temporary feeling of liberation.   It is in the emotional field where this 'pushing away' is occurring which is blocking your ability to see your true nature, duality is being generated through it.  One reason for cultivation is to create a unified and coherent being - one pointed focus - which can form the basis.  On different levels and different ways conflicting emotional states are being generated - for instance by holding together essentially contradictory ideas about ourselves and the nature of reality.   Unfortunately for most of us we have a huge baggage of emotional content and experiences to work through.  It can seem overfacing.  But nevertheless this is the work.   Just some thoughts (for you all to pick holes in  ).