So we have to know, first of all, if the thought that we are going to control is inside us or coming from outside. You please try, all of you, to distinguish. The one that comes from outside wants to strike us, squeeze inside us, go into our mind, into our brain. The other thought is the one that you have already inside your existence.
So when you want to reject them, you have to understand that it is these silly thoughts that are not productive, the thoughts that are damaging, the thoughts that are not fruitful, the thoughts that are negative, the thoughts that we do not want in our existence.
When you first observe that kind of damaging thought, uncomely thought, first you have to determine whether it is coming into us from outside or actually going out of our existence from inside. If it is coming from outside into our existence, it is easier, infinitely easier to control. Why?
Here right in front of your forehead, you have to feel that you have a shield, right in front of you. It is a protection. Instead of taking it as a part of your body, as a limb or an organ, you have to feel that right on your forehead is a coating, a protection. Try to feel that you are constantly on the lookout here in your mind to see if an attack is coming, if a thought is going to attack you. At the same time, try to feel that here, in the same place, is your shield and protection. If a thought comes to strike you, the shield will control the thought. But if we feel that our forehead is something soft, mellow, very delicate and exposed to anything and everything, then immediately we become victim to all these undesirable and wrong thoughts. Wrong thoughts can never come if we consciously make ourselves feel this forehead is a shield, a solid wall. They cannot come. But what usually happens is that when we think of our head or forehead, we think of them as something vulnerable and easily pierced. On the contrary, we have to consciously make ourselves feel that it is something solid, something very strong, like a solid wall or a fort where there are many soldiers deep inside, ready to fight against an attack. When an attack of wrong forces comes, the strongest soldiers inside us are purity, sincerity and aspiration. Our eagerness for God, for God-realisation — these are all divine forces too, divine soldiers: purity, sincerity, aspiration, concentration and our meditation. Even the very idea of God-realisation is a divine soldier inside us. All these soldiers will immediately be on their guard the moment a wrong thought comes. They will serve as bodyguards and if, by chance, the wrong forces attack here, they will be cast out by the divine soldiers deep within us. This is for the thoughts that are coming from the outside.
Now what about the thoughts that are already inside us, creating problems? It is very difficult, in comparison, to throw them out. But we can do it! How? Again it is through the extension of our consciousness. We have a body; inside this body are these wrong forces that have taken the form of ugly, damaging thoughts. If we can extend our physical consciousness as we extend an elastic belt, we will feel that we are extending our whole body through the mind’s conscious effort, through aspiration. We are extending, extending, extending the whole body to the infinite. We are extending a sheet of white consciousness. The moment we feel the infinite extension as a sheet of white consciousness, you will see that it is all purity. Each pure thought, each pure drop is poison to ugliness or to wrong thoughts in us. On our part, we are afraid of impure thoughts, but impure thoughts are also afraid of our purity. Why is that?
This is what actually happens. We identify ourselves with impure thoughts, let us say, and do not identify ourselves with pure thoughts. The moment the pure thoughts and our physical existence become one, when we say, “This thought represents me,” or, “I represent that pure thought,” then impurity inside us immediately dies; it loses its existence. The impurity or the wrong thought inside us exists just because we identify ourselves with it. If we subsequently identify ourselves with something else, the first one has to die. Now I tell people that jealousy, anger, etc. have to leave us the moment we have poise, peace, etc. inside us. Anger feels that it has a legitimate place within us only because we identify ourselves with it and nourish it with our concern and attention. We cherish it within us. But the moment we make friends with peace, poise and tranquillity, anger says, “Why should I stay here; they don’t want me.” Anger itself will become jealous of peace. You can try it.
So about rejecting thoughts, I wish to tell you that if you can expand your consciousness, then the problem is solved. All you have to do with a negative thought is to fight it with a positive thought. If it is an undivine thought, we have to fight it with a divine thought. Always in this life, we have an opportunity to make a choice, as Anugata has said. Although we have become victims of wrong thoughts, these wrong thoughts cannot exist inside us if we open ourselves to divine thoughts. We have allowed wrong thoughts to exist inside us. New divine thoughts we can create through our love for God. When we create divine thoughts inside ourselves, they will act like powerful dynamic soldiers to fight for us and to give us what we actually seek.From:Sri Chinmoy,Earth’s Cry Meets Heaven’s Smile, part 3, Aum Press, Puerto Rico, 1978
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