Part V — Negative thoughts

Negative thoughts

There are two ways to conquer negative thoughts. One way is very simple and dynamic. Each thought has power of its own. Positive thought has a power and negative thought also has a power. With positive power we build; with negative power we break. Each positive thought is creation and each negative thought is destruction.

We can get rid of negative thoughts with our soul's will-power. During our meditation, slowly and steadily we develop will-power. We feel that this will-power is coming from a Source, which is God, the Absolute Infinite. We gradually learn how to have a free access to this will-power. How do we get it? We have to feel that God is all Light and all Love, and that we are God's chosen children. If we feel that God is all Love, then immediately God the Love enters into us. In Love there is no negative thought; it is all positive. The moment divine Love goes away, everything is negative. But when God is within us there can be no negative thought, because God means Light. In Light there cannot be anything negative. Light means vision. Vision will never remain satisfied unless it is manifested, and will-power manifests God's Vision on earth. So if we want to get rid of negative thoughts, then we should invoke God the Love. Love itself is Light. This is the positive way, using our love-power, which is will-power.

There is also another way to conquer fear or negative thoughts. When a negative thought comes, we have to feel that it is a thief. A negative thought comes in the form of doubt, fear, jealousy, hypocrisy or meanness. We have to feel that each negative thought has come to commit a theft, to take something away from our inner life and inner wealth. But this wealth is ours; we have got it through our prayer and meditation. What do we do when we see a thief? We chase him away and we do it with utmost confidence. We do not allow the thief to stay, because we know that we are the master of the house. We are the owner of our body, vital, heart, mind and soul. So each time a negative thought comes, we have to give chase and say, "You have stolen something of mine. What right do you have to take it? It is mine, all mine." This is vigilance. We have to be totally vigilant, twenty-four hours a day.

Sometimes people cherish negative thoughts. They get a kind of pleasure from them. They feel that fear, doubt and jealousy are necessary. They doubt God or their own spirituality. They become real philosophers. But doubting God and doubting their own existence is a stupid way of seeing the Truth. When fear or jealousy comes we have to enter into our inner domain and catch the thief. In the spiritual life when we catch a thief, what do we do? We take the thief to our soul's light to be illumined. In ordinary life, earthly life, we punish a thief by putting him into a prison cell. We feel that in this way he will change his nature and character. In the spiritual life, when a negative thought enters into us, we take it to the soul's light for transformation. Without the soul's light these negative thoughts cannot be transformed. First we have to chase them, then catch them and then take them to the proper place where they can be transformed. This is how we can conquer and transform negative thoughts.