Positive thinking is a mental and emotional attitude that focuses on the bright side of life and expects positive results.
A person with positive thinking anticipates happiness, health and success, and believes that he or she can overcome any obstacle and difficulty.
Positive thinking is not a concept that everyone believes and follows. Some, consider it as nonsense, and scoff at people who follow it. However, there is a growing number of people, who accept positive thinking as a fact, and believe in its effectiveness.
It seems that this subject is gaining popularity, as evidenced by the many books, lectures and courses about it.
To use it in your life, you need more than just to be aware of its existence. You need to adopt the attitude of positive thinking in everything you do.
How Positive Thinking Works The following story illustrates how this power works:
Allan applied for a new job, but he didn’t believe he will get it, since his self-esteem was low, and he considered himself as a failure and unworthy of success.
He had a negative attitude toward himself, and therefore, believed that the other applicants were better and more qualified than him.
Allan’s mind was occupied with negative thoughts and fears concerning the job, for the whole week preceding the job interview. He actually, anticipated failure.
On the day of the interview, he got up late, and to his horror he discovered that the shirt he planned to wear was dirty, and the other one needed ironing. As it was already too late, he went out wearing a wrinkled shirt and without eating breakfast.
During the interview, he was tense, negative, hungry and worried about his shirt. All this, distracted his mind and made it difficult for him to focus on the interview. His overall behavior made a bad impression, and consequently, he materialized his fear and did not get the job.
Jim applied for the same job too, but approached the matter in a different way. He was sure that he was going to get the job. During the week preceding the interview, he often visualized himself making a good impression and getting the job.
In the evening before the interview, he prepared the clothes he was going to wear, and went to sleep a little earlier. On day of the interview, he woke up earlier than usual, and had ample time to eat breakfast, and then to arrive to the interview before the scheduled time.
Jim made a good impression and got the job.
What do we learn from these two stories? Was there any magic used? No, everything happened in a natural way.
Positive Thinking Is a Way of Life
With a positive attitude we experience pleasant and happy feelings. This brings brightness to the eyes, more energy, and happiness. Our whole being broadcasts good will, happiness and success. Even our health is affected in a beneficial way. We walk tall, our voice is more powerful, and our body language shows the way we feel.
Positive and negative thinking are contagious.
We affect, and are affected by the people we meet, in one way or another. This happens instinctively and on a subconscious level, through words, thoughts and feelings, and through body language.
Is it any wonder that we want to be around positive people, and prefer to avoid negative ones?
People are more disposed to help us, if we are positive, and they dislike and avoid anyone broadcasting negativity.
Negative thoughts, words and attitude, create negative and unhappy feelings, moods and behavior. When the mind is negative, poisons are released into the blood, which cause more unhappiness and negativity. This is the way to failure, frustration and disappointment.
Positive Thinking Instructions and Advice
In order to turn the mind toward the positive, some inner work is required, since attitude and thoughts do not change overnight.
Read about this subject, think about its benefits, and persuade yourself to try it. The power of your thoughts is a mighty power that is always shaping your life. This shaping is usually done subconsciously, but it is possible to make the process a conscious one. Even if the idea seems strange, give it a try. You have nothing to lose, but only to gain.
Ignore what other people say or think about you, if they discover that you are changing the way you think.
Use your imagination to visualize only favorable and beneficial situations.
Use positive words in your inner dialogues, or when talking with others.
Smile a little more, as this helps to think positively.
Once a negative thought enters your mind, you have to be aware of it, and endeavor to replace it with a constructive one. If the negative thought returns, replace it again with a positive one. It is as if there are two pictures in front of you, and you have to choose to look at one of them, and disregard the other. Persistence will eventually teach your mind to think positively, and to ignore negative thoughts.
In case you experience inner resistance and difficulties when replacing negative thoughts with positive ones, do not give up, but keep looking only at the beneficial, good and happy thoughts in your mind.
It doesn’t matter what your circumstances are at the present moment. Think positively, expect only favorable results and situations, and circumstances will change accordingly. If you persevere, you will transform the way your mind thinks. It might take some time for the changes to take place, but eventually they will.
Another useful technique is the repetition of affirmations. This technique is similar to creative visualization, and can be used together with it.
“You are comprised of 84 minerals, 23 Elements, and 8 gallons of water spread across 38 trillion cells.๐
You have been built up from nothing by the spare parts of the Earth you have consumed, according to a set of instructions hidden in a double helix and small enough to be carried by a sperm.๐ซ
You are recycled butterflies, plants, rocks, streams, firewood, wolf fur, and shark teeth, broken down to their smallest parts and rebuilt into our planetโs most complex living thing.๐
Down the ages man has attempted through the discipline of monastic orders, hermitage and certain severe retirements from the world, to hold his half-awakened consciousness to the nearness of the presence of that which beats his heart and gives him life, gives him Life. Naked you are born, naked you die; it is seldom realized that naked and defenceless you live. Your defenselessness, humanly speaking, is exposed nakedly to a thousand dangers seen and unseen. A draught of air can dissolve you into eternity; and hatred, hidden and lodged deep within, can fester and destroy you.
All these you can multiply for yourself. As a human you have no grip on life, however strong, healthy and outwardly protected you may be. Your only safety, fortress and eternal protection is your realization of the nearness of the presence of the Spirit; then you are clothed in the Spirit and are not naked. And by abiding in the Spirit, old ignorances are brought to the surface and released and you are made aware of those seeds of destruction within.
These are your delayers and why it has taken you so long. If you had retired into monastic life and given over your vigilance to others to keep for you in an ordered existence, regimented so that your emotional nature would be lilied by routine, you would have attained a peace of a secondary plane; these planes have their purpose, but you, who have chosen the difficult task, are healthier because you have asked for the realization of the nearness and the actuality of the Spirit within, in a worldly, distracting, confusing life of alarms, of shocks, changes, stupidities and challenging despairs. You know that you are naked and defenceless. You stand alone with your desire to be atoned with, to be aware of, to be in the Presence, while at the same time you must deal with the interruptions and delays, the temptations and appetites which, indulged in, act like sleeping draughts.
I tell you that the Spirit can overcome the sword and pain and sorrow; the Spirit completely realized will guide and protect you and lead you through all dangers; it will give you strength, power and inward peace. This is the reward of eternal vigilance, of the realization of him as your companion.
Be sanctified, be unbound, be free, be purified and aware of the Spirit, of love and joy, power and protection. Do not be the foolish ones who, in the bright sunlight, walketh and standeth in the dark tunnel and forget the light, and cannot picture it. Arise and come forth out of your restricted human life, here and now, and when you are by yourselves say these words:
โI open the doors of my heart wide knowing that the everlasting fountain of Thy light will pour forth and fill my life. I will be vigilant in guarding these doors that they shall not close of themselves because of my forgetfulness. I rest here with my heart open to receive, knowing that I am in the centre of all things. I rest in gratitude and thanksgiving that the Spirit has filed this heart like a spring to break open and pour forth into my world. I will not let my heart be gripped by alarms and fears; it shall not be shut by violence nor any untoward event. My sole intent is to keep these doors open for my very lifeโs sake for I believe that out of the issues of my heart I shall be guided upon my journey and I shall be given strength.โ
๐ฅOne dreams many things that are never to be experienced in this life such as โHe dreams he is flying in the air.
โ A dream is not an entirely new experience, because most often it is the memory of past experiences.
๐ฅ In the waking state the light of the self is mixed up with the functions of the organs, intellect, mind, external lights etc.
In dreams the self becomes distinct and isolated as the organs do not act and the lights such as the sun that help them are absent.
The dreamer is not affected by whatever result of the good and evil he sees in the dream state.๐ฅ
No one regards himself a sinner on account of the sins committed in dreams.๐ฅ
๐ฅPeople who have heard of them do not condemn or shun them.
Hence he is not touched by them๐ฅ
The dreamer only appears to be doing things in dream but actually there is no activity The Sruti says, โHe sees to be enjoying himself in the company of women.๐ฅ
โ He who described his dream experiences uses the words โas ifโ; โI saw today as if a herd of elephants was running.๐ฅ
โ Therefore the dreaming self has no activity in dreams. An action is done by the contact of the body and the senses, which have form with something else that has form. We never see a formless thing being active. The Self is formless. Therefore it is not attached. As this Self is unattached, it is untouched by what it beholds in dreams. Hence we cannot ascribe activity to it, as activity proceeds from the contact of the body and the organs. There is no contact for the Self, because this infinite Self is unattached. Therefore it is immortal. ๐ฅ
Doctors say, โDo not wake him up suddenly or violentlyโ, because they see that in dreams the self goes out of the body of the waking state through the gates of the organs and remains isolated outside. If the self is violently aroused it may not find those gates of the organs. If he does not find the right organ the body becomes difficult to doctor๐ฅ
The self may not get back to those gates of the organs, things which it sent out taking the shining functions of the latter, or it may misplace those functions. In that case defects such as blindness and deafness may result. ๐ฅ
The doctor may find it difficult to treat them.๐ฅ
๐ฅDreams are due to mental impressions (Vasanas) received in the waking state.
The consciousness in a dream depends on the previous knowledge acquired in the wakeful state.๐ฅ
The dreams have the purpose of either cheering or saddening and frightening the sleeper, so as to requite him for his good and evil deeds. ๐ฅ
His Adrishta thus furnishes the efficient cause of the dreams. Even in the state of dream the instruments of the self are not altogether at rest, because scripture states that even then it is connected with Buddhi (intellect).๐ฅ
โHaving become a dream, together with Buddhi it passes beyond this world.โ Smriti also says, โWhen the senses being at rest, the mind not being at rest, is occupied with the objects, know that state to be a dream.โ Scripture says that desires etc. are modifications of the mind ๐ฅ
๐ฅDesires are observed in dreams. Therefore, the self wanders about in dreams together with the mind only. The scripture in describing our doings in dreams qualifies them by an โas it wereโ.
โAs it were rejoicing together with women, or laughing as it were, or seeing terrible sightsโ Ordinary people also describe the dreams in the same manner. โI ascended as it were the summit of a mountain, I saw a tree, as it wereโ. Dream creation is unreal. Reality implies the factors of time, space and causation. Further, reality cannot be sublated or stultified. Dream creation has not got these traits. Dream is called โSandhyaโ or the intermediate state because it is midway between waking and the deep sleep state, between the Jagrat and the Sushupti. ๐ฅ
Dreams, though of a strange and illusory nature, are a good index of the high or low spiritual and moral condition of the dreamer. He, who has a pure heart and untainted character, will never get impure dreams. An aspirant who is ever meditating will dream of his Sadhana and his object of meditation. He will do worship of the Lord and recite His name and Mantra even in dream through the force ๐ฅ
If a soul remains always connected with The Supreme soul then that soul gradually achieves all the qualities of The Supreme soul. โฆpurity, peace, power, bliss joy love.๐ฅ
This sounds absurd, weird crazy, and very, very strange. ๐ฅ
But in Spirituality practical experience is more important than any theory.๐ฅ
Both soul and Supreme soul are points of light energy. ๐ฅ
Meditation is a connection between the two.๐ฅ
It is positive communication of a soul with The Supreme soul without demands and complaints.๐ฅ
It is like charging our soul batteries by connecting to the Light ๐ฅ
To trap solar energy we need solar panels and to trap eternal energy from The Supreme soul we need a technique. ๐ฅ
Meditation is one such technique. ๐ฅ
We can’t see the air but we can feel the breeze if we remove the extra cover of clothes. ๐ฅ
๐ฅ We can’t see God.
But we will be able to feel HIS existence if we try to remove the cover of vices from our souls.๐ฅ
Once vices like anger, greed, lust, attachment, and ego are removed then virtues are exposed and one will be able to feel HIS existence.
First, we must endure suffering as a gift to heal ourselves in silence to experience the healing process
Also, people often “hide” their true inner self to blend in with the world around them & society in general.๐ฅ
For my own personal life, I prefer being a true “individual” rather than a homogenous person who exists generically without knowing their own true nature.๐ฅ
All the ancient wisdom traditions & esoteric teachings advise one of the need to be one’s true natural self.๐ฅ
For example, in the Wen-Tzu (Understanding the Mysteries) Lao Tzu refers to this as being & living in one’s true nature and/or true essential nature. One of his examples is, “When people lose their essential nature by following desires, their actions are never correct.”๐ฅ
So, following Lao Tzu’s advice, one can begin to detach from artificial traits, negativity, bad habits, addictions, and so on.๐ฅ
Be your true natural self & awaken to your own limitless potential.๐ฅ
Always honor truth over falsehood because only truth will lead you to enlightenment.๐
