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Negative Expressions (of the Individual)

Knowledge Base

by Roy Posner and MSS

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Introduction to Page General Observations Negative Life Response Specific Negative Expressions: Wanting Attitudes Disturbed Emotions Selfishness Stinginess, Miserliness Ego Anger, Irritation, Arguing Fear, Worry, Anxiety, Doubt, Insecurity Habituality, Fixidity, Rigidity Closed Mindedness Reluctance Overeagerness, Impatience, Expectation, Excitement Desire Possessiveness, Attachment Being Critical, Judgmental On Being Criticized, Offended

Lack of Self-Esteem Jealousy Depression Confusion Skepticism, Cynicism, Lack of Faith Teasing, Taunting Meddlesomeness, Imposition of View Lack of Energy, Fatigue, Non-Well-Being, Illness, Ill-Health Ignorance, Error, Falsehood, Evil Superstition Mistaken Assumptions in Life Psychological Weakness Naiveté, Innocence Negative Atmosphere, Social Context Meanness, Cruelty Distain for Benefactor Anachronisms (& Other Negatives of Society)

Other: (Dishonesty, Irresponsibility, Corruption, Ambition, etc.) Also See: Physical Illness Overcoming our Limitations in Life (other page) Perceptions of Failure & Success; Good & Bad; Positive & Negative Miscellaneous   Note: Items in italic are on other pages

 

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 INTRODUCTION TO PAGE
(top)

[There are so many ways we express our negativity in life. Below are our original thoughts on several dozen of the main ways. Perhaps you can identify several that you have a propensity towards. If you then make an effort to them, life will instantly respond with sudden good fortune.]

 

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GENERAL OBSERVATIONS
(top)

General Thoughts on Our Negative Expressions in Life

Small Negative Behaviors Attract Negative Response
Even relatively benign behaviors like sarcasm, skepticism, teasing, not to mention irritation and impatience, can draw out ill fortune, or avoid positive outcomes. To see how subtle it is will be an inner effort of precisions that we can readily see and document from our own experiences. We can see the same in the positive direction. If one can become sensitive to the expressions of others down to this level of subtlety, one can anticipate if not predict future outcomes, which is one path to experience the Marvel.

The Negativity in Our Essential Nature
-What is our essential nature? We are divided beings who need to find their wholeness. And we need to discover the methods that will enable us move us toward that wholeness.

-Why is our nature divided? All sentient beings are born of the division and duality of creation. The Absolute, the Omnipresent Reality, in order to extend its Spiritual essence and delight into ultimate quantities and diversities of forms, enabled a universe of divided forms and beings. In order to extend spirit and delight, the Absolute, i.e. God manifested a universe of forms into which that spirit and delight could flow in ever new and dynamic ways. In order to create the greatest quantity and variety of these forms, they were created flawed and incomplete.

How does our divided nature express practically in our being? We need to overcome that which is divided and dual in our own nature. We need to overcome our limiting habits, attitudes, opinions, judgments, behaviors, and false actions. We need to overcome our physical, vital, and mental deficiencies, including our dead habits, our fixidity, our unchanging nature in the physical; our blind passions, desires, negative emotions, ego and separateness in the vital/emotional center; and our vast ignorance, our partial understandings, limited perceptions, and false observations and conclusions of the mind.

Achieving by Raising Our Strength Overcoming Our Negative Qualities
It is commonly said we do not know our weakness. That is a great truth. I have been insisting that we do not know our strength. Should a man know his strength and be willing to build on it, we see he rises like a meteor. Now greater heights call him. It is then one needs to know the other side of his character. A man who develops his strength rises to the maximum his own circumstances permit.

When he looks at his weaknesses and removes them, the present circumstances change and new favourable circumstances arise.

The second half, to remove one’s weakness, is harder but more rewarding, especially as it sets no limits. It actually removes ALL limits or barriers to one’s growth.

One suggestion to mitigate its bitterness is to observe someone close to us - a brother, a friend, a partner - as we know him inside out. Also, he is one whose defects we are acutely aware of. Once we know it in all the details, we can safely assume that ALL those traits are in us. A spiritual rule says the outer fully reflects the inner. Those who are with us are with us because they have exactly the same qualities that we do. If your partner is one who has a mannerism, and you are sure you have no such mannerism at all, please scratch the surface and you will find that mannerism would have become a mental habit that inhibits your larger mental potentials.

I these ways an individual's rise has no limits.

Knowing yourself is Self-awareness in individual life. Should you try to raise this awareness to realisation, you will be at the top of your society. (MSS, extracted and reorganized

Negative Influences on Accomplishment
Every accomplishment in life is vulnerable to interference or destruction by negative influences. The higher the accomplishment is with respect to previous levels of achievement, the greater the vulnerability. The character of a negative influence can be seen from the nature of events that occur when its approaches or leaves the atmosphere. 

Here's an example. A man is at a certain level of income. He comes to the possibility of a big work which can lead to a big change in his life. However, his neighbors suddenly become hostile and bullish, which leads to a confrontation, at which he is injured by the neighbor, setting back his ascent to the greater level he aspired for.

Small Attitude Cancels Great Opportunity
Many can recall such instances where a small attitude cancelled a great opportunity. (MSS)

Behind Failure to Accomplish

Behind failures lies one invariable reason -- trying to accomplish in the outer field and enjoy what one is not inwardly prepared for. (MSS) 

Variables that Enable Accomplishment vs Failure
Human action, individual character, social character and the character of life combining and interacting generate a set of results. When those results are what the characters themselves would view as positive, we can refer them as examples of accomplishment. When they are negative, we term them failures. (MSS, slightly modified)

Untitled
Individuals as well as society achieve only when the strength is Organised to contain the mischief of the negative. (MSS)

Accomplishment as Not Ignorance
An accomplishment [we have made] tells us we are NOT insisting on our Ignorance. (MSS)

Nature vs. Spirit's Way to Overcome Problems, Knots of the Past
Unless one consciously digs them up and holds them up to the descending Light, the problems and knots of the past have to undo themselves by the negative impact of life events. This is Nature's way. The first, the spiritually conscious approach, is preferable, in terms of greater speed, joy, and great results, undoing the burdens of the past ways. (Paraphrase of MSS)

Untitled
Everyone has a past which is Not an irrevocable bar, but an obstacle to be surmounted. Giving up the past not only is protection in the present but brings further openings. (MSS)

Atmosphere to Accomplish
An individual's ability to accomplish is affected by the social environment and atmosphere -- which includes the capacities, energies, character, and circumstance of the social environment and social institutions he is involved in. When that environment, atmosphere is positive one is more likely to accomplish; when negative, it is less likely

Reversing One's Folly through Spirit
Life tells a man that it is difficult if not impossible to reverse the current plight he finds himself in because of his earlier folly. In Spirit, acts of earlier folly can be reversed through recognition of past error, and a deeply felt emotion of that recognition. The Spirit tells him, “If you genuinely regret in your emotions the folly of an earlier act, or reverse your past attitudes that led to that folly now in your understanding and feelings, the results of your folly -- such as huge debt, lack of work, failed marriage, etc --  will fully, quickly, and irreversibly dissolve, liberating you forever.”  Spirit corrects physical FACTS by the reversal of TRUE feelings deeply realized. (Paraphrase of MSS)

Nature vs. Spirit's Way to Overcome Problems, Knots of the Past
Unless one consciously digs them up and holds them up to the descending Light, the problems and knots of the past have to undo themselves by the negative impact of life events. This is Nature's way. The first, the spiritually conscious approach, is preferable, in terms of greater speed, joy, and great results, undoing the burdens of the past ways. (Paraphrase of MSS)

Untitled
Everyone has a past which is Not an irrevocable bar, but an obstacle to be surmounted. Giving up the past not only is protection in the present but brings further openings. (MSS)

On Scarcity
Scarcity is the desire NOT to see the abundance around. (MSS)

Secrecy and Non-Accomplishment
Accomplishment through secrecy is like the illiterate’s ambition to be a writer. (MSS

Rising Beyond Ambition
It is clear that accomplishment is highly desirable. It is equally clear that ambition is undesirable. The doubt that is a festering sore in us arises because one goes with the other. When we discourage ambition in us, we lose enthusiasm and our achievements are dwarfed.

Is there a way of doing the right thing and avoiding the wrong motive? Taking complete interest in the subject and losing oneself in it will wean us away from ambitious motives.

It will work for some time. After some time, ambition will rear its head. At such a juncture KNOWLEDGE helps immensely. One must think about this situation. Such a person will realise that 1. Ambition is ruinous, 2. Achievement is eminently possible without ambition. The knowledge that aspiration for a high goal that is not ambitious fulfils itself, is a great spur to progress. Thus ambition is overcome.

Another method often advocated is to compete with oneself - to strive to be better than before. This way one concentrates NOT on the material gain but on the QUALITY of performance.

To consecrate the goal to the Spirit is a spiritual method. Then our ego is replaced by the Spirit. Ambition in the lexicon of Spirit transforms itself into aspiration. (MSS, slightly reorganized)

On Humility
-Humility is the inner knowledge that MAN is a trifle before the world, Nature or God.
-As we invoke the Spirit, so we can acquire humility.
-Humility must be acquired as inner character for it to be of value in Spirit. It is not enough it is exhibited as outer behaviour. The moment one becomes truly humble inside, life with its abundance rushes towards him. (MSS) 

Definition (of the Opposites) of Generosity & Meanness
Meanness is an attitude of asking another to do what we cannot. We can construct a definition of generosity based on it. To give another man, without his asking, what he cannot accomplish by his best efforts can be defined as generosity. Even that generosity when it is tinged with ego is impermissible or at least will be a lever for him to hurt you. The opposite of generosity is meanness. (MSS, somewhat modified)

Your Choice of Temperament, Attitudes to Exercise that Enables Success or Failure
-Those who prosper will look at the world from their highest responsibilities. Those who refuse to prosper will always attribute their failure to external circumstances.
-The capacity to complain against everyone and everything keeps the other where he was forty years ago.
-Choose the RIGHT, the GOOD, the PLEASANT, the VALUABLE and that is the ladder for progress.
-If you complain, whine, bark, are lazy, compete or ascribe your failure to others, you constantly slide down.
-Evil, meanness, deceit, violence, cruelty, tyranny, falsehood, MONEY VALUE, mercenary attitude, short temper, greed, demand, desire, craving, suspicious nature, doubt, sloth, etc. have never paid social dividends.
-In the end, these are aspects of your temperament that you choose to exercise.
(MSS, modified)

Good Will Towards those With Ill Will Can Ruin One
A servant girl was good at heart. Hers was pure goodness. Her mother and brothers turned against her, teased her, punished her, tyrannised her, and wanted to ruin her. The atmosphere of Grace where she worked effectively protected her against the ordeal of tyranny. Grace gave her a great marriage and wealth. Now the family woos her. One of her well-wishers advised her to help her family rise as a gesture of good will, little realising that ill will served by Good will would ruin her completely. Not only that, the family would enjoy trampling her under their feet when she fell. Family affection in the presence of active ill will is a sure self-poisoning. It is a dangerous experiment. Society lauds it. Spiritual experience warns against it. (MSS)

The Positive Value of the Negative Person
As long as you avoid a bad person, your inner knowledge keeps the inner ignorance at arm's length. Avoidance is austerity; acceptance is prosperity. Ignorance does not transform into knowledge as long as we avoid it or avoid the person in our life who represents that ignorance. He is there for us to make a progress. When we make that progress, mysteriously he vanishes. He tells us by his jealousy that there is jealousy in us. We are not aware of it, or we are unwilling to concede it. That is the positive value of a negative person. The moment we recognise it and exhibit a willingness to give up the bad trait, that man disappears. (MSS)

An example: Yes, a friend of mine had that precise experience.

She had an abusive boss, who for several years made life intolerable for her (and several others). She made the brave effort to look at it from the point of view of her own attitudes. She decided not be mad at him. In that sense, she was giving up her own limited sensitivities. Sometime later, he not only was nice to her, but after Christmas that year had left the company.

 

Misc.

Untitled
When one forces an initiative, it will backfire. E.g. Mrs. Bennett in Pride and Prejudice tried to meddle in a situation and it only leads to her failure.

Untitled
A person can be effective when he tries something in his own plane. But if you try something at a higher plane it won't work. E.g. Mrs. Bennett in Pride and Prejudice tries to influence Mr. Bingley who is in a higher sphere, and her plans do not work.

Ultimately what accomplishes is authority whatever the context is.

Problems Solved by Releasing Emotion
If you have a difficult problem, release the negative emotion inside you, and turn it into thought or even non-thought. Life will respond positively in kind by reversing the difficulty.

Untitled
Sexual experiences are often followed by losses of money, small accidents, and other negative experiences. The intensity depletes the energy in the being. When energy is reduced, negative life response can occur.

Negative vs. Ferment Atmospheres
How to distinguish between a negative atmosphere, and one of great ferment and turmoil, when initiating a significant undertaking? Perhaps in the former the negative atmosphere disturbs, whereas in the later we can identify with the emerging positive.

Overcoming Ego Movements
Watch yourself when you are making the effort to a higher consciousness at a meeting or social gathering; your ego will bull through the proceedings and try to assert. It is a poison that tries to mingle with one's inner life, tingeing your relationship with the outer crowd. It's influence can begin to be overcome by a movement within away from surface living, and be permanently overcome by a concerted effort to find one's personal evolving soul within.

Secrecy & Accomplishment
Secrecy is an essential capacity for accomplishment, yet uncalled for secrecy cancels work. (MSS)

Vedanta's Five Reasons for Human Suffering
There are five reasons why human beings suffer, according to Vedanta. These are the five kleshas on which Buddhism drew for the Four Noble Truths. First, they do not know who they are. Second, they grasp, hold on, cling to that which is impermanent, transient, intangible, ephemeral, dreamlike, which has no real existence. Third, they are afraid of, run from that which is transient, intangible, insubstantial, dreamlike, ephemeral, which has no real existence. Fourth, they identify with the false self, a moment-by-moment fabrication, which is a figment of the imagination, they sacrifice their souls, their spirits for a false identity. Fifth, they are afraid of death, of the unknown. And then Vedanta says, all those five reasons are contained in the first. (Deepak Chopra, somewhat modified)

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Overcoming Our Negativities to Make Rapid Progress and Attract Sudden Good Fortune
-Out of creation comes divided ignorant forms. Man shares that propensity of matter. It has led to all of his wanting psychological conditions. There are a number that stand out. Each can be overcome when one perceives the problem, and then makes the concerted effort to change it.
-As man evolves in consciousness, his negative propensities are overcome.
-Each individual has his unique set of wanting qualities. If he overcomes several of them, he evolves rapidly in life.
-Life progresses through the conflict and dualities of Nature. It is with the contradiction of the realities of life and the wanting qualities we embody. Through difficulty we slowly overcome several wanting qualities. If we do it consciously we can make rapid progress in no time, and life will constantly be bringing us good fortune.

Achieving by Raising Our Strength Overcoming Our Negative Qualities
It is commonly said we do not know our weakness. That is a great truth. I have been insisting that we do not know our strength. Should a man know his strength and be willing to build on it, we see he rises like a meteor. Now greater heights call him. It is then one needs to know the other side of his character. A man who develops his strength rises to the maximum his own circumstances permit.

When he looks at his weaknesses and removes them, the present circumstances change and new favourable circumstances arise.

The second half, to remove one's weakness, is harder but more rewarding, especially as it sets no limits. It actually removes ALL limits or barriers to one's growth.

One suggestion to mitigate its bitterness is to observe someone close to us - a brother, a friend, a partner - as we know him inside out. Also, he is one whose defects we are acutely aware of. Once we know it in all the details, we can safely assume that ALL those traits are in us. A spiritual rule says the outer fully reflects the inner. Those who are with us are with us because they have exactly the same qualities that we do. If your partner is one who has a mannerism, and you are sure you have no such mannerism at all, please scratch the surface and you will find that mannerism would have become a mental habit that inhibits your larger mental potentials.

I these ways an individual's rise has no limits.

Knowing yourself is Self-awareness in individual life. Should you try to raise this awareness to realisation, you will be at the top of your society. (MSS, extracted and reorganized)

Man's Self-Deception Has Negative Consequences; It is Not Star-Crossed
Man successfully deceives others. He is a cheat. People are cautious about him. What about one who deceives his own self? People believe him and at times of crisis, his true colours come out. Actions, especially the results of action are the touchstone. He who deceives himself destroys himself fully. Sitting for long hours at the reading table or the writing desk does not mean he is reading or working. If a student is under the illusion of consummate self-deception that he is sincerely reading by sitting at his desk for long hours, the exams and his scores will reveal the truth. At these moments such people say, "I am star-crossed." He is NOT star-crossed. He is not responsible even to himself. This is a pitiable case. There are others in an office who are universally known to be polite, diligent, dutiful, and hard working. They have a finer discrimination. They know their own interest different from the duty to the office. (MSS)

When Capable Men Fail & How to Overcome
-When capable men fail in life, it is due to neglect or dissipation.

-Capable men in life or business choosing a negative alternative meet with failure.

-How can a capable man fail in life? If he is negligent or indulges in self-destructive ways, he alone can help himself by turning over a new leaf. (MSS, extracted)

Change the Corresponding Inner Negative to Instantly Change the Outer to the Positive
Life on the outside is a reflection of our inner condition. A negative circumstance on the outside can be reversed by discovering the corresponding wanting element within. As soon as we change it, life responds instantaneously, bringing us good fortune.

Negative Characteristics at Various Planes of Our Being
Our negative characteristics show up from physical to vital to mental planes. E.g. at physical plane we can be unhealthy, stubborn, and unwilling to change. At the vital level we can be jealous, angry, fearful, lust-filled, etc. At the mental level we can be confused, uneducated, and misinformed.

Examples of Negative Attitudes, Habits, Beliefs

An individual -

�         is unwilling to take up a work offered to him

�         is unwilling to take up exercise for her health when she needs to do so

�         is careless about being on time

�         has a negative attitude about his work

�         has negative feelings to a type of person

�         feels that others don't like

�         is pig-headed in his opinions

�         always tends to blame others, doesn't take responsibility

�         is uncaring of their oppressive or bullying ways towards others

�         doesn't follow through on what he promises

�         is not organized enough to keep his word and intent

�         is insensitive to the forcefulness of her words

�         doesn't like her boss

�         doesn't take responsibility for his children

�         harbors a long term hatred

�         is careless with money

�         is unconscious of the harm he has created for others

�         is careless with the objects he borrows

�         is unwilling to take up the good advice others offer him

�         is untruthful and deceitful

�         is callous of the difficulty he creates for others

�         is just spoiling to ruin the work for the team

�         is rebellious and does not like to work with others

�         is unwilling to make the necessary effort

�         is unwilling to consider opposing points of views, new ideas

�         is unwilling to do a work in a new way

Any attempt to overcome these, rectify them will attract rapid abundant positive response from life.

Offering Wanting Attitudes to the Spirit to evoke Positive Response
We feel that our opinions and attitudes are always right. First of all we have to stop saying this. As long as we feel we are right we are fully identified with our ego. There are no right or wrong attitudes, there are only attitudes that help or hinder our growth. Positive attitudes help our lives expand. Negative attitudes make it contract. We can pray that the negative attitude should change. The attitudes we have created are one of the ways by which the Infinite has become finite. Our job now is to reverse the direction and make the finite Infinite. The way we do that is to reverse our attitudes of which we have thousands. There is a method that can work for all of us. Wherever we feel a strong reaction, without trying to justify it in any way, let us say "I offer this attitude to You, Mother. Let me give it up. Let me make a progress."Call Mother at that point to reverse it, to dissolve that attitude. There is infinite prosperity behind each of our opinions, attitudes and habits. Each time we come forward to give one of them up, we release an enormous energy that translates in our lives as the disappearance of a problem or the sudden appearance of a great opportunity. Surrendering these aspects of our ego is the surest way to invite infinite prosperity into our lives. (Ragini)

Man's Self-Deception Has Negative Consequences; It is Not Star-Crossed
Man successfully deceives others. He is a cheat. People are cautious about him. What about one who deceives his own self? People believe him and at times of crisis, his true colours come out. Actions, especially the results of action are the touchstone. He who deceives himself destroys himself fully. Sitting for long hours at the reading table or the writing desk does not mean he is reading or working. If a student is under the illusion of consummate self-deception that he is sincerely reading by sitting at his desk for long hours, the exams and his scores will reveal the truth. At these moments such people say, "I am star-crossed." He is NOT star-crossed. He is not responsible even to himself. This is a pitiable case. There are others in an office who are universally known to be polite, diligent, dutiful, and hard working. They have a finer discrimination. They know their own interest different from the duty to the office. (MSS)

Achieving by Raising Our Strength Overcoming Our Negative Qualities
It is commonly said we do not know our weakness. That is a great truth. I have been insisting that we do not know our strength. Should a man know his strength and be willing to build on it, we see he rises like a meteor. Now greater heights call him. It is then one needs to know the other side of his character. A man who develops his strength rises to the maximum his own circumstances permit.

When he looks at his weaknesses and removes them, the present circumstances change and new favourable circumstances arise.

The second half, to remove one's weakness, is harder but more rewarding, especially as it sets no limits. It actually removes ALL limits or barriers to one's growth.

One suggestion to mitigate its bitterness is to observe someone close to us - a brother, a friend, a partner - as we know him inside out. Also, he is one whose defects we are acutely aware of. Once we know it in all the details, we can safely assume that ALL those traits are in us. A spiritual rule says the outer fully reflects the inner. Those who are with us are with us because they have exactly the same qualities that we do. If your partner is one who has a mannerism, and you are sure you have no such mannerism at all, please scratch the surface and you will find that mannerism would have become a mental habit that inhibits your larger mental potentials.

I these ways an individual's rise has no limits.

Knowing yourself is Self-awareness in individual life. Should you try to raise this awareness to realisation, you will be at the top of your society. (MSS, extracted and reorganized)

One Small Perversity Overcome by Great Men
One who is given to such reading cannot miss this element - the element of conscious endeavour to detach oneself from a small perverse joy - in the lives of great men.
 
Great men are great by birth. The greatness in them is born when the choice is there to deny the impulse of perversity which is hostility to the Divine. (MSS)

 Proud of Our Shortcomings
"No," he said proudly, "I never did have much use for these computers." In a thousand different ways we smugly proclaim our ignorance; proud of our shortcoming. And so we stay where we are, in our comfort zone, indulging in our taste of Ignorance.

Thoughts on the Ways We Overcome Our Limitations in Lif

 

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NEGATIVE LIFE RESPONSE
(top)

Negative Life Response
-Every wanting behavior returns as negative response sooner or later. When it happens quickly and with no apparent outer causality it is a life response.  E.g. a man hope to taunt another, and thereafter everything he does at the meeting goes wrong for him -- even before he has actually done the taunting!

-Sudden good fortune coming one's way is positive life response; sudden ill-fortune is negative life response.

-Ill-fortune suddenly coming your way for no apparent reason has its origins in a wanting inner or outer movement of consciousness.

Negative Life Response
All positive and negative qualities within us return to us. It is the law of karma. It can do so instantaneously, which is negative life response.

Thoughts on Negative Life Response
-Every negative that happens around you is a reflection of a negative inner or outer behavior. It is a negative life response.
-Negative physical, vital, or mental energies move out into the field of life and align with corresponding negative conditions. It appears to us as a negative life response, i.e. sudden ill fortune.
-Since the outer  is a reflection of the inner, a negative result outside ourselves is always reflective of some corresponding condition within us.
-The inner reflects the outer because the inner and outer than One. They are not two separate entities. Thus when we shift the inner to the negative, the outer responds similarly.

Avoiding Negative Life Response
We are constantly attracting negative life response to ourselves -- i.e. the sudden onset of ill fortune, though we don't know why. It's simple really: every negative bit of luck that comes our way can be directly attributable to a wrong attitude or action expressed previous to it. For example, we express hostile feeling towards someone, and 10 seconds later from out of nowhere, we receive news that an important business contract of ours has been cancelled. In essence, our negative energy moved out into the field of life and aligned with corresponding negative circumstance that now appears before us as ill-fortune

We can observe this phenomenon by watching the simplest of TV shows, knowing that what is in the mind of the author is a subconscious awareness of how life really operates. For example, in one episode a partner A plays a practical joke on the other B, much to the detriment of the latter. Within 10 seconds of the conclusion of the matter, A receives word of bad news via post. Or, in another episode C scolds his partner D, when he could have been more understanding, and D immediately is confronted with ill fortune on a related matter.

While it is fairly simple to observe this subtle phenomenon of “Life Response” in the attitudes and behaviors of others, it is more difficult to see it in our own lives – i.e. trace back the negative fortune that has just come to us to a negative propensity expressed or felt moments earlier. And yet we can train ourselves to do that as well.

It can actually be quite useful to detect this cause and effect relationship because if we know the cause of the sudden onset of ill-fortune, we can avoid such wanting attitudes, habits, and opinions in the future, which will mean that our fortunes will continually move to the positive. If we do this on a regular basis, life will unfold as an endless procession of good luck. For example, accomplishment and success will not only double, but increase by 10 times or more. And it will come by sudden burst of unexpected good fortune. It’s the secret miracle of life that awaits us all when we become conscious in every moment and avoid the negative.

Overcoming the Vitriol of Fans
Can a negative attitude precipitate and elongate a problem -- i.e. attract persistently negative circumstance?

For 50 years, the Giants have played baseball in San Francisco after moving from Manhattan in the late 1950s. They have not won a single championship, having an almost unmatched record of futility. One of the mantras of the team is "Beat LA," meaning Los Angeles. Actually, it is expressed in terms harsher than that. Interestingly, in LA they rarely say anything so scurrilous as the fans in San Francisco. Could this negative attitude on the part of fans in SF attract persistent negative results that have deprived them of a single championship in 50+ years?

Consider the results. There have been many instances where the Giants were in the pennant run, only to be knocked out at the end by the LA Dodgers. When the Giants finally made it to the World Series several years back, they were poised to win, only to be deprived of the prize by the Los Angeles Angels at the last moment! This dynamic has occurred repeatedly over the years. The fans' vitriol always seems to rise before they are about to play an important series with their Southland rivals; and invariably the futile results follow -- often in the most “creative” of ways.

And yet there is a solution. If the fans and media can learn to control their LA contempt, shed their inferiority complex, and take to playing solid ball, conditions will quickly arise that will put them in contention; even in a position to win a championship. Sounds far-fetched? It is precisely how life works. The very same dynamic holds true for each of us in our own lives. If you discover and overcome a wanting attitude, areas of failure you have experienced will quickly turn successful, as positive circumstance will appear out of nowhere. Why not test out the theory?

The Potential Positive Power of Negative Life Response
Life responds positively and negatively; i.e. with good or bad fortune, reflecting your inner condition at the time. It is the phenomenon of "life response" in action, which is predicated on the principle that the outer is a reflection of the inner.

When a negative circumstance comes your way, it can be tied to one or several wanting qualities on your part -- perhaps a wanting habit, a negative attitude, a wrong-headed belief, a wrong decision or action, or any of these in combination. One man had his car towed and perceived a plethora of wrong attitudes that attracted this negative circumstance from life. It indeed consisted of a combination of the previously alluded to factors.

The key of course is to avoid such attitudes in the past which will prevent life responding negatively. It will also be an opportunity to come to grips with limitations in your nature; i.e. it is an opportunity to grow as a person. In that sense every negative that comes to us is a positive in disguise.

 

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Negative Life Response in Pride and Prejudice

· Mrs. Bennet's meddling in trying to win over Bingley for Jane backfires. (As we shall see later on, Bingley will leave with Darcy for London, nearly breaking Jane's heart. This is a negative response to Mrs. Bennet's meddling.) (negative life response to Mrs. Bennet.)

· Jane tells Eliza that Bingley disbelieves Wickham's account of Darcy; as does Jane's sister. Still Eliza cannot fully believe those so close to Darcy; i.e she distrusts them because they are prejudiced for him. This causes Eliza at the party to become very confused and distraught. Her mood turns decidedly negative. Suddenly around her everything responds to the negative state. Her mother talks very loudly and vulgarly, embarrassing her again, Mary's piano playing and singing become a source of shame, and Lydia accelerates her wild nature and carrying on. (Negative life response for Eliza.)

· At the dance Mrs. Bennet speaks out of the fact that her daughter Eliza will surely marry Collins, a verbal boast that proves completely false. (This is a negative life response to her boasting (i.e. loud speech; as well as forceful speech in the light of uncertainty, which is weakness.)

· Lady Catherine meets with Eliza and orders her to stop any sort of marriage plans with Darcy. The opposite takes place, which is a negative response to her negative motives. (This in turn creates a positive response from Darcy's perspective, who later learns of that meeting between LC and Lizzy. The fact that Lizzy refuses to say to LC that she wouldn't marry him, encourages him to see Lizzy again, which ends in success as he and Lizzy agree to marry. (Negative life response for Lady Catherine. Meddlesomeness) Also Eliza's strength enables the outcome (i.e. her marriage to Darcy) to be an eventual positive life response from her side.

Negative Attraction in Pride and Prejudice
The other day I randomly opened Pride and Prejudice with a similar concentration one would have before opening Savitri.

It was the section where Eliza is walking along with Wickham, obviously smitten. Thereafter she meets with Jane who informs her that she received a letter that Bingley is going off for a while, suggesting a possible halt to Jane and Bingley’s relationship.

We know that later Eliza is furious with Darcy about this development when he proposes the first time – i.e. that Darcy instigated it (which Darcy said was for Bingley’s own good, believing Jane did not truly love him). I believe these were the events.

Well it struck me that in fact Eliza is responsible for that development! Because she had just been with Wickham, which was negative for her, she aligned with negative circumstances that Jane was now reporting to her. So what Eliza blamed Darcy for, splitting Bingley up from Jane, Eliza “instigated” herself.

MSS Comment: It a striking insight. Wickham’s arrival is associated with Bingley’s departure. Wickham is false and his consciousness is such that it destroys relationships because there is no true underlying basis — the outer perfection is an appearance covering the heart of a rogue. Your comments brings out the fact that it is not so much Wickham’s presence but Elizabeth’s response (attraction) to him that brings about Bingley’s departure. A perceptive Indian (or reader of your book) would have immediately noted the connection between Wickham’s coming and Bingley’s going.

Small Negative Movements Attract Negative in Pride and Prejudice
At the Netherfield Ball, Elizabeth feels what Austen calls an irresistible temptation to tease and taunt Darcy and raise the issue of Wickham. The movement of irresistible temptation spreads like a tsunami wave from her and reflects in the embarrassing behavior of Sir Lucas, who approaches them to speak about Jane’s imminent marriage, Collins who insists on approaching Darcy, Mrs. B who openly abuses Darcy and brags about Jane’s marriage, Mary who wants to play piano, etc. Elizabeth never realizes the whole movement began with her uncontrolled impulse.

Later Mrs. B taunts Mrs Lucas with the prospect of Jane’s fortune marriage and says she hopes the Lucases are as fortunate very soon, fully convinced they will not be. Two days later Collins proposes to Charlotte and the Lucases inherit Longbourn! Had Mrs B known that her taunt would not only help Mrs Lucas achieve but transfer the Bennet good fortune to her, she might have been constrained to silence. That is the very truth of it. Ill-will transfers our good fortune to others.

Negative Action Returns
An eldest son who deerted his dependent family thus and retired as a high official discovered that his son after graduation refused to take a job and could not be married till he was 50. The father had consciously deserted his desperate family. His son gleefully enjoyed life, spent his father's money and chased women. (MSS

The Meaning Behind the Offending Phone Call
It is said that the Lord works in mysterious ways. They are mysterious because we do not understand them, and yet we are fully capable of doing so. I believe it is His wish.

Interestingly, it also works in the reverse. You will receive an unwelcome phone call at precisely the wrong moment because of something you have neglected in the past or otherwise precipitated on your own end. They are expressing their right action, but you are attracting them at precisely the wrong time because of the negative energies you released previously.

There are two examples of how the Lord -- or rather the cosmic unfoldings of life -- works in mysterious ways. To recognize the underlying intent and background is to ascertain the meaning in the offending call. And therefore know what they or you have to overcome to move to the positive to avoid repetition in the future.

Life is full of such lessons, if we only penetrate the surface.  It is a study I have engaged in for decades, the results of which can be found at the Growth Online web site. We welcome all who wish to learn the subtle secrets of how life unfolds in the universe.

 

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SPECIFIC NEGATIVE EXPRESSIONS
(top)

Wanting Attitudes
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Attitudes is Problem
The main problem is in our wanting attitudes. 90% of our difficulties are rooted there.

On Attitudes in Life
Perhaps our greatest stumbling blocks are in our attitudes. In our attitudes lies our greatest barrier to success in life. We can trace our positive and negative attitudes towards others, towards, things, towards ourselves, and towards life. Each person can make the effort to overcome their own predominant negative attitudes. This will lead to becoming a better person, and enable greater accomplishment and joy in life. When a person changes a negative attitude, often we witness an instantaneous positive response from life.

Negative Life Response
If you think of someone or some group in a negative manner (i.e. with negative feeling), you will almost be sure to have a negative life response somewhere thereafter to this expression. In that sense we can trace all negative responses in life that befall us back to such negative feelings, actions, etc.

Untitled
Expressing a negative thought, such as a mischievous, unpalatable idea to others, will attract negative life response to the perpetrator a short time thereafter

Small Attitude Cancels Great Opportunity
Many can recall such instances where a small attitude cancelled a great opportunity. (MSS

On Attitudes
Take but three of your negative attitudes and turn them around. That's all you have to do. Your life will change forever. Everything else can be irrelevant.

The hard part is not shedding one's negative attitudes, but discovering what they are in the first place.

Levels of Overcoming Negativity Toward Others
There are three points to overcoming negativity towards another, such as bad will, anger, jealousy, disdain, etc. First, refrain from verbally expressing it (that's at the physical plane). Second control your emotions about it (that's at the vital/emotional plane). Third, empty your thoughts of it (that's at the mental plane). Start with the physical plane aspect of the negativity, and move your way up to the vital/emotional plane next, and then lastly the mental plane. Total transformation of the negativity occurs when you are able to turn the conflict into a positive at all three planes. If you do that you can yourself become a transformed person.

We can have bad will towards another in three ways that correspond to our three essential levels of our being -- at the physical, the vital/emotional, and the mental. When we have build will for another at the physical level it seems to express in our very nature, in the very fibers of our bodies, almost as if it were natural and second nature. One needs to only look at the present conflict in the Middle East to see the intense, visceral hostility that is there in their physical consciousness of its leaders. It expresses in their actions and deeds. It is as if one were born feeling that way, and expresses in their very movements, actions, and deeds. No thought or emotion needs to invoke it. If you have such a bad will toward another it must absolutely stop now and forever. Nothing is more important in your life; there is no greater barrier to accomplishment, success, and happiness in life.

At the next level up, the emotional/vital level, is where most people experience and express their bad will toward others. At that level we have a sensation, an emotion, a passion of bad will towards another. How many of us have not related to another in such a way? A woman feels a continuous distain or emotional conflict with her boss or coworker. A man is miffed by something a friend has said holds onto this irritation for a long time, and feels it welling up in him from time to time. Another individual holds a 30 year grudge against a relative. This visceral ill-will can be held deep in the emotions, and expresses more or less intensely in one's feelings. If one has such ill-will in the emotions, one must shed it as soon as possible. Also, if you sincerely make the psychological effort to shed such feelings, life will suddenly respond positively in kind. Opportunities and good fortune will appear from out of nowhere; and from the most unlikely sources! For example, the woman who had hard feelings towards her boss was somewhat shocked when her boss suddenly started acting sweetly and kindly, which was not in his normal nature, after she had give up all her bad will towards him.

Finally, there are those who have shed negative emotional feelings, yet still feel a vestige of bad will in their thoughts. It just kind of pops into the mind from time to time. If it does, one simply needs to catch it and stop it in its tracks. This is the easiest to control, but still needs to be shed.

Method to Overcome Negative Thoughts and Feelings
We can try a little experiment. Simply observe all negative thoughts and feelings in a one hour period of time. Write them down. Try it again, and see if they repeat. Also, see if you can tie it to a negative or limiting part of your being; such as false knowledge, limited judgments, bad attitudes, harmful desires, stupid impulses, foolish actions, and limited beliefs, sentiments, or personal values. What an exercise that would be!

Quality Not Liked in Another
If there is a quality you don't like in another, detach yourself from your irritation and bother. If you examine yourself, you will be able to identify a parallel or mirror-image of the perceived negative quality in yourself. (This phenomenon is often seen in the relationship between parents and children.) Minimally make the feeling toward the other person positive. Maximally understand the corresponding or mirror image attribute in your own nature, and them make an effort to change it for the better.

Feeling Superior to Another
If you look down upon a person because you are endowed with one superior quality, know you do not have several skills the other person has. A good example of this scenario is described in Jane Austin's Pride and Prejudice.

Ill-Will in Pride and Prejudice

Negative Attributes Of Kin, Ourselves
Many of the attributes we dislike in our children we have in ourselves. Many of the attributes we don't life in our parents, we have in ourselves. Sometimes the attributes not liked manifest in different ways in ourselves, in our children, in our parents. They have the same root, however, just manifesting either the same or somewhat differently.

Getting at the Root of Anger
Anger is hard to catch, but if you can, correlate the object of your anger to something nagging at you within that has nothing directly to do with the object of anger. Change that, rather than continue your anger outward in any way. Actually, the first rule of anger is to never have it, and if you do, stop it immediately; and thereafter check within yourself to see what is really bothering you, and make an effort to change that limiting or negative quality or aspect or capacity within yourself. This is the way to peace; for the individual or the nation.

Untitled
"True courage belongs to the person who voluntarily gives up his fondness for having enemies. An unawakened man clings desperately to his enemies, for without them he would feel empty, unimportant. He fears the loss of the agitation supplied by enemies, for he is deceived into thinking that agitation is an exciting way of life. Can we give up one enemy today, whether a person or stubborn machine or cloudy day? We can do that much in order to express the courage for conquest." (The Daily Guru)

Outgrowing Group Negativity
When friends and associates gather and mock those who are weak, infirm, or vulnerable, it is an indicator of their own common insensibility. It is part of why Nature has brought them together; to outgrow it.

Small Men's Small Attitudes
Small men enjoy being small. Their minds travel in small attitudes. The range is not only comfortable but gives pride of possession. When they occupy power they exercise it with a vengeance. (MSS)

Change an Opinion
Change one opinion of yours, a miserable life becomes a happy life. (MSS)

True Inner Silence
I have heard from many devotees that though they want harmony with others their efforts end in failure with the other persons provoking quarrels and picking fights even when the devotee keeps silent. The other person could be the spouse, another colleague at work spot or another devotee they meet at the center or even a neighbour.

Very often the failure comes because the physical silence that the devotee practices is not backed by true inner silence. The devotee though not openly quarrelling will be criticizing the other person in his or her mind all the time. This silent criticism sends out vibrations of disharmony all the time which the other person responds to and provokes what the devotee thinks is an uncalled for quarrel. But it is the vibration coming from the devotee that is causing the mischief. We may take rotten food away from the dining table so that others do not see them and put them away in the kitchen. But the smell of rotting food floats from the kitchen and enters the dining hall and disturbs people. Silent criticism is like rotten fruits and disturbs the other person just as effectively as open quarrelling. Life is far more subtle than we think. What we do not speak out is sensed by life as vibrations and they are just as real to life as spoken words.

In P&P Elizabeth has silently criticized Darcy so many times throughout the story. Suddenly out of the blue she finds Lady Catherine visiting her and showering a rain of abuse on her leaving her bewildered. How will she ever know this is what she gets as life response for the incessant silent criticism of Darcy that has been going on her head for so many months. She may never see the connection. But at least we devotees should know this connection and see that we do not commit this mistake when we strive for harmony with others.

Let any devotee who wants true harmony with others stop this silent criticism and then he or she will see the results. (N. Asokan, MSS)

 

Disturbed Emotions
(top)

Disturbed Emotions Attracts Negative Life Response
In Pride and Prejudice Caroline's comments about E's looks and about Wickham come as a disturbance to his and her (Eliza's ) emotions. She is a girl worth 20,000 pounds and has that weight on her side, which makes her remarks hit hard. Their disturbed emotions are followed the next day by an elopement with a man connected with Darcy. Disturbed emotions attracts negative (LIFE RESPONSE). That elopement is indicated the day before by Caroline's provocation. And a few days earlier when Elizabeth visited Pemberley, she told her aunt that they might be deceived about Wickham, from Mrs. Reynold's talk. Disturbed emotions attracts negative life response.

Selfishness
(top)

Oblivious Selfishness
Human selfishness has no bounds. It is there in every one of us constantly expressing in subtle and not so subtle ways. It is something we are consistently oblivious to, and yet other are constantly experience its sharp or blunt effect.

Index of Selfishness
If MAN is totally ignorant of anything, it is that he is selfish. There is an index for being extremely selfish. That person will ceaselessly complain about every other person that they are selfish. (MSS)

Oblivious Selfishness
If MAN is totally ignorant of anything, it is that he is selfish. Men are selfish and mean, says Sri Aurobindo. The only thing we can do about it is to cure it in ourselves. There is an index for being extremely selfish. That person will ceaselessly complain about every other person that they are selfish. There are affectionate families that are utterly selfless. In such families men and woman never mention what they own, or how useful they are to others.

Property, jewels, money, things will be used by anyone without reference to the individual rights. Occasionally an utterly selfish person will be born there. He will spread his empire without anyone standing in his way. Shamelessly he will expect everyone to serve his own purpose. His expectation will be abundantly fulfilled. Selfishness is dynamic, and can reach proportions of the infinite. A time will come when such men accuse all the others of selfishness. It happens when he has crossed his limits at all points of functioning.

Selfish members of a selfless family will rule the roost, as no one in the family will bring themselves to speak about it. His friends will constantly caution him and warn him of its consequences, of its unfairness, of the injustice. His one reply will be that he is serving the family to his utmost capacity. No amount of explanation will make him see the truth, as he is vital and the arguments are mental. His one grievance will be that no one around him knows his own needs and no one is selfless enough to meet them. What is blatant to every other person will not be seen by him. He will be oblivious of it. There are persons who are not selfish; nor does anyone else perceive them to be selfish. They are unselfish and in some areas they are self-giving.

Suppose such a person begins to examine himself from the point of view of selfishness, he can find several areas where he is fully selfish and many other acts where he can legitimately be accused of being selfish. It is so because selfishness is all-pervasive. The very human being is created around a self, an ego. The Rishi who takes to tapas moves from his human self to the divine Self within him. Modern life in the urban areas frowns upon the ego-trips of individuals. It is a great, good sign. Active psychological Self-giving practised as an article of faith brings one's Spirit to the surface of his life. (MSS)

On Selfishness
Selfishness is to put oneself at the centre of the universe and to want everything to exist for one's own satisfaction. (The Mother)

Ego and Selfishness
The ultimate weapons of ego are selfishness, desire and pride. (MSS)

The Selfish Man
The selfish man cannot respond with any interest to a work whose results can also benefit in the least measure another. (MSS)

The Gift Card

A friend forwarded this life response incident.]

"I just experienced what could be a negative life response. It was not for me, but another co-worker.

As you know, in the past the doctors here at the cancer center where I work give everyone a Macy’s gift card for Christmas. Well, almost every day for the past week my co-worker has kept asking “when are we getting our gift card from Macy’s?” I told here that I didn’t know, and that we will have to wait and see.

Well, last night just after this person went home, we received an e-mail from Human Resources stating that the cancer center doctors have donated to the Red Cross instead because there have been so many disasters there these past few years."

[Roy comments]
Yes, her attitudes and that of the doctors were diametrically opposite. They seeked to help; she demanded what was not hers to insist on. They did a positive good, which she experienced negatively as a response to her wanting intention. When our attitudes are selfish, we tend to attract the opposite, especially if there is a corresponding force that we are aligned with that is moving in the opposite direction.

The Selfish Man
The selfish man cannot bring himself to give. (MSS)

Man's Selfishness
Man has the genius to shut himself into his shell of selfishness and feel cosy as long as his wants, rather his desires are fulfilled. (MSS)

On Selfishness
-Selfishness is not appreciated even by a selfish man.
-Prayers will be answered according to our level of selfishness. (MSS)

Untitled
Our physical consciousness is completely selfish; our vital consciousness is intermittently the same; and our mental consciousness is better, and yet it is constantly aware of the plethora of deficiencies of the other planes.

Man's Selfishness
Man's selfishness finds its marked expression in his wanting the whole world to give him what he is not willing or capable of giving to the world. (MSS)

Expressions of Selfishness
Selfishness can be cultured or rudely boorish. In either case, its one demand of anyone is: give up what you have and leave me to myself. (MSS)

Man's Pains and Selfish Longing
-All the pains man suffers from now are generated by the intensity of his selfish longing.
-Man's pains will go when he wants to give not expecting any result, not even recognition. (MSS)

Destruction of Selfishness
To serve selfishness is a weakness and a sin. It can also help you to destroy your selfishness at a later stage, while in the final stage the same act while fully wiping you out, will help destroy universal selfishness. All these are valid only when the ego is still in existence. After the extinction of ego, selfishness for you is like any other trait including selflessness. (MSS)

Serving Selfishness
To serve selfishness is worse than being selfish because this service issues out of the servility of a selfish person. (To be selfish is to have it as a primary urge. To serve another's selfishness is to have it as an undeveloped tendency. For such a tendency to be shed, one needs to first raise it to being the primary urge. For this reason, it is less permissible.) (MSS)

Selfishness of the Intelligent Animal
It is the selfishness of the intelligent animal which denies the right to the other person. It denies him even the right of doing what he himself does. (MSS)

The Selfish Man
The selfish man evaluating others as selfish is worse than his own selfishness. (MSS)

Thoughts on Selfishness
The most organised form of selfishness is that which refuses a big boon because it includes a small bit to another too.

The selfish man evaluating others as selfish is worse than his own selfishness.

Selfishness is incapable of conceiving of selflessness even in others.

The selfish man trying to give up selfishness is like man trying to forget hunger.

The thoroughness with which SELFISHNESS reaches the potentials and distant possibilities is always devoid of any sense of shame. Shamelessness is endowed with thoroughness. Shamelessness is incapable of self-restraint.

Selfishness necessarily goes with shamelessness.

Man who learns only when his own interests are adversely affected, is a vitally selfish person. It is foolish to reason with him.

The ONE thing man likes best is to have everyone's resources at his own disposal and himself enjoying unfettered freedom in its totality.

Man's dedicated selfless works are only selfish.

Selfishness is the source of all ill-wills. It is incapable of true good will.

A selfish man cannot stomach the idea that another will receive a benefit, however small, by his own exertion, though that other person has conferred all his wealth on him.

A selfish man cannot stomach the idea that another will receive a benefit, however small, by his own exertion, though that other person has conferred all his wealth on him.

The greatest dynamism of selfishness is seen in its resourceful organisation to crush anything ideal, to tyrannise idealistic romance.  

Selfishness can be loyal, affectionate, espouse any ideal and still remain selfish.  

Selfishness can be loyal, affectionate, espouse any ideal and still remain selfish.  

Selfish people attaining a position tend to eliminate all others from there.

It never occurs to selfishness to reply a letter.

Selfishness and Sincerity do not go together.

Selfishness finds Good a weakness. (MSS)

Untitled
Selfishness is incapable of conceiving of selflessness even in others. (MSS)

Human Giving
Human giving [as opposed to self-givingness] is as much for self-aggrandisement as the receiver's greed. (MSS)

Vanity-based Gift
A gift made through vanity is profitable neither to the giver nor to the receiver. (The Mother)

The Part and the Whole as in Selfishness vs. Self-Givingness
The part and the whole have their own attitudes. The attitude appropriate to the whole is Selflessness. It can mature into self-giving. The part's attitude is selfish. Selfishness can hurt others or all. Selflessness in one can hurt no one. The selflessness of the part cannot hurt others or the whole. (MSS)

Overcoming Selfishness
There are many occasions in the course of our days where we express our selfishness. It is often marked by irritation, obliviousness, and pure ego.

This being the case, why not take the time to document all of them, being scrupulously honest and sincere in that effort. Then develop a plan to avoid as many occurrences as possible, and then act on it with fierce determination. If we also offer that persevering effort to the spiritual Force, we will not only create better relations with others, and elevate our consciousness, but we will attract powerful positive response from the world around us.

See Thoughts on Self-Givingness and Selflessness

MSS Thoughts on Self-Givingness, Selflessness, Selfishness, Etc.

 

Stinginess, Miserliness
(top)

Stinginess's Detriment to Truth
Stinginess is a perfect vehicle to preserve ways of life that are directly detrimental to TRUTH. Such people always swear by Truth. At crucial times, they have an urge to do the very opposite. (MSS

Definition (of the Opposites) of Generosity & Meanness
Meanness is an attitude of asking another to do what we cannot. We can construct a definition of generosity based on it. To give another man, without his asking, what he cannot accomplish by his best efforts can be defined as generosity. Even that generosity when it is tinged with ego is impermissible or at least will be a lever for him to hurt you. The opposite of generosity is meanness. (MSS, somewhat modified)

Thoughts on Stinginess
Stinginess is the acute possessiveness of the physical. Expansive giving of the extravagant is its opposite without substance. The stingy man becoming expansive, or the extravagant man developing an extraordinary capacity to earn is not the real solution. One can give his self, not his possessions. One cannot possess money or property, but can possess values or Love. Man loves to be oblivious of one who gave him his very life dying, but equally loves dying to know the success of those who betrayed him.

Hard-earned money will be protected by stinginess. Rarely it becomes generosity. When it does so, it is for its own selfish reasons.

When hard labour successfully organises itself into higher productivity unaccompanied by higher spiritual values, stinginess is born.  

Ego endeavours to go beyond Time and Mind.   Stinginess tries to excel Time by its intensity.  

Stinginess receives grace as scarcity. (MSS)

 

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The Unregenerate Vital Nature that Does Not Want to Pay
Love give. It cannot take. It can only give. Maybe, "Man takes, he can only take and he cannot give" is an uncharitable statement to make about mankind. At least in our own personal experience, we would have seen one example of such a person. Having read the words of Sri Aurobindo about the unregenerate vital not wanting to be under an obligation, I began to collect evidences for it from my readings of history and literature.

During the course of my research, I came across precious examples in life and in literature for another principle with which this article opens. My main focus was how much I am qualified under these rules, how unregenerate my vital is and how unwilling I have been to pay where payment was due. It was instructive.

Someone suffering an incurable disease came across another person in whom she developed a hope. She offered half her property to him. In half an hour of conversation, her hopes rose and she offered all her property. She was cured. Rather, she was transformed from the ghost she was to a girl of good looks. Her offer was no longer in the air.

A man entrusted a friend with all his money. The friend invested it and raised it to a value of 30 times in 18 months. It never occurred to the man that the friend could also be given a trifle out of the good fortune he had created. Two rich men bought a large coffee estate together. One man paid his share. The other man did not.

The buyer did not ask for the payment. The seller did not pay, nor did he give a receipt for the money for five years. It is inconceivable, but I was a witness to it. I can write here up to 15 such instances directly from the events I experienced or was a witness to. Conan Doyle wrote 56 short stories and 4 novels with Sherlock Holmes as the hero. It seems he made an experiment of his work to study this principle in life. Holmes never asks for payment. No one paid him, but everyone, before the work was over, copiously promised to pay.

A Lord came representing the throne and assured his payment, but never paid. A gold king asked him to burn money if necessary, but never paid. A poor girl offered to pay if she got her property. She got it but never paid. The police took Holmes' help but would not even pay his expenses.

An Austrian King and a Duke from whom Holmes demanded payment paid. A banker lost a crown and offered to pay its whole value, but never mentioned payment on its recovery. Sri Aurobindo says it never occurs to Man that a payment is due for service rendered or goods received. Love that is incapable of taking expresses through the mind or body. The body is physical and is possessive.

Even when the body expresses DIVINE LOVE that cannot take, in the beginning it wants to take for a period before it starts giving. If you see someone coming forward to pay AFTER the work is over and without being asked, you can be sure he is NOT physical. Yoga is to move from Mind to Supermind. There is the necessity for some of us to move from the vital to the mental. A few people may find themselves in the physical. They too can move. The power of the Force is wherever you are, you will be moved to the top, as in politics when the party wants, a person is moved from anywhere to everywhere. Man does not want to pay is a human reality. (MSS)

Untitled
The expansive, generous self-giving of a vain poor man turns into cautious self-preservation and later miserliness when affluence comes to him. (MSS)

Also See Entries on Generosity, etc.
 

 

Ego
(top)

Ego
Ego is seperative consciousness.

Thoughts on Ego

• It is of the lower consciousness.

• It reflects lower self vs. (higher) Self.

• It is seperative consciousness (vs harmonic), cutting us off from the world and others.

• It asserts one's own self at the expense of others; therefore it is seperative.

• It is dualistic (vs non-dualistic) view of life.

• It is a support for the limitations of Mind, including its exclusivity.

• Mind tends to embrace one truth at the expense of all others. In ego separativeness occurs, which makes the Mind more exclusive, holding on to my truth vs. the multiplicity of truths of a thing.

• Ego causes mind to see the Part rather than the Whole.

• It inherits the separativeness of the body, which dumbly only knows its own existence.

• It reinforces our Ignorance.

• It can lead to Falsehood and Evil.

• It is selfishness, as opposed to selflessness and self-givingness.

• It attracts negative circumstance.

• Through deeper consciousness, we shed ego and develop oneness with the world outside ourselves.

• When we reach our true selves, our souls, ego evaporates, separativeness disappears, and the mind becomes more open to infinite possibilities

• Moving from ego to non-ego and oneness attracts positive conditions from life.

• Moving out of ego we experience synchronicity, intuition, peace, energy, creativity, knowledge, truth, success, love, oneness, infinity, timelessness, spacelessness, and joy.

Source of Ego: The Separation from the Oneness with the Creator
The whole error of the tradition is to think of man as different from creator, the Brahman. They are one. When man thinks of himself as separate from the Creator, ego is born and all that comes with it, especially the sense of powerlessness. To KNOW that we are THAT and we create our own world is a liberating knowledge. (MSS)

Miscellaneous Thoughts on Ego

• The ego acts like a straight-jacket imprisoning us within our small personal existence, cut off from the world around us.

• The ego is the sense of being a separate person isolated from the universe.

• Ego has played a very important role in the evolution of humanity from the physically unconscious animal to the mentally self-conscious individual. Now humanity is at the stage where ego has become a bar for further progress.

• To overcome ego, shift away from the surface to a deeper center of consciousness inside which is in harmony with the universe around.

• The ego is full of desire, impatience and discontent. (MSS, various)

Causes and Nature of, and Overcoming Ego
-Ego divides us from the Oneness of life

-The separative material consciousness is the source of ego.

-Because we were born separate forms, ego came into play.

-Ego supports our sense of separateness -- from others, and the world around us.

-Ego contributes to our Ignorance because it supports our tendency to take a limited view -- i.e. the part -- and believe it is the Whole.

-Connecting to our deeper consciousness within, reconnects us to the Oneness of life, dissolve ego, and in turn helps overcome our sense of separateness, and begins to break the limitations of our inborn ignorance.

The Way Out of Ego
Some people object to "The Secret" on moralistic grounds that it caters to narrow, selfish materialistic motives. Surely, they say, this cannot be the aim of the universe. Why should the universal force lend itself to such petty purposes? There is a truth in this view, but it is a partial truth. The truth is that the universe acts to fulfill our aspirations only in the measure we open ourselves to the power of the universe. That is what "The Secret" means by alignment. The ego acts like a straight-jacket imprisoning us within our small personal existence, cut off from the world around us. The universe is an infinite energy. But it can enter our lives only in the measure we relate to something beyond our narrow boundaries. All of the methods advocated by "The Secret" are intended to help us escape from the confines of ego, even if it is done for a selfish personal motive. When a person earning $8000 a year conceives and aspires to earn $100,000, he is overcoming the narrow boundaries of his present existence, expanding beyond his limiting ego, even if he appears to be acting purely for personal, selfish motives. Therefore, the universe responds.

In common parlance we use the term ego to refer to someone who is self-centered, ambitious and self-important. But the ego is present in all of us, even those whose behavior exhibits the very opposite of these characteristics. A person who doubts their own capacity or self-worth, who feels it is wrong to aspire or assert, who feels other people are far more important and deserving is also living well within the bounds of the ego. Only in this case the ego feels weak, helpless and insignificant instead of strong, capable and important.

The ego is the sense of being a separate person isolated from the universe. The power comes from giving up the sense of separation. In order for the universe to act in our lives, we have to rise above the constraints placed on us by the ego sense and realize in one way or another that we are much greater than our present being - in fact, our true Self is infinite and one with all - and we have much greater potential than what we have achieved till now. The aggressive entrepreneur who seeks to earn more and more money is really trying to exceed the limiting boundaries of his ego, albeit for selfish purposes, just the way the star athlete aspires to break new records and reach the top spot. Striving for higher accomplishment that far exceeds our present level of achievement is an expansive movement that helps us reach beyond the confines of the ego.

Ego has played a very important role in the evolution of humanity from the physically unconscious animal to the mentally self-conscious individual. Now humanity is at the stage where ego has become a bar for further progress. The methods of cheerfulness, faith and gratitude advocated in "The Secret" are all methods designed to help us shift away from the ego. It is very difficult for the ego to remain always cheerful, because so many things happen in and around us that are not to our liking. To remain always cheerful is to shift away from the surface ego to a deeper center of consciousness inside which is in harmony with the universe around. To generate such a powerful faith that we feel now how we would feel after achieving the goal we aspire for is also a means to move away from the ego. The ego is full of desire, impatience and discontent. To feel fulfilled now means to reject these disturbing influences of the ego. Gratitude is very powerful because it makes us stop thinking about ourselves and what we want and concentrate instead on what life and other people have already given us. The advocacy of these three spiritual methods shows that "The Secret" is really founded on spiritual insight. (MSS)

Overcoming Ego Movements
Watch yourself when you are making the effort to a higher consciousness at a meeting or social gathering; your ego will bull through the proceedings and try to assert. It is a poison that tries to mingle with one's inner life, tingeing your relationship with the outer crowd. It's influence can begin to be overcome by a movement within away from surface living, and be permanently overcome by a concerted effort to find one's personal evolving soul within.

Overcoming Ego through Deeper Consciousness
Silencing the mind and other means of developing an inward orientation helps overcome ego. Moving to the depths of the soul eliminates it. There there is no sense of separateness, as we perceive our unity with all other things and beings

Ego, Time, and Mind
The spiritually evolved individual lives not in ego, nor in time, nor in mind. You can easily determine if you are that individual by following this recipe: Observe yourself; your thoughts, feelings, actions, reactions, and (1) see if you are making selfish, egoistic movements (that's easy, we're doing it all the time); (2) see if you are living in time, i.e. you are thinking about the past and the future, e.g. when you worry and fear or regret something that occurred long ago; or (3) if you are seeing only one part, not the whole of the thing, and holding onto to that piece of the puzzle, exclusively believing it is the entire puzzle. You will find that as you become aware of your negative propensities of ego, time, and mind, the foundation on which human life exists -- Ignorance and Falsehood -- will begin to reveal itself to you. Fortunately, we have the choice to reverse our limited inheritance, by choosing to embody oneness, timelessness, and spirit in all aspects of our lives.

Absence of Ego and Accomplishment
For whatever motive, the absence of ego is a powerful impetus for progress. People level off at the level of their self-importance. (MSS)

Ego-Sense and Limited Mental View
Listen to yourself the next time you are having a conversation. Are you saying what you are saying because it is the known truth, or because you are attached to it, are falsely energized by it, satisfying your ego-sense which is separative and selfish? At any point you can catch yourself and begin again on a firmer footing of openness and truth, or better yet, silence.

The Illusion of the Separate Self
"The illusion a man cherishes above all others is the illusion of having a separate self which is apart from the whole of life. To perpetuate this illusion, he fights, for fighting appears to create a separate self, a self with an opposite, an enemy." (The Daily Guru)

Utility of Ego in the Evolutionary Process
Q: Does ego have its place in the evolutionary process?

A: Ego serves a great purpose, as it is the first form of distinctiveness of the personality out of the Inconscience of materiality -- i.e. matter. It is the first way we demonstrate a modicum of individuality that distinguishes us from others. However, it is rooted in the unconsciousness that we inherit from our unconscious material beginnings. Thus, ego which creates individual identity is also seperative -- i.e. it has lost connection and identity with "Other" -- including the world around us, including the people and the Higher Reality.

When we move to a deeper poise within, down to the evolving soul, we overcome our sense of separativeness and thus ego. Overcoming ego enables Oneness, Unity, Knowledge, Love, Delight, etc.; all spiritual qualities of life. With ego, we experience their opposite.

As Sri Aurobindo explains, in the process of the involution from a Divine Source to a manifest universe, the Divine hid itself for the purpose of its discovery when we humans realize our higher nature. The first step out of this nescience of creation is to perceive our uniqueness apart others, which is to establish the beginnings of our own identity. This is ego, which is a self-absorbed consciousness that is in large part false, but a first step towards our True Self and higher nature.

Thus, we can therefore say that the Divine sanctions ego so that we can outgrow it on the way to our Higher Nature.

Ego Movement Attracts Difficulty; Cancels Further Success
A man was on a major quiz show on American television. He had just answered the first half dozen or so questions correctly, and had earned $30,000. So far the questions had been easy to hard, yet fortunately he had knowledge in all of the areas addressed. The host then asked the contestant if he would like to hold his check, a question the host had asked before and which the contestant refused. This time the guest accepted, and admired the check. The next question, which would ordinarily not be too much more difficult than the previous question, turned out to be one outside of the guest's knowledge area. The guest didn't give the proper response, and was at that point eliminated from the show. 

Comments: Negative Life Response. Example of how a negative ego movement can attract negative circumstance to life. Ego movement, i.e. negative vital attitude, attracts a difficulty that prevents him from gaining money (which is mostly vital). Subtle plane response.

Ego Being Wanting Itself Destroyed
A time comes when the most developed EGO wants to destroy itself and it cannot. At those moments, it seeks out the strongest force known and provokes it until it swings into action.

The fully developed Ego is subconsciously aware that it has to be destroyed at this point. There is no mechanism of self-destruction available to him.

Such a subconscious knowledge leads him to the sources of greatest power to consciously provoke them into direct action. (MSS)

The First Yogic Realisation:  to Dissolve the Ego, that the Divine Alone Acts
God executes his Will in the world through the instrumentation of the individual MAN. Sri Aurobindo says Shakti acts and She alone acts. Man is a mere instrument, a channel.

Creative personalities create unique products, but their theme is social, what all society happily receives and endorses. A writer feels that what he writes is his OWN thought. Yoga says thoughts are not ours, they are universal and they pass through our minds.

With that Realisation, ego dissolves and disappears. To dissolve our ego is the sadhana [the practice of yoga].

It never occurs to us that God can live our lives better than we can. What stands in the way is ego. To dissolve the ego, to be aware that He alone acts, is the First Yogic Realisation. (MSS-extracted)

Purpose of Ego

• The ego is created for the growth of life from matter. Its special duty is to centralise actions and postpone unity, a deliberate move, deliberately done in pursuit of delight.

• Ego is necessary for involution. To overcome ego is also necessary for evolution.

• Existence not merely concealed itself as non-existence but created the separate ego into which it fortified its concealment. Hence the secret of existence now is to exceed the ego. There are two realities, the Spirit and the ego.

• Initially Spirit became the ego; now it is time for the ego to become Spirit.

• The finite that stands in the way of the Infinite is Ego. Man is capable of identifying with the Ego or coming out of it and seeing the ego from outside. Man’s enjoyment of his identification with the ego is the taste of Ignorance the Spirit sought. (MSS, extracted)

Forms Ego Takes

• The most crude expressions of ego are arrogant stupidity and violence. Pride and assertion are its less violent forms. Competition and jealousy are its vital forms. Prejudice and opinion are its mental forms.

• The ultimate weapons of ego are selfishness, desire and pride. The weaker expressions of them are insecurity, greed and vanity. (MSS, extracted)

Overcoming Ego

• An impossible but an easy method is to convince the ego to pray for its dissolution. Ego is created by insincerity, i.e. separation. To make the ego sincere is to knock its bottom out.

• A sincere acceptance by the ego of its dissolution is indicated by a flash of opening extending to infinity.

• When you call Mother, the ego recedes.

• Better than calling Mother to solve our problems, we can call Her to dissolve our ego.

• To break out of ego, one must find the other as part of his own being and himself as part of God.

• Pain itself is a device for the ego to quickly outgrow it.

• To destroy ego externally is revolution. To destroy ego from inside is evolution. Evolution of ego’s dissolution is transformation. (MSS, extracted)

Experience of Dissolution of Ego/Non-Ego

• Man possesses his world and the things in it as the property of his Ego. He will be possessed by God and all HIS possessions when he sheds his Ego. It is a spiritually revealing decisive moment in one’s life when the surrender is accepted by his being.

• Ego being the force of Nature separating her from the soul of nature — the psychic being — its dissolution reveals the psychic.

• When the ego dissolves, the individual is universalised. The moment ego gives way, the psychic emerges. When ego disappears, the immutable self is reached.

• Egolessness can be seen if one is capable of no sorrow or disappointment. (MSS, extracted)

The Structure of Ego

• The power the ego has is the power of its own organisation, not the power of the being or the power of Consciousness. (MSS, extracted)

 Other Thoughts on Ego

• Selfishness and ego look similar. While selfishness is an attitude, ego is a centralising force.

• The central knot of HIS [Sri Aurobindo's] yoga is ego. (MSS, extracted)

Altruism is Egoistic
-One of Sri Aurobindo's themes -- "Altruism is egoistic" is developed by me very much to the annoyance of very many. It is a GREAT theme which our tradition knows. "One cannot alter another's Karma. If he can, he should not." A soul has come on earth to have a certain experience. One who has revelled in riches and reached its acme, the tradition says, desires to enjoy poverty. So, he is born poor. If circumstances come his way to lead him away from poverty, disease, etc. he goes back to his original poverty by choice. That is Karma. Great souls say "This is your Karma. I cannot do anything." He has an option before him to come out of his Karma, if he chooses himself to emerge out of it. 

-The West had developed the fad of service, of helping the poor. There is no ideal that activates the Westerner as service does. That is why Teresa was given the Nobel Prize for running a free hospital. It has a great attraction to the human mind. Sri Aurobindo says it is egoistic.

-The recipient of help never fails to hurt.

-Trouble comes to one ONLY from those he has helped, apart from his own folly.

-The very first WORD the beneficiary speaks is "I don't like".

- Scarlett in Gone with the Wind wanted the convicts to be better fed and she gave food for that. Directly she was attacked on her way back home. (MSS, extracted)

Personal and Spiritual Values in Work
It all comes down to personal values. Is the purpose of the work to improve life or to assuage one's ego? For most people, it is some combination of the two - i.e. wholesome values plus ego. To serve purely based on values is rare indeed. To serve the Divine in one in a million, if that. To serve Him purely involves a handful on earth.

Also See Thoughts on Ignorance and Reestablishing Integral Knowledge

 

Anger, Irritation, Arguing
(top)
 

Definition of Anger
What is anger? It is an incapacity. When do we become angry? Whenever we cannot accomplish, our first response is anger. If one really wants to get rid of anger, first he must understand it. Each time anger rises in him, he must watch himself. He is sure to find himself impatient, incapable and ill-informed. This is a general definition. There are exceptions. The exceptions are many.

Roots of Anger
Anger rising is rooted in lacking or depleted energy, missing information or knowledge, and surface living.

Thoughts on Anger
Anger is emotional ignorance.

Absence of understanding of the environment or oneself or both generates anger.

Anger is the vital's claim of a non-existent right.

Anger is the desire for domination by the hasty unthinking vital.  

The man who is angry about solving a problem is like the mechanic who beats his broken machine with a stick as a method of repairing it.

Unity banishes anger. One who has realised unity with the world, has nothing to be angry against. (MSS)

Anger
Among other things anger can be precipitated by frustration, fatigue, and something wanting inside consciously or unconsciously confronted.

Anger
Never show anger. Anger is an indication of an unresolved problem on your side, related directly to the matter at hand or to another matter. A clear examination of the feelings behind the anger will uncover a weakness or poor attitude, opinion, thought, or condition on your part. Once you discover it, change it for good. Watch your life thereafter take a dramatic turn for the better.

Insights into Anger
-95% or more of the time when a person is angry he will, upon close examination, found to be wrong in his perception of things at the time. This suggests that there is never a justification for anger. Therefore we must be vigilant about our anger. If it is coming on, we must immediately put on the breaks, and at a point thereafter trace down and understand our psychological limitations behind our negative expression.

-There is also another dimension to this that we have also observed. If a person is angry, it is very often the case that the inverse of what he was angry about will prove to be true. E.g. a manager is angry at a subordinate for not doing a certain work that had been delegated to her because a second worker was unable to do that work. Upon inquiry one finds that in an earlier situation the manager had been negligent in getting the second worker properly trained when the subordinate required her to do some work. Thus the boss was negligent in this earlier situation, which reflected as anger in the inverse new situation. In this way we can trace back life's underlying truths from its falsehoods!

Consequences of Anger
Anger, even an intensity of angst-ridden negative thought, attracts not only negative life response but hostile forces from within or without that can enable serious consequence.

Anger Toward the New and Reversal of Consciousness
When there is something new in an environment of unfamiliarity, people often object. It is a disturbance of habit. If there is also anger, it is indicative of something more untoward -- requiring a reversal of consciousness on their part. Sometimes that reversal comes from within, i.e. someone makes a psychological change in attitude, belief, etc. Other times it is expressed through the outer requirements of life, as was your husband's case through his cylinder changing duty. Very often it is both. Perhaps that was actually the situation for him.

Anger vs. Soft Strength
Preventing the expression of one's anger in one moment, and softly expressing a strength in another are distinctions of power worth cultivating.

Negative Life Response to Intense Emotional Negative Reaction
Whenever there is an intense emotional reaction, there is bound to be a setback of some sort immediately following it.

Untitled
Even a fairly advanced spiritual man can experience sudden outburst of anger, for the seed of physicality is entrenched deep in the inconscient and subconscience within, and in the attraction and repulsion of sensation in the physical substance of the body.

On Irritation
Thought in the descent changes irritation to joy, as irritation is the thought of impatience in the physical.  (MSS)

[I.e. mind looking down below it, i.e. into the vital and body movements can become aware of irritation (thought of impatience in the physical part of our being), and then change it, turning the experience into joy.]

Overcoming Irritation through Yogic Movements
How to be vigilant so we are not caught in the clutches of daily life, and avoid irritation? It is not so simple, requiring an integral approach. One method is constant rejection of false movements. But this is not so easy since we forget, or are not aware, or can't separate ourselves from them. We are too caught up by life. However, moving to the silent depths within makes this possible, as we are more mindful, vigilant of such movements. From that deeper poise, we are still, and can perceive and reject them as they rise. Meditation and other methods can help create that inner silence. Also, the more we consecrate, the more that inner silence builds over time. In addition, when we consecrate/offer upcoming events Mother, the better those conditions will be in the first place, reducing negative circumstance.

Inner orientation and poise (concentration), consecration, and rejection together loosen the knot of irritation and similar movements of the lower nature, the physical consciousness, including anger, fear, worry, doubt, hate, etc. It takes a lifetime of dedication to overcome millions of years of negative programming in our being. That is one of the great purposes of Yoga, which is conscious evolution.

Irritation as Revealer of Weakness
Whenever you come up against something that irritates you in the course of the day, it is an indication of a corresponding weakness in yourself. Discover the corresponding weakness inside yourself, change it, and grow.

Learn from Anger, Irritation
We know that no good comes from anger, or even irritation. Whenever we feel either of these, we must immediately learn to stop it in its tracts. It only serves to reinforce our negative emotions or negative conditions. In that way, these two indicators of our lower "physical consciousness" can be very useful. Whenever they appear, they indicate something wanting in our being, or wanting in the conditions in our lives. When they express, we can thereafter sit back and wonder what it is that they represent in ourselves or in our situation in life. Once we identify it, we can develop a plan to overcome that inner or outer deficiency. In this way, we see that even the negative serves the positive.

Inner Life that Prevents Reaction
Question:  How can we avoid reacting to the negative influences and stupidity of others?

Answer: We have many fixed habits. It is hardwired into our being. It resides in the subconscious, even in the body. When we lose touch with our consciousness, we fall back to that lower state, including that of reaction. It is primal. The purpose of Yoga is to overcome that; which takes time. The spiritual Force overcomes time and can also bring an end to all such feelings of the need to confront or scold others for their foolishness and stupidity. Yoga is a process that is long-lasting, requiring time and dedication that serves to overcome the limits of the subconscious; of the physical mind that wants to react, lash out.

Life too is unconscious, and we easily get caught up in it – whether from the social collective, the media, or certain other individuals. Negative vibrations quickly spread to us when we get absorbed in their negativity. It touches the unconscious parts of us and we react.

We are trying to overcome a million years of unconsciousness through conscious evolution, made simpler through deep spiritual knowledge. We can do it in 30, even 3 years if we are dedicated.

The more you grow, and progress, the more you see such negative. The more you are challenged not to get caught up in it. When the consciousness is settled deeply within, there is less reaction. You just smile, and quietly walk by without thought when such nervous challenges to our system arise. You become immune to stupidity. When we reach the Soul within there is always a Guide that tells us not to be caught up in this and that behavior.

It comes down to how serious we are to make the inner change that will bring about the elevation of our consciousness that will keep us fully immune from negative influences.

Yet another approach is to offer to the spiritual Force the sensitivity we have to such things. In combination with moving to the depths, we develop inner strength that is unaffected by the negative.

MSS Paper on Ange

Arguing
When two people argue, both are wrong, though perhaps each to a different degree. Whichever side you are on (and to whatever degree you are right or wrong in the argument), understand the source of frustration within yourself that precipitated the conflict -- the limiting attitude, habit, or opinion -- and then change it permanently. Your life can dramatically improve for the better from that day forward.

On Insistence
If you insist in the present, another will oppose in the future. If you withhold insistence, the other will at some point come around to your point of view.

On Eliminating Quarreling Amongst Friendly People
Often of people of low culture who like each other quarrel as a form of understanding one another better. This is the quarreling of individuals who have a vital (i.e. emotional) relationship, as opposed to the conversational interaction of people who have a mental relationship. After the quarrel, there is understanding, and then reconciliation. However, the tendency to quarrel remains.

Getting over such a relationship requires a certain patient understanding or humility or goodness to speak out and say, "Well, I was hasty. It was unpardonable on my part." This appears to be a small gesture between friends or relations, but it is significant. Once this is done, quarrel of this particular description may not arise again or at least for a longer time than usual.

To realise one's defects is introspection. To express it to the offending individual is cultured behaviour. (Paraphrase of MSS)

 

Fear, Worry, Anxiety, Doubt, Insecurity
(top)

Fear
Fear is uncertainty at the level of sensation. (MSS)

Fear
Fear is the most fundamental, i.e. physical limitation of man. Even anger denotes a slight degree of mental consciousness. Fear can arise instantaneously through unconscious sensation

Fear and Attracting It
Fear is a perversion of Will and what a person fears all the time will come to him more quickly as the fear acts like a negative desire.

Thoughts on Fear
Fear is generated more by the assessment of the external situation, than by the situation itself.

Clear understanding of the situation vanishes mental fear. More vital energy than the field one is in will not allow fear in the vital. Energy of that level, and understanding of that clarity reaching the physical consciousness help the man rise above physical fear.

Fear rises as long as one is wedded to separation. Fear goes forever when the union or unity with the Spirit is felt. Beyond that, occasions of fear are moments of exhilaration of courage.  

Fear is ultimately transformed into Love, not courage. (MSS)

Knowledge and Fear
Knowledge removes the basis of fear.

Thoughts on Fear

·         Fear is a perversion of the will. It is an active vibration opposing the will and actively destroys the creation and existence of any idea, thought or activity at the level it exists. 

·         Fear cannot exist when one has united with his soul, as fear disappears when there is no "other". 

·         Fear is more of a nervous sensation than an emotion. The vibration of fear and terror are ingrained in the nerves. The fear in the nerves stirs up the stomach and spreads down below. 

·         Fear in the mind is a fear of the understanding which makes the person faint. It spreads to the nerves and often gives shocks to the system. 

·         Physical fear is inherited from the animal life. 

·         To be human, mental or nervous fears should not be there. When physical (subconscious) fear is eliminated, Yoga is possible. 

·         A mild fear generates confusion; a great fear destroys creativity; a greater fear results in hatred or repulsion when suppressed. 

·         Fear is the one emotion that cannot be a medium to approach the Divine Consciousness. 
Absence of fear instantaneously generates constant useful activities. A fearless person cannot be dull or lazy. 

·         Whatever the mental or other capacities of a man, the presence of fear in him will definitely cancel the final success of his projects. 

·         Any perfection at any level requires the abolition of fear at that level. 

·         The available enjoyment at any moment is brought down by fear. 

·         Fear can hide itself behind over-eating, artificial emotional relationships, over-indulgence in sex, or espousing non-existent emotions or ideals. 

·         Fear attracts accidents and violence. In very strong characters, it will generate these things. 

·         Fear in the nerves and dryness of the heart go together. Fear causes one to grow thin and wiry. 

·         Love finds it impossible to enter where fear lives. 

·         Fear makes one cling to things and persons and prevents happiness or joy from being felt. 

·         Freedom is more the opposite of fear than courage. 

·         Insistence in behaviour is a sign of fear. Fear seeks possession and destroys free appreciation or enjoyment. The presence of fear is an insurance against growth. 

·         When one part of the personality grows beyond the others, the gap created generates fear, i.e. when the mind makes progress but the emotions do not make the same growth, fear is created. 

·         Fear goes with poverty and ignorance. Freedom goes with plenty. 

·         One man with fear in an organisation can prevent the organisation from prospering since fear is a vibration that would dissolve creation. 

·         Between two fear-ridden people, the relationship will be destructive and happiness will be nil. The way of relating will either be through clinging to each other or great distrust and tension. 

·         The primitive man's courage before animals and weather is physical courage. The politician has vital courage. 

·         To conceive that the earth goes round the sun requires mental courage. Unless the mind is full of courage, it will give way when ideas that are not prevalent in the present society enter it. 

·         The Spirit itself is full of courage and freedom. Oneness felt as a result of union with our inner Self abolishes all fear. 

·         Knowledge removes the basis of fear.  (MSS)

 

Fear and the Subconscient
The subconscient is an unconscious and unevolved part of our inner being; a kind of vestige of our primitive heritage. For example, a good deal of the fear we experience in life wells up from this realm.

The subconscient has this overall negative nature because it has built in memory of millennia of human suffering, disease, and death. It sends up pessimistic, negative, fear-laden messages intent on overcoming the positives that occur on the surface. Its message is that anything positive on the surface is but a temporary distraction and waste of time because we will all end in disease, death, and destruction.

Fear and the Physical Vital Plane
Beyond the physical/body plane is the Vital plane. It is a substance of subtler substance and higher consciousness than the raw material substance and aspects of the physical plane. Its first subplane is the Physical Vital in the form of sensations of the nerves as urge, desire, and fear.

The physical part of the vital plane is (physical vital) where we experience the vital sensation of the nerves, the central nervous system, where we experience urge, desire, and fear.

Fear and Illness
There is no greater support for physical health than having a positive attitude.  Elimination of fear, doubt, anxiety, depression, and restlessness can really help one's health. 

The fear of an illness increases its intensity.  One is weak when fear of infection grips him. His body falls ill, catching the infection more out of its vital fear than as a process of infection.

Evolution from Fear to Courage to Love
-Fear when fully transformed becomes courage.

-The source of courage is Love.

-Fear undergoes changes as follows. Fear that possesses > Fear that is frightening > Fear that neither possesses nor frightens > Less of fear > absence of fear > fearlessness > courage > physical, vital, mental, spiritual courage > Love. (MSS)

On Worrying
-We waste so much of our lives worrying. How to turn worry into right thought, feeling, and action is a key inner skill in life.

-When we rise in consciousness, we become much more aware of our tendency to worry. This is a first step to eliminating it.

Worry Energies a Problem
Man worries so much about an ordinary problem of his that it is energised by his intense attention and possesses him as an octopus. It is the same with diseases.

Negative Life Response to Unclarity of Self-Conception, Self-Limitation
When you are not too clear about what you want to accomplish, and you set out on an act to achieve it, watch how life responds negatively with confusion or other forms of unsuccess. From this we see the need for self-conception, i.e. to conceive of what we wish to accomplish in the first place, and self-limitation, i.e. a mental gathering of ourselves from a wider to a specific narrower focus, mimicking the Creator who followed parallel processes in manifesting this universe.

Live Each Day Without Anxiety
Let us live each day without anxiety. Why worry beforehand about something that will probably never happen? (The Mother)

Thoughts on Doubt
Doubts arise out of ignorance. They can be cleared by giving knowledge. Irrationality raises doubts based on wishful thinking. They remain unanswered by knowledge. Life presents them answers as pain.

Doubt arises from the physicality that surfaces. Total absence of doubt shows the dynamism of physicality is no longer there, as in our walking we never doubt the earth on which we place our foot. The earth is there, but not with any dynamic presence in our waking consciousness.  (MSS)

Security without Truth
Seeking physical security alone without getting at its true cause enables greater insecurity.

 

Habituality, Fixidity, Rigidity
(top)

Our Habitual Nature
Our habitual nature weighs on us; prevents us from moving forward.

Instincts of Material Existence
-The predominant instincts of material existence are self-preservation, self-repetition, and self-multiplication.
-The bodily life wants to persist, not progress, repeat not enlarge. (Paraphrase of Sri Aurobindo)

Our Habitual Nature
Our habitual nature causes us to be fixed, rigid, unwilling to change. It is marked by its desire to continue as is, to repeat, and not want to move in another direction. It shuns possibilities and opportunities. It is an aspect of our physical consciousness, inherited from the inertia and inconscient of matter via our physical bodies.

The Physical Consciousness that is a Thing of Habit
The physical [consciousness, plane, aspect represented in us as our physical bodies] is normally obscure, inert, impervious to the Light. It is a thing of habits, very largely a slave of the subconscient and its mechanical reactions. (Sri Aurobindo)

---

Breaking the Habit

It is said that we are creatures of habit -- i.e. we like to persist in doing that which is routine and familiar, rather than what is different, fresh, and new. Sri Aurobindo tells us that this is due to our material, body consciousness, which tends to remain the same, rather than progress: to repeat the same things, rather than take fresh, new initiative.

And yet we can learn to be more open to change in our moment-to-moment lives. In any given circumstance, we can become aware of our fixidity, our reluctance, our unchanging habit, and instead take a fresh, new tact. And when we break that routine and pattern, not only do we experience the joy of a fresh moment, but we open the portals of possibility, enabling sudden good fortune to come our way. Let me illustrate with a recent experience.

For several years, I have been self-publishing my books through Lulu Press, a wonderful online system that is an alternative to traditional book production. An author goes to their website, supplies the manuscript file, selects a look for the covers, and Lulu produces a book template available to the public. The consumer can then purchase a volume to order, 1 or 100, and have it shipped within a few days. It is a major revolution in the book-publishing field.

For several years, I have had little problems using the service. I would simply follow the steps and voila! new iterations of my books would be made available to the public. Recently, however, I have been trying to publish a new book, ‘Higher Consciousness, Infinite Success’, a compendium of the dozen or so major articles I have written at the Growth Online site, and have run into several problems. The main one is that when I send my Microsoft Word file to the site, the Lulu wizard would not accept it. I figured that it might be an error in their system, or that there is too much traffic at their site, or some other factor. For a month, I struggled to get a version of the file uploaded to Lulu so I could complete the book publishing cycle. Recently I simply resigned myself to the plight, hoping it would self-correct down the line.

Then I recalled that several associates of mine were using the Mozilla Firefox web browser instead of Microsoft’s Internet Explorer. It was something I had never tried before, nor did I see a reason to. I sometimes even wondered why my friends were using it. I heard it was a little faster, but that did not seem enough to take me away from Internet Explorer. In any case, one morning, frustrated with my lack of success in uploading my latest book, and not having gotten a credible response from Lulu, I decided to download the Firefox browser.

When I loaded it up, it did indeed seem to be somewhat faster, though that still seemed only a relatively minor benefit for continuing with its use. Then I went to the Lulu site and tried uploading my manuscript through Firefox instead of the normal Internet Explorer. A moment later, I was shocked to see that not only did my manuscript file take the first time around, but I was able to get through all the publishing steps in record time! Later in the week, I made further changes to the manuscript, and was very quickly able to create a revision at Lulu. For me, it was a marvel to behold, as weeks if not months of frustration had now suddenly ended.

Even as I was having the experience, I saw the great life response benefit of embracing change in the details of life: of taking a different path, rather than following old habits and routines. When we perform an act in a fresh, new way, rather than in the tired old way, life immediately opens before us. When we get off the dime, and move away from our physical consciousness that is fixed and wants to repeat, we open the portals of possibility. It was another wonderful reminder that every moment we are offered the opportunity to break old habits and quickly attract the infinite to our doorstep.

Creatures of Habit
A creature is normally associated with a living thing, usually a life form below ours. That creature wakes, hunts for food, procreates, tends to its young, builds shelter, and sleeps. It is a creature of habit. It lives in predictable rounds of duty and task, while allowing variation within its patterns. We inherit that same capacity. It is what enables us to live secure lives. It is also that which makes us rigid, fixed, unable to easily adapt to change. What is the source of this reality?

We each have three or perhaps four essential parts of our being. We have a physical body, we have an emotional center, a mentality, and a spiritual capacity. Physical, vital, mental, spiritual. There are of course shades in between. E.g. between the emotional and the mental is the psychological. Let us for the moment focus on the physical.

Outwardly, the universe essentially consists of material forms. Planets, rocks, oceans, plants, animal, and we are physical forms. We are also more than physical forms. However, our body is physical, a formation of matter that houses our outer being. Matter in its most material form is mostly inert on the surface. Though it vibrates within, on the surface it is fixed, settled, inert, tends not to move. When the vital being emerged from the physical body in the lower life forms, the fixed, inert influence of matter carried over. When mentality emerged from the animus of life in the higher creatures, it too inherited the fixed, unmoving, inert nature of matter. It shows itself in various parts of our psychological makeup, in our character.

When an opportunity comes our way, and we look elsewhere, it is the insert, unresponsive, fixed influence of matter (as represented by our physical bodies) that is "responding."  When we are asked to do a task other than we are used to, and we complain, it is the influence of our material being, which only wants to repeat what it has done before. The planets dutifully circle the sun, the herd of cows participate in their daily activities with little variation, the human is comfortable doing what he has always done before. The habitual nature resists doing something that is not routine, that is out of the ordinary. It resists, complains, is reluctant to embrace change. It is, in essence, the material consciousness of our being, born of matter, embedded in our physical bodies that resists the new realities of life. It leads to reluctance, unwillingness to embrace new truths, unwilling to take on new tasks, unwilling to embrace new opportunities; willing to put off, procrastinate, reject, be insensitive to and ignore the progressive unfoldings of life. Which makes us in the truest sense Creatures of Habit.

Is there a way out of this conundrum? If we observe ourselves, we will see when we are expressing our habitual nature. We can then catch ourselves and reverse it. If my boss asks me to work weekends, I inwardly refuse, catch myself before expressing myself, and then tell him that I agree, then I have made a decisive change and negated the habitual nature. Moreover, life is bound to respond soon thereafter with instances of sudden good fortune. One man did this very thing, and when he arrived at work, instantly produced the greatest sale of his life. In this way, we see that our mental capacities and awareness can overcome the rule that the habitual nature has over us.

We can go even further, however. When we live our lives from a poise of deeper consciousness within, away from the surface bubblings and influences of life, we are more capable of observing our negative tendencies, including our habitual nature. We become aware of life around us in its fullness, perceive the variations and possibilities, and from there are far more willing to shift and embrace the exigencies of life. At such points, we outgrow the material consciousness inherited from matter that drags on us, that keeps us in our place, that does not want to move or change. Gradually we break the shackles of the material consciousness, allowing our rational mental and spiritual capacities to become the leaders of our lives. Then we emerge into a new existence, a new way of living, beyond the limits of our habitual nature.

The Wandering People of Habit
A people wondered in the desert, lost, yet content with their habits of life. One day a stranger appeared before them, pointing to a distant hill, suggesting that there was a way out of their conundrum, to a green and happy land beyond. Weary, yet self-satisfied, the people smiled at the stranger, and continued on in their aimless journey across the barren land. You and I are that people.

Cause of Fixed Repeating Habit
The mind enjoys the predictability and cyclical unfoldings of life, even as it enjoys its own fixed, repeating habits. Perhaps we can say that in creation the one has become embedded in the other.

Utilizing Spirit to Gain the Power of Will Over Bad Habits
The keys to changing a bad habit are (1) a sincere desire to change the habit, (2) a knowledge of the reasons that the habit is wrong, (3) and a persistent will and drive to actually make the change. Without the desire nothing will occur. Gaining the knowledge is relatively easy, as it becomes obvious to any practical person in life. The will and effort to make the actual change may be the hardest part since many are weak willed.

Perhaps the best way, method to enable the change is the utilization of Spirit. Invocation of the Spirit will be found to reinforce the desire to change. Patience and persistence, regardless of the extent of the result, will result in tangible results over time. Those results will be full and will never be lost. The Spirit can also be invoked to have instantaneous results. Still when it is possible this way, it is desirable to go along the path of slowly and steadily enlisting the consenting will. Will enlightened is will conquered. Invocation of the Spirit will raise the mental will to the Spiritual WILL. (Paraphrase of MSS)

Overcoming Habits, Acting from Knowledge, that Avoids Illness
The body acts from habits, making for rigidity. He who acts from knowledge, finds his body more supple. To raise the level of the act and to act form the rules of the spirit, the body becomes so flexible that diseases find it hard to lodge in the body. (MSS)

Another Road Taken at Fort Mason
Have you ever considered the extraordinary power of changing or discarding a routine or habit of yours? When we perceive something we have been doing repeatedly in the past, envision a new or different way of doing it, and then willfully carry it out, life tends to suddenly cooperate with our efforts, producing results that can border on the miraculous.

One day not too long ago, I decided to break one such routine. On this occasion, I decided not to walk through a large hilly park that overlooks San Francisco bay, which would have deposited me in the touristy Fisherman's Wharf area. Instead of climbing through that elevated park with its lovely view of the Golden Gate, I decided to explore the three long piers known collectively as the Fort Mason Center. These edifices, left over from Civil War days, are now divided into dozens of sections -- including headquarters for renowned dancing and theater troupes, offices for environmental and global movements,  various California cuisine restaurants, and other interesting and unusual facilities. It has become a kind of mecca for the cutting edge, and the sometimes far out.

The first place I stopped at Fort Mason Center was a store that was dedicated to presenting the concept of time -- in particular, to showcasing a number of magnificent, unusually large timepieces. For example, prominently displayed was a 10-foot computerized clock that was created to be accurate for up 10,000 years. It, like others on display, consisted of an astonishing array of gears and other moving parts.

At the time, I was the only one in the center, aside from the host. As I walked around the facility, I could hear soft, ethereal-like music playing in the background, which added to the already mystical atmosphere of the museum. Other than presenting these marvelous futuristic devices, the intent of the facility (longnow.org) was to capture the feeling of time itself -- or perhaps the timelessness of time. In fact, throughout the facility were posted a number of elaborate statements describing the nature of time -- including how we interact with it, what it really is, and others. There were also a number of books prominently displayed for sale on the subject. The entire experience was not only fascinating and thought provoking, but haunting and serene.

When I left the center, the guide asked me if I had any questions. However, finding myself in trancelike state, I could barely answer. As I exited the facility, I felt myself moving from the timeless like quality of that place back into time - i.e. into ordinary life. I then looked around to get my bearings, and continued on my walk. Not a minute later, I came upon San Francisco's most famous and venerable New Age restaurant, Greens. Now over 25 years old, it is recognized as the home of the vegetarian movement in America, and one of the pioneer restaurants in the use of locally grown produce in the preparation of its meals. This very large restaurant has a spectacular view of the Golden Gate and environs, and is one of the main gathering places for the intelligentsia of San Francisco and Silicon Valley.

When I walked into the facility to see how things had changed, I saw that it pretty much looked the same; except it was a bit more modern, and the people were younger. As I contemplated entering the enormous main dining area, a man standing a few steps above me suddenly interrupted and called down in my direction. "Excuse me sir," he said to me, "do you have the time?"

Indeed, I was bowled over by the question, when you consider considering where I had just been! I then quickly responded that it was 2pm. Then I looked at my watch once more and called out that it was actually five minutes to 2. (I guess I felt compelled to be accurate since I had just been in a place dedicated to the specificity of time!) Shaking my head and smiling at this extraordinary little response from life, I then headed out of the restaurant. As I looked around, I could still feel that sense of timelessness and peace enveloping me.

Now in the bright light of the day, I noticed that I could walk completely around the 300-meter pier, which would in effect deposit me at the bay's edge. And so I did just that, discovering one of the most spectacular views I had ever seen in this city of many such views. Also, I noticed that the weather was somewhat unusual, as it was overcast directly above me, yet the entire bay - with its shimmering hills and mountains in the distance -- was crystal-like, bathed in brilliant sunshine. The contrast was at once breathtaking and surreal, which was for me yet another response on this startling little "road not taken" adventure. As I stood there all alone at the end of the pier with its magnificent view, I felt the wonder and magic of life compressed into a single moment.

After that stirring, almost cosmic-like experience, I headed back inland to explore the other two piers. In fact, I was really looking for a special place that I believed was located somewhere in the third. A moment later, I then came upon the bookstore that I was looking for: one that I had visited once before nearly a decade earlier.

When I looked around the large facility, it looked at once familiar, yet somehow different. As I am want to do, I then immediately headed over to peruse the books on spirituality and religion. This time however, after rummaging though the shelves, I found nothing that caught my fancy. Slightly disappointed, and without much energy to peruse the plethora of other bookshelves, I decided to leave the facility. However, just before I exited the front door, I noticed a section of books prominently displayed that were marked down to half price. Immediately, I found an interesting book that I thought a friend of mine would enjoy. Then something very special happened. I found a book on the subject of how to write spiritual books, and, in particular, how to submit them to literary agents. In fact, the book contained a listing of a number of agents -- with explicit, detailed information about each. I found this utterly astounding because in the last several weeks I had been constantly thinking about how to find an agent and publishing house for my new book! Now in one fell swoop, all my prayers were answered! In fact, as I walked out of the store, it occurred to me that this book could turn out to be the most important discovery of my life!

Like shifting away from a negative attitude, changing or overcoming a habit tends to attract instances of sudden good fortune. When I decided to get out of my dull walking routine and try something different, I was set on a journey that unfolded like a dream -- with unexpected occurrences, mystical like experiences, and infinite-like results.

Likewise, each of us can identify one or more dead or dull routines in our own lives, and experience that same sort of magic. If we come upon a habit or ritual that has no life behind it, and then try to do it differently, life will suddenly open up before us. What was once limited and finite will suddenly blossom. What was dull and unexciting will instantly energize. In that way, our fixed, dull habits and routines will begin to give way, attracting not only startling positive life response results, but in that process bring us moments of great happiness and joy.

That is precisely what happened to me on that mystical-like, sun-dappled afternoon at the shoreline of Fort Mason!

Thoughts on the Nature of the (Limiting) Physical Consciousness and Habit

MSS Article on Habits

 

Closed Mindedness
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A Closed Mind, Limitations of Mind to the Value of Information
-A closed mind refuses to benefit by the known information. A cloistered life is impervious to comforts open to all. In these days that can very well be described as modern, five of a family lost sight because they had no idea that cataracts could be cured by a simple operation.

Their belief in karma made them hide their shame. This is an age of information. To know how much the concerned people miss because of ignorance created by circumstances is amazing. Information is of value.

-One is unable to know essential information because when the mind travels on one line, it loses the habit of seeing around. It is common knowledge that what one system of medicine fails to cure, another system cures. The mind used to one system is incapable of thinking of another system. For most of our affairs, we go by what we know and do not seek professional help.

-The advent of the web and Internet has widened the scope of information infinitely. Still, the use [to discover necessary information in life] is only minimal. (MSS)

Opinions and Closedmindedness
To understand the reality of an open mind, it will be helpful to know in real terms what a closed mind is. It is best understood by knowing the process of opinion formation. The Mother says opinions look like needles in the subtle plane. Obviously opinion is ours, not necessarily the fact of the situation. There is a report about a theft. It comes to us. As we hear of it, our past experience receives the facts - assuming they are correct facts - and arrives at a conclusion. That becomes our opinion. Our opinion of an event reported to us is our version of it in the light of past experience, valid to us only. To know the facts of the situation, one needs to shed that opinion. He who desires an open mind must be able to prevent opinion formation. He who forms an opinion prejudges the event. It becomes a prejudice. To insist on that prejudice is to have a closed mind. (MSS)

On Open-mindedness
The concept of open mind as against closed mind as a mental attitude is what we know well. It is to discount our personal opinion and be eager to know from another. (MSS)

On a Closed Mind
Mind seeing only one side is a closed mind. Seeing both sides, it becomes an open mind. (MSS)

Mind's Prejudice
Mind, in approaching an issue, understands its own prejudices about that issue, not the issue at all. (MSS)

Untitled
We do feel that we know the final truth of things when we act. An open mind does not exist. (MSS)

Opening the Locked Box
Each of us have perhaps half a dozen cherished beliefs we subscribe it. It can be about life overall, or in a given field like economics. One well known financial expert who has a syndicated radio show believed in low interest rates by the Federal Reserve, the anathema of taxes, and safe, incremental investment. Some seemed true, others decidedly not so. We each then advocate those views unchanged throughout our lives. In essence, we take those half dozen positions, opinions, and put them in a box that we then lock tightly. We then subscribe to none others. As a result, our thoughts, opinions, and attitudes are fixed and false. In addition, we never venture to open the box and consider their veracity - i.e. by excluding the wanting ones, or adding new ones of truth.

The truly Rational Man however operates much differently. Logic dictates that he continually examines his positions and points of view. He continually opens that box and lets in the light of day; or rather the light of truth. He does not keep that box shut for a lifetime, as every one of us do, refusing to absorb new knowledge and insight.

By considering its contents, that man fulfills his life's obligation to grow as an individual -- giving his soul nourishment in its evolutionary ascent. When we keep the box locked, we waste the precious life that has been given us. On the outside, we live lives of error, falsehoods, and evil. Inside the box, truth calls out for its release, yearning for the Light.

Knowing Mind's Closedmindedness is an Open Mind
To know that one's mind is closed -- all minds are closed -- is the sign of an open mind. To be able to see how it got closed and how it now remains closed is certainly a mental perception humanity does not have now. (MSS)

Open-mindedness
When ego is shed, mind becomes open-minded.  Open-mindedness is purity of mind. (MSS)

Close-Mindedness
Lack of openness is a closed mind.

Example of a Closed Mind
The affluent intellectual looks down on prayers for wedding, jobs and promotion, little realising that his own mind is cast in the same mould. He is closed by a derisive attitude. By realising that he too is like that, his closed mind will open. (MSS)

Punishment to the Closed Mind through the Physical
A closed mind opens in the body and invites the enemy to teach through punishment. (MSS)

Untitled
Man worships at the shrine of his own Ignorance.

An Open vs. a Rational Mind
An open mind is good. A rational mind is great. (MSS)

Also See Ignorance in the Individual Human

 

Not Listening to Others

On Not Accepting the Good Advise of Others
-Man does not listen to the good advise of others. He only absorbs the truth when he discovers it on his own, which means delay -- assuming he ever comes upon it in the first place.

-From a deeper consciousness one is always vigilant of the truth, especially if it comes from others, as one is in  perpetual state of harmony with them.

-Obstruction or obliviousness to the helpful advice of others, is but another example of human ignorance. By moving to a deeper consciousness, one overcomes it -- creating an opening for right action and greater success in life.

 

Reluctance
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Click Here to See Entries

 

Being Critical, Judgmental
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Avoid Pointing to Another's Weakness
Avoid actively pointing out someone else's weakness. Instead, if it should happen, let them come to you for discussion or advice, and perhaps they will reveal their weakness to you.

Untitled
The human individual is quick to judge, and slow to learn.

On Being Criticized, Offended
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On Taking Criticism Well by Living Within
So often we are tense and defensive; the smallest criticism from someone and we either attack or defend. In either case, we lose control of ourselves. We must realize how we are failing to live from our true nature, from our truer self within; and that we are acting and reacting from an acquired identity, from a false sense of self. If we wish to avoid such confrontations, we can choose to live in the depths of our being, where we see criticism as a positive outer extension of a truth we are now coming in contact with.
(Paraphrase and extension of The Daily Guru)

On Being Offended
If you are easily offended, you can be sure that you are living on the surface of life, where your ego is engaged. Living in the depths of our being, no offense is taken, because there you perceive that there is some truth in the offender's words or actions.

Fantasy of Virtues
"A sure sign of living in fantasy is to imagine that one possesses a vast quantity of unappreciated virtues." (THE DAILY GURU)

 

Lack of Self-Esteem
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Untitled
No one should ever feel bad if Self-Observation reveals that he or she is presently on a lower level. On the contrary, we should be glad, for only this discovery makes upliftment possible. (The Daily Guru)

 

Overeagerness, Impatience, Expectation, Excitement
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Overeagerness, Impatience, Expectation, Excitement
Overeagerness, impatience, expectation, excitement are all movements of the lower vital part of our being, and can only spell trouble. Moving to the opposite in each case tends to attract positive conditions. From a deeper poise of consciousness that is more readily made possible.

Excitement, Overeagerness, Impatience to Communicate a Positive Development
-Until a positive development fully comes about, it is best not to discuss or too excited about it, otherwise it will get cancelled.

-Expectation and impatience delays a positive development, if not cancels it.

Withhold speaking of a Developing Possibility
To insure the outcome of something positive that is in the process of coming to being, withhold speaking of it until it is accomplished.

The Reversal of Premature Joy
A premature joy of a new accomplishment or fortune can evokes a hostile reaction that deprives one not only of what may have been coming, but of what one already had. (Paraphrase MSS)

 

Expectation

Expectation Postpones Results
Consciousness is power. The time taken for accomplishment depends on the strength of our aspiration and the intensity with which we apply it. Sometimes we confuse aspiration with wishful thinking. Wishful thinking is a dream of achieving something without the intense will to achieve it. It is passive and satisfied, a pleasant thought. Aspiration is active and intense, a determined will.

Aspiration is also confused with expectation. Both express a will for accomplishment, one strong and the other weak. When we aspire, we send forth energy to bring a result. When we expect, we wait for something to come. Aspiration is active. Expectation is passive. In aspiration, we feel we can determine the results by the intensity of our will. In expectation, we depend on others or circumstances to accomplish for us. The more intense our aspiration, the faster and greater the result that comes. Whereas expectation can have the opposite result. It has the power to postpone the result until we stop consciously looking for it to appear. (MSS)

The Limits of Expectation
Man hopes and expects, translates his expectation into reality. It most fails when it most promises, says the greatest poet. The Reality of the situation can be assessed by the Mind, not the nerves - the vital.

People who accomplish act from the Mind and not from their nerves or from the imagined reality of intense expectation. (MSS)

Also See Thoughts on Anticipating, Expecting

 

Impatience

Impatience
Impatience is to react to circumstance with the vital demand in front rather than the calm and quietude behind.

Impatience Delays, Cancels Opportunity
Impatience delays, or even cancels an opportunity.

On Impatience
Impatience hurries because it can hardly wait.

Impatience emerges as reaction.

Impatience is the sensation of the moment viewing eternity.  

Impatience is nervous energy in excess unorganised into mental values. (MSS)

Patience, Impatience and Life Response
-If you give to much attention to an illness it becomes worse. Likewise, if you are too attentive to something you want to come about (i.e. impatient), it causes it to move away from you. However, if you turn impatience into patience, stillness, and calm, positive things in that or other areas will begin to move towards you.

-When you act impatiently, negative things can occur during or at the end of that act. When you turn impatience into patience in that act, you see that at the end, you receive the best outcome; the one that was "meant to be."

Patience and Life Response
Patience makes life respond positively on the outside. Impatience retards response, even brings negative response.

See Thoughts on Patience

 

Desire
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Expressions of the Lower Vital Nature
When we are bound in our lower physical and vital nature, we will tend towards overeagerness, impatience, expectation, desire, attachment, possessiveness, etc. Moving to a deeper consciousness moves us away from that desire soul to the right balance in living.

Desire and Memory
Desire is the emotion's need for a thing in the future, which binds one to time. Mind does something similar when it languishes in memory, and binds itself to the past. The goal, on the other hand, is the realization of timelessness in the ever-present.

Unfulfilled Desire
Buddha concluded that all suffering in the world was due to unfulfilled desire.

Untitled
If we have concealed hopes and demands, we will have disappointments. If we have no unconscious wishes, disappointment is impossible. (The Daily Guru)

Conquering Desire and Joy
The joy that comes from conquering desire can be greater than the joy that comes from satisfying it.

 

See Thoughts on Desire in the Vital Makeup of the Individual

 

Possessiveness, Attachment
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The Nature of, Examples of Possessiveness

Possessiveness
Seeking to own, control, have exclusively, manipulate, and dominate is possessiveness. It is a primal urge born of our physical consciousness. It is one expression of the ego.

Forms of Possessiveness
One can be possessive of women, money, property, inventions, technologies, the market, and many other things.

Second Status of Life
Sri Aurobindo says that the second status that the forms of life undergo to break the bounds of one's self toward interaction with others; a compulsion of Nature to begin to fuse ourselves with others. There is death, mutual devouring, desire, and the need to expand, conquer, and possess. This is a movement to the vital proper, away from the physical.

Possessiveness of the Physical
The physical man demands obedience from another for the simple satisfaction of physical domination. This comes from the possessiveness of the physical. Possessiveness of the physical is different from the ego of the physical. The physical by its own tight cohesiveness feels satisfied with another object only when it is part of its cohesion. This is possessiveness that is part of the nature of the plane.

Possessiveness and the Physical Consciousness
One important characteristic of the physical is possessiveness. (MSS)

Untitled
What you try to possess, possesses you. (MSS)

Breaking Out of Desire to Possess Money, Woman, etc.
Desire to possess is one obvious expression of the ego, seen clearly in money, acutely in the vital possessiveness of the wife. Capacity to withdraw from it, to transform it into one of duty, is the surest sign of ego giving way. (MSS)

Man's Possessiveness of Woman
Man exercises possessiveness on his woman fully.

Money Possessiveness
Possessiveness of Money enjoyed keeps one physical as well as vital. (MSS) [a more mental view of money will overcome possessiveness, since mentality is far less possessive than the physical (especially) and the vital.]

America's Evolution from Physical Consciousness to Vital Individuality
America has evolved individuality at the physical level based on freedom from social constraints giving rise to all the dynamism and limitations of the physical (E.g. physical self-reliance goes hand in hand with extreme physical possessiveness and selfishness. How can one who has been asked to take care of himself think about giving to other?) America will progress by evolving to vital individuality. (MSS)

Property, Possessiveness, and Ego
Property is the possessiveness of the ego. (MSS)

Slavery and Possessiveness
America's  Civil War was to overcome the physical passion for property and the ownership of slaves, an extreme form of physical possessiveness. (MSS)

Thoughts on Possessiveness
-The preservation of the form is the possessiveness of ego.

-Possessiveness loves to be known as possessing.

-Possessiveness possesses. Man exercises this on his woman fully. As education and urbanisation advance, he acquiesces in her coming out. At the level of soul, a complete interchange of forces is called for.

-Possessiveness is in proportion to the intensity of enjoyment. Sex became a taboo thus.

-The illimitable Ananda which no individual can make a personal possession is turned into pain by the ego's possessive JOY. Possessive joy possesses Pain. (MSS, randomly extracted)

 

Breaking Out of Possessiveness

Non-possessiveness
The opposite of possessiveness is to give freely, to share, to allow the expansiveness of another thing/object, to be trusting, generous, hands off, etc.

Breaking out of the Ego of Possessiveness
Man needs to outgrow his selfishness, his ego, his limitation, his possessiveness and break into selflessness, non-ego, wideness, and allow himself to be possessed by the universal. The Internet does it by making things cheap, sometimes free. It does it through money. (MSS)

Outgrowing Possessiveness of the Physical Man
The physical vital man is possessive. He grows by taking. At the plane of Mind, growth demands giving. In Spirit, all growth is only by giving. Surely for a possessive physical man, this presents a difficulty. Even after giving up property, the mind refuses to give up its possessiveness. It is felt more in possessing a woman or man as wife or husband. Unless the society overcomes it, the individual is unable to do so. (MSS)

Evolution and End of Possessiveness
To further evolution Man acquires revolutionary attitudes that destroy totally his primary sense of possessiveness in the physical plane. (MSS)

Overcoming the Possessiveness of the Collective
To extend it even a little, the physical of the collectivity had to give up its possessiveness and recognise the reality of others' existence. Selfishness relents, cracks show up.  (MSS

From Physical Possessiveness to Mentality
Our physical possessiveness keeps us where we are; whereas being centered in our mental consciousness we do not have this vibration of possessiveness. If we grow in this way up the vertical scale of consciousness, we can avail of the emerging opportunities, leading to a vast enjoyment, which still requires at every stage a renewed aspiration. (MSS, paraphrased)

Breaking Out of Desire to Possess
Desire to possess is one obvious expression of the ego, seen clearly in money, acutely in the vital possessiveness of the wife. Capacity to withdraw from it, to transform it into one of duty, is the surest sign of ego giving way. (MSS)

Ceasing to Possess and Freedom
Man becomes free only when he ceases to possess. (MSS)

Giving Up Possessiveness
By giving up the possessiveness of the little you have, you can enjoy the all. (MSS)

Mind is Beyond Possessiveness
Mind does not have the vibration of possessiveness. Its possessiveness ends with memory. (MSS)

Non-Possessiveness of Spirit
-As we do not try to possess God, if we do not try to possess people, we become God.

-Human life is marked by possession. Mother's life is characteristic for being possessed by the Beloved.

-Man acquires to give up. Possession and possessiveness are to be possessed. Retain the essence, give up the possession. Brahman comes in the shape of property, capacity. (MSS, various, extracted)

Effectivity of Non-possessiveness of the Internet
The present attempt is to outgrow the mental ego and its possessiveness are being achieved by the fact that information given out is not lost for the giver and by the practice of the Internet that Grows by giving. The Internet has discovered that by giving its services free, it earns more. (MSS)

On Effectivity of Power and Possessiveness

·         Alexander won a large kingdom and possessed it.

·         Churchill saved the world and lost even local power.

·         Gandhi won world fame without even trying to possess power in India.

·         The higher one ascends, the wider is the field.

·         As it widens, the possessiveness becomes weak, as the less possessive one is, the wider is his power. (MSS)

Possessiveness to Collective Enjoyment
There is an evolutionary movement from selfish individual possessiveness to selfless collective enjoyment. (Paraphrase of MSS)

 

Attachment

Non-Attachment to One's Kin for One Who Helps Others
He who discovers the joy of making others flower cannot be attached to his own kith and kin. (MSS)

Thoughts on Attachment
-Inability to give up a relationship till the other betrays is the nature of vital attachment.

-The physical attachment can never give up, but will never tolerate, will even tease to death.  

-Attachment gains in intensity by the excess of energy exchanged.  

-Vital attachment, among other things, expresses lack of mental clarity about relationships.

-Subconscious attachment to the parents is due to the fact that we are a physical part of them. (MSS, random)

 

Jealousy
(top)

Behavior of Certain Type of Jealous Person
One type of people are those who constantly compare themselves with everyone. To them, everyone in the world is a rival. There are people who are consumed with a passion of jealousy.

Such people, if they are weak, are constantly irritated, develop ulcer and earn the name "cross-grained". If they are strong, they SHOUT, giving out their excess energy in a passionate jealous cry. What provokes them is the success of others. It may be a brother who wins a medal or a daughter who is universally charming. Any popular colleague is their enemy. They fly into a rage. If they are working in an organisation, they will claim ownership to anything and everything. They are shameless wretches. They are not ashamed of their own behaviour. (MSS)

Examples of Jealousy
-The jealousy of Danglars, Caderousse and Fernand in 'The Count of Monte Cristo'
-Salieri's jealousy of Mozart's skill in the film 'Amadeus'
-The jealousy of Duryodhana in the 'Mahabharata'
-The jealousy of Rhett to Scarlett's infatuation with Ashley in 'Gone with the Wind'
-Caroline Bingley's jealousy of Eliza in 'Pride and Prejudice'

Jealousy in 'The Count of Monte Cristo'
-Danglars, Caderousse and Fernand are overtly and explicitly jealous of Dantes and resentful of his happiness and prosperity. 

-Caderousse 's Jealousy -- Although Caderousse tries to dissuade Danglars and Fernand from their plot against Dantes, in fact he is the one who brings them together and feels an intense jealousy because Dantes is rising in life. His inner feeling is as evil as theirs, though his outer action is apparently positive. Caderousse loses his first wife and he ends up marrying a devil as Villefort does.

-Dangler's 's Jealousy -- Danglars was smarting under the wound of having been overlooked. Dantes was not aware of it nor was it possible for him to conceive that someone could be jealous of him.

-With his wealth and power Dantes [The Count] not only brings down the jealous few men who falsely accused him, but connects them to an entire level of corrupt officials in French society, whom he unmasks before the nation. (MSS)

Negative Culture for Spiritual Aspirants
Coming to the psychological field, the work is far more difficult and self-mastery cannot be fully achieved without progress in consciousness. But a certain minimum culture is expected from all who come to the Divine Mother. The worst of these are -- anger towards the Divine, jealousy of others, lying, conscious wish (not expressed in action) to stop or destroy work, intentional provocation of trouble, refusal to cooperate. (MSS)

Lying and Jealousy
Lying out of jealousy or spite.

Scarlett in 'Gone with the Wind' was Jealous of Her Child
Rhett made money in the blockade. He was not received anywhere. After the child was born, he won them all over so that his child would not be ostracized. That money will not give this child a glorious life. He was a strong man in the extreme. His money was made out of courageous risk. Had he been not so strong, having shifted to the other side he would have lost his money. The weakest link in his chain of life was the child, as her mother never wanted her, and she was jealous of the child. Atlanta switched over to him for the sake of the child but regretted it. Life did not give the sanction to that child.

The Negative Nature of the Social Consciousness
The social consciousness is by nature jealous, spiteful and vengeful. It normally exerts itself only to find fault with others. It is resentful of anyone who is too far above its own rank and out of reach and of anyone who succeeds in rising too fast or too high.

Caroline Bingley in 'Pride and Prejudice'
Caroline is an attractive, unmarried woman with a very handsome 20,000 inheritance from her father. Being both very conscious and anxious to forget that their money was earned in trade, she aspires to the higher levels of aristocracy through marriage to Darcy and looks down upon those still associated with business! Her behavior, as well as that of her married sister Louisa, is arrogant, offensive, mean, jealous, cunning and false. She has money and position but no formed character.

Depression
(top)

On Depression
Many in life are overcome by depression. Using medicines to overcome it may work for awhile, only to return in greater measure at a future time. From the spiritual point of view it is not depression that possesses us; but it is we who possess it. One's determination to get rid of it, especially if accompanied by inner movements to our Truer Self and opening to the Force which heals and transforms, leaves no scope for the depression to remain. (Paraphrase of MSS)

Confusion
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On Dealing with Confusion
When confused about the best course for your life, do not battle that confusion. Make no attempt to clear your mind by making impulsive choices or by seeking allies for the battle. That is like fighting fog with your fists. Nothing good can happen... When remaining quiet, still, not battling, the disorder disappears. Why? Because confusion comes from habitual and mechanical thinking. When mechanical thought stops it can no longer create confusion. In that quiet space is clarity." (The Daily Guru)

Overcoming Confusion and Life Response
"Financial confusions arise from inner confusions, which can be cured with clear, spiritual thinking." THE DAILY GURU [i.e. of spiritual mind beginning with rationality, and upward to thinking in peace, and further to knowledge through descents of light, illumination, and ultimately by identity.]

"When there is an inner confusion in one's self, the outer does not respond positively in kind. It waits for the confusion to abate.

The best condition for life to respond abundantly and positively on its own, without even an outer effort, is a state of cheerfulness, positive outlook, and clarity of thought, whether it be for the individual, the family, or a social entity. Spiritual mind and a deep inner poise can take the response to infinity."

Definition of Confusion
Confusion is the energy of the unformed intelligence. (MSS)

MSS Article on Confusion
 

 

Skepticism, Cynicism, Lack of Faith
(top)

Cynicism and Skepticism
Listen to most people; there is an inborn cynicism and skepticism. You here it all the time in their voices; from the dynamic ones to the dolts and dull ones. It is the modern disease. (Actually what you hear in their cynicism is your own.)

On the Clarity of Mind and Skepticism
The clarity of mind has another side which is skepticism. It undermines faith. When skepticism is fostered, it will ripen into perversity and finally hostility to the Divine. (MSS)

Unfaith Blocks the Actions of the Force
The Force always acts unfailingly. It is our lack of faith in it or faith in our usual beliefs that abridges the power of its action. (MSS

 

Teasing, Taunting
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Small Negative Movements Attract Negative in Pride and Prejudice
At the Netherfield Ball, Elizabeth feels what Austen calls an irresistible temptation to tease and taunt Darcy and raise the issue of Wickham. The movement of irresistible temptation spreads like a tsunami wave from her and reflects in the embarrassing behavior of Sir Lucas, who approaches them to speak about Jane’s imminent marriage, Collins who insists on approaching Darcy, Mrs. B who openly abuses Darcy and brags about Jane’s marriage, Mary who wants to play piano, etc. Elizabeth never realizes the whole movement began with her uncontrolled impulse.

Later Mrs. B taunts Mrs Lucas with the prospect of Jane’s fortune marriage and says she hopes the Lucases are as fortunate very soon, fully convinced they will not be. Two days later Collins proposes to Charlotte and the Lucases inherit Longbourn! Had Mrs B known that her taunt would not only help Mrs Lucas achieve but transfer the Bennet good fortune to her, she might have been constrained to silence. That is the very truth of it. Ill-will transfers our good fortune to others.

 

Meddlesomeness, Imposition of View
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Untitled

When one forces an initiative, it will backfire. E.g. Mrs. Bennett in Pride and Prejudice tried to meddle in a situation and it only leads to her failure.

Untitled
By helping others materially (altruism), if at the same time you want to impose your own viewpoint on them, you will kill their soul, because moral and social rules can be no substitute for the inner law which each one must receive from his soul. (The Mother)

Collusion Fails
Collusion backfires and turns into collision with unfolding circumstances.

Don't Insist
Never insist, as it indicates one is out of step with the flow, the becoming of things.

Meddlesomeness in Emma, and Pride and Prejudice
Austin's book 'Emma" is a wonderful study in meddlesomeness, as is the character of Lady Catherine in 'Pride and Prejudice.' All such efforts fail and backfire.

 

Lack of Energy, Fatigue, Non-Well-Being, Illness, Ill-Health
(top)

Thoughts on Increasing Energy (and Achievement in Life)

Thoughts on Health and Well-Being

 

 

Ignorance, Error, Falsehood, Evil

Thoughts on Expressions of Ignorance in the Individual Human

See Entries for the Nature of Evil



Superstition
(top)

Entries on Superstition

Also See Religious Superstition

 

Mistaken Assumptions in Life
(top)

Mistaken Assumptions We Have in Life
There are many things we assume about life to be true, but which are not. Here is a partial listing.

1) To mistake one object for another and believe in it.
2) Trying to do a thing for which one does not have either the skill or capacity.
3) Initiating a work for which some essentials are missing.
4) Not to know one's physical endowments.
5) Not to know the limits of one's physical endowments.
6) Assuming a relation between two things where none exists.
7) Ignoring a relation between two things that exist.
8) Trying to advise others where one has failed.
9) To mistake the general for the particular.
10) To extend the truth of the particular to the general.
11) To mistake the form for the content.
12) Trying to accomplish in the context based on the knowledge of the form.
13) To believe others will do to us what we are not willing to do to others.
14) In matters of greater importance, expecting secrecy based on lesser relationships.
15) Expecting the rival to raise you.
16) Mistaking the organization for the Ideal.
17) Expecting human nature to change.
18) Expecting life to be just.
19) Expecting gratitude.
20) Hoping a man will act against his interest out of enlightenment.
21) Waiting for Luck.
22) Expecting positive results somehow.
23) Expecting people to miss an opportunity for enjoyment.
24) Expecting people to avail of an opportunity that needs exertion.
25) Expecting loyalty from the subordinate in areas where you have no authority over him.
26) Expecting values of goodness to prevail over claims of power and money.
27) Assuming our weakness will not be known to others. (MSS)

 

Superstition
(top)

Entries on Superstition

Also See Religious Superstition

 

Psychological Weakness (lack of psychological strength)
(top)

Click here for related entries (on inner strength)

Naivete, Innocence
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Innocence
Innocence is a form of Ignorance, like foolishness, stupidity, lackadaisicalness, etc. It comes to people who lack a certain degree of psychological strength. It also issues from lack of experience; i.e. knowledge of the world. It too can lead to falsehoods and ignorance, as the innocent, sweet American farmer saw no reason to go to war while Hitler was marching across Europe. Looking around and being curious and expressing our strength are two means of coming out of Innocence. Innocence has a positive side too, as the innocence of a child is open to various possibilities. He may be less close-minded. The innocent can be filled with anything, any possibility, until the mind matures and perceives and develops a level of strength that knows and acts on the true truths of life. Innocence matures into knowledge, strength, and experience.

Edmund Dantes Good, Yet Unsuspecting, Naive Nature that Needed Inner Strength
Edmund Dantes [in novel The 'Count of Monte Cristo'] was a shipmate. He was 19. His captain, who was ill, gave Dantes a letter to deliver to Napoleon on Elba and then died. To a shipmate, the captain's word is an order, especially when it is a dying wish.

It never struck Dantes that in France of that day to visit the Emperor in exile would warrant the anger of the government. He visited Napoleon on Elba, gave him the letter, received a letter for someone in France from him.

Nor did he take care to hide the possession of that letter. On landing in France, the owner of his ship elevated him to the captaincy, overlooking Danglars, who was much elder to him.

Dantes went immediately to see his father and fiancé Mercedes. Soon their wedding was arranged. On the eve of the wedding, the police came to his reception and arrested him for possessing the letter. It never struck Dantes what his crime was.

Danglars was smarting under the wound of having been overlooked. Dantes was not aware of it nor was it possible for him to conceive that someone could be jealous of him.

Mercedes was the prettiest Catalan girl in Marseilles. She was 17 and an orphan. Her cousin Fernand was courting her for a long time, but she had given her love to Edmund.

Dantes knew of Fernand and his love for Mercedes, but it never entered his head that Fernand could be a rival to his personality. Dantes's neighbour was a tailor who was innately vicious.

Danglars and Fernand met under a tree outside a hotel and compared notes about Dantes. The tailor was an interested accomplice. Danglars knew of Dantes's visit to Napoleon and the letter from Napoleon to someone in France.

Fernand, bitterly disappointed in love, came up with the idea that Dantes could be arrested and imprisoned.

Danglars offered to write an anonymous letter by his left hand to the Magistrate and the venomous three together executed their pet project of treachery. The letter informed the government about Napoleon's letter in Dantes's possession.

Dantes was arrested and shut up in prison. Fernand carried a false news of Dantes's death to Mercedes and gently persuaded her to marry him. In prison, Dantes was resisting the warders and turned violent. He was then put in solitary confinement.

He tore his hair in despair. He did not know what he was accused of. It was a mystery to him how he, who had been on the eve of marrying the girl he deeply loved and who had received the promotion to captaincy, could land in jail.

His nature was open and unsuspecting. It was noble. To live in this world of human affairs, one should be worldly-wise.

It is not enough to be GOOD, magnanimous and unsuspecting. An unsuspecting nature is one of generosity. But it has an element of naiveté, a simple-mindedness. Inner strength of purity behind such a noble character can ward off such evil influences. (MSS)

Overcoming Unsuspecting Goodness
Unsuspecting goodness like Edmund Dantes in The Count of Monte Cristo will be betrayed by rivals, colleagues, betrothed fiances and ultimately by life. Dantes ended up in prison. He was a spirited young man. After 14 years of hell, he dominated life. It was because he was no longer naively innocent. He developed a conscious innocence, an innocence couched in inner strength. He was innocent not because he was weak and ignorant, but because he was calm inside from strength and incapable of human perversions. A proverb says, "Learn even theft, but forget it". One needs to know the existence of the negative side of life, the evil, but must be capable of not being urged by it.

Naiveté and Unconsciousness
Fitzwilliam's naive ignorance [in Pride and Prejudice] of what he is disclosing, like Wickham's intentional falsehoods, arising from a state of unconsciousness or involution. (MSS)

 

Negative Atmosphere, Social Context
(top)

Supporting Atmosphere
Though there may be the real possibility of good fortune in the air for one's self, one can end up in utter ruin if the supporting atmosphere surrounding the possibility is negative. Likewise, if it is positive, it can catapult one to the pinnacles of achievement in life.

Untitled
A person can be effective when he tries something in his own plane. But if you try something at a higher plane it won't work. E.g. Mrs. Bennett in Pride and Prejudice tries to influence Mr. Bingley who is in a higher sphere, and her plans do not work.

Ultimately what accomplishes is authority whatever the context is.

 

 

Meanness, Cruelty
(top)

On Meanness
Meanness is a weakness that calculates and demands from others the virtues one does not possess oneself. (The Mother)

Definition (of the Opposites) of Generosity & Meanness
Meanness is an attitude of asking another to do what we cannot. We can construct a definition of generosity based on it. To give another man, without his asking, what he cannot accomplish by his best efforts can be defined as generosity. Even that generosity when it is tinged with ego is impermissible or at least will be a lever for him to hurt you. The opposite of generosity is meanness. (MSS, somewhat modified)

Definition (of the Opposites) of Generosity & Meanness
Meanness is an attitude of asking another to do what we cannot. We can construct a definition of generosity based on it. To give another man, without his asking, what he cannot accomplish by his best efforts can be defined as generosity. Even that generosity when it is tinged with ego is impermissible or at least will be a lever for him to hurt you. The opposite of generosity is meanness. (MSS, somewhat modified)

Meanness and Ill-Will in Pride and Prejudice

On Cruelty
Love is the reverse form of cruelty.

As years pass by, human cruelty decreases. School children being beaten up till they bled is no longer an acceptable behaviour. Punishment is replaced by discipline.

As a rule, the earlier the period we examine, the greater the cruelty permitted.

Humanity outgrows its cruelty though suffering acknowledged, tragedies, etc. Personally one can see in one's own life whether his cruelty rises or decreases. If so, what were the landmarks in his life of such a changeover to humanity or greater cruelty.

Where the personality is large and the energy great, the distorting effect of channeling all for one's own utility creates greater intensities of cruelty.

Cruelty is in the physical consciousness.

King Lear's rashness and rage borders on pure cruelty and madness.

There is an unconscious cruelty in [King Lear] Cordelia's action born out of indifference or self-forgetfulness which parallels her father's unpardonable curse on the marriage.

Instead of being expressed and out-grown the capacities for selfishness, cruelty and perversity in man get organised beneath the surface into pure evil of great intensity.

The occasion of war is a natural scene for the most primitive impulses of cruelty and animality to arise in man under the fear, stress and chaos of the situation.

The physical coming into its own has thrown up the leadership of a BRUTE. The behaviour of a brute, the cruelty of the malicious, the tyranny of the vulgar became the culture of the period.

Physical punishment and vital offence from outside presses the energy out of it by force. Hence, tyranny and cruelty are [in one sense] Grace. Discipline is a civilised version of cruelty.

The superstitious righteous weak accept their fate as a virtue of necessity. In them, the subconscious grows in revolt. When these people emerge in an altered social situation where they are masters, they tend to be cruel and enjoy their cruelty.

If the mind overstrains without sufficient emotional or vital support, the act which results is a violence against the lower nature and it has the character of cruelty. Such an act evokes a violent response from life.

Individuals, Society Abuses & Crushes the Weak or Perceived Weak
-Society is pleasant to you when you are strong. If you are weak, or if others think you are weak, they poke fun at your expense.

-If you are quiet, the fun becomes ridicule. Soon several people will join together to fool you.

-When a poor man is found to be a success or gifted with a talent, society around him at once turns hostile and tries its best to crush him out of existence. This rule, as many other rules of life, has no exception. Neither the brother nor the mother is an exception, if there is no affection in the family. Even when someone is not weak, if they think he is weak, they try their best to cheat him, ridicule him, slight him, and neglect him publicly.

-What is respected is strength, social status.

-Bernadette was a simple, poor girl in France of the 19th century. She had a vision near the side of a river. The vision of a Lady whom others took to be the Virgin Mary repeated eighteen times in all. The girl was in bliss kneeling before the lady. The place eventually became famous and the girl after several decades was canonised as a Saint. It is a deep lesson for any observer to learn how, when she first saw the vision and word got around, the local officials ostracised her, teased her, harassed her, jailed her and her family. All for what? Because they found her defenceless, the entire society revealed its nether side of wickedness to crush her out of existence. The Church did its worst. The Major, the Magistrate, etc. joined the bandwagon. What matters to us is not what the society is, but what we are INSIDE. Let us look inside and see whether we are capable of such ridicule, whether we have treated anyone like that. If it is there, there is no spirituality as long as it is alive. (MSS, extracted)

 

 

Distain for Benefactor
(top)

Those Who Receive Help Hurt the Benefactor
The unregenerate vital is unwilling to be under an obligation. He who receives a help has a natural tendency to hurt the benefactor. This is a truth known to us centuries ago and is captured in a proverb: if only you take pity on a suffering creature, the SINS of six months will at once land on you. History, literature and life offer copious confirmation of this truth. (MSS)

The Recipient of Any Gift Resents It
It is a rule of life that the recipient of any gift, especially an unsolicited benefit, resents it and as a result desires to be insolent to the benefactor. Based on this truism, a joke was popular in the 20th century in Europe which is summed up in the statement, "I do not know why that man hates me, I have not done him any good." (MSS)

Problematic Issues that Arise Concerning the Impulse to Help Others
-When we genuinely wish to help another, the ego enters the picture in a subtle fashion and offers the help. We miss seeing it.
-It is an invariable rule in human relationships - with very rare exceptions - that the beneficiary never fails to offend the benefactor. Inside the family and close friends group, ALL the problems arise ONLY from this rule.
-If one does his duty pleasantly without fail within the limits of the other person's good will, such an aberration is avoided.
-In intimate relationships, the idea of generosity is strong. One wants to give rather than take. Once it crosses the limits, the horrible rule I now described comes into operation. (MSS)

Untitled

1. The recipient of help never fails to hurt - Basmasura.

2. Results are instantaneous.

3. Trouble comes to one ONLY from those he has helped, apart from his own folly.

4. The very first WORD the beneficiary speaks is "I don't like".

5. It is true even in children of our own.

6. Where the service is out of GOOD WILL, not out of ego, it does not hurt at all.

 

 

Anachronisms and Other Negative of Society
(top)

Click here to see entries

 

Other
(top)

Dishonesty

Click Here for Entries on Honesty

 

Irresponsibility

Click Here for Entries

 

Unreliability/Reliability

Click Here for Entries

 

Procrastination

Procrastination
A man puts off fixing something that is broken for now, unconsciously figuring that no problem or accident will arise from it in the short run. He doesn't realize that the future, when the problem will occur, is really the present. i.e. the Ever-Present when one connects to the Highest Consciousness. He has in that neglectful moment in effect caused a serious accident to occur in the present, his present, the human present.

We can view all social development issues, including impediments and anachronisms, from this perspective. Looked at closely, we will see that life works like this virtually 100% of the time.

 

Temperamental

Temperamental Men
"Temperamental men sulk and neglect. (MSS)

 

Wasteful

Superstition of Waste
Experts in management know that avoiding avoidable waste changes a losing company into a profit-making one. Waste becomes a source of prestige and status, especially with the newly rich. To them the capacity to waste is a sign of assured abundance. It is a superstition. (MSS)

 

Hero Worship

On the Vital Worship of a Leader
Unformed vital personalities are ready to adore the first dominant person they meet. They look for a leader. When one comes their way, they are ready. In such a population, hero-worship thrives. Such people easily switch over from one leader to another. All that they want is someone to worship, adore, hold up as an ideal. The longing heart finds an adorable ideal, not necessarily that there is something to be adored. (MSS)

 

Theft, Crime

Conditions for Non-Theft
Where affection is saturated, work is routine, duty is respected, stealing has been forgotten for several generations. (MSS)

 

Ambition (vs. Aspiration)

Click Here for Entries

 

 

Corruption

Power Changes the View of a Person
They say power corrupts. Power changes the view or vision. One who has been vehemently speaking against corruption, begins to be corrupt when he comes into that power. At that time, he feels it is right to be corrupt.

The President of the university Teachers' Union was elected to the Syndicate from the Academic Council. The moment he became a member of the Syndicate, he began to behave as the Management, to the utter surprise of the union members.

These are persons who FEEL the immediate environment and do not have a formed personality of their own. To him, it was right to espouse the cause of the teachers while he was their President and it was equally right to plead the cause of Management while on the Syndicate.

That was his logic. When the stark reality faces, his face undergoes a great change

 

Power Abuse

Power Acting in Freedom Leads to Abuse
Where POWER acts in freedom, man is uncompromising. [E.g.] The employer will be merciless if there is no law restraining him and if the workers are timid and unorganised.

The workers will not be reasonable if the courts take their side. How far these expressions of power - assertions - will go has been seen in different decades. When the situations change, it will be a sight to see the parties on their own switching sides and becoming rational. (MSS)

 

Prestige

On Prestige
The one thing MAN is extremely sensitive about and ready to act on without prompting is his readiness to acquire prestige, a semblance of upward social mobility, an effort of seeking status. Money moves man, any man and all men. He who is not moved by money will certainly be moved by prestige. Prestige is the psychological centre of MAN. He is most sensitive at that point. On the lower side, it sounds unidealistic. (MSS

 

Misc.

 

MSS Articles on Problems in Life

Vertigo
Anger
Habits
Situations that Defy Surrender or Consecration
Insoluble Problems
Breaking the Human Barrier  

On Bragging
Bragging about something brings the opposite to that person in short order.

Mind's Negative Turn
Mind begins with comprehension and when it moves to the negative side it becomes mean, perverse, evil and depraved. (MSS)

Victim's Limitation that Attracted a Wrong
We, society are conscious of the wrong, the bad, the evil done by one individual or party to another. Rarely, however, are we aware of how the victim attracted through their own falsehood, error, and ignorance this negativity from the negative doer in the first place.

We Reap What We Sow in Ways that Defy Human Logic
It is not easy to see how one's indulgences come back to haunt one at another time. One idealist lecturer allowed students to pass who were not even close to passing, and should have failed. Many years later his own son became a loafer. The father one day begged him to take an examination in order to rise in life, but he refused. How could the idealist know that when he was indulging his students, he was setting in motion a vibration that would return on him as it totally spoiled the whole career of his own son? Life responds this way, which we sometimes call the "law of karma" or the idea that "what you sow is what you will reap." That law holds true as Nature brings circumstances that substantiate this in ways that defy our ordinary perceptions of cause and effect, and space and time.

Overcoming Corresponding Element in Ourselves from Negative Person Around Us
Positive people are of positive value. What can we do with negative person? One who overhears, gossips, abuses, carries tales, sets one person against another, neglects his own work, and feels an intense jealousy, is impossible. The best course for us with such personalities is to avoid them, or at least NOT to give them scope to train their guns on us.

In the scheme of God, nothing happens to us which we do not invite. When someone knocks me down on the road unintentionally, does it mean something in me desired it? Spiritually, the answer is Yes. An abominable person around me in the office or at home, by that definition, is there because something deep in me has a spiritual need of him.

As long as I avoid a bad person, my inner knowledge keeps the inner Ignorance at arm's length. Avoidance is austerity; acceptance is prosperity. He is there for us to make a corresponding progress. When we make that progress, mysteriously he vanishes. He tells us by his jealousy that there is jealousy in us. We are not aware of it, or we are unwilling to concede it. That is the positive value of a negative person. The moment we recognize the correspondence within ourselves and exhibit a willingness to give up the bad trait, that man disappears.

In essence, what occurs is that when a little of our Ignorance consents to transform itself into knowledge, our focus and intent becomes a power which enables the individual to disappear as a response from life.
(MSS, somewhat modified)

Lack of Another's Honesty and Your Fatigue
One interesting phenomenon we have observed is that when an individual is about to be or is in the presence of someone who is not honest or being dishonest with you one feels very fatigued. Their non-genuine feelings gets transmitted in the atmosphere to the object of that insincerity as fatigue. 

Untitled
Loud speech, excitement cancels; i.e. it invokes negative life response.

Anachronisms Within Us
As there are anachronisms in society, so too we can say that there are "anachronisms," in our being; i.e. all things that do not want to change to meet the new realities of our lives.

 

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PERCEPTIONS OF FAILURE & SUCCESS, GOOD & BAD, POSITIVE & NEGATIVE
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Click here for entries

 

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MISCELLANEOUS
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Stages of Correcting Something Untoward in One's Self
You do something untoward, and wish to change that behavior. The first stage is recognition, awareness, and knowledge of what is wrong. A second stage is the will to correct it. A third stage is the genuine commitment to see it end. The fourth stage is action in the right.

Another dimension is perceiving that if you were living overall  in a higher consciousness to begin with  -- e.g. in the depths within in its silence, or opened to the Force above -- such problems would never have occurred in the first place. It can compel one towards such a new life orientation.

Reversing a Negative Life Response
A woman was paying a bill at a restaurant. In the middle of the transaction with the waitress, the woman's friend interrupted the waitress and asked for some brochures that lay in back of the cash register. The brochures were for some local attractions. The waitress continued with the transaction with the woman after which she gave the man the brochures. An hour or so later when the man and the woman went to visit the attraction, it was closed. What had happened was that the earlier negative interruption by the man attracted a negative life response in a related area (i.e. at the attraction which the brochures referred to).

Fortunately, this story has a happy ending. The man was able to see the connection between his rude interruption to gain the brochure for that attraction and the closed status of the attraction. As he realized the mistake, the woman mentioned that in fact the attraction would be open in an hour, and that that the man had misunderstood what he thought was a closing for a delay. They went to the attraction and had a fine time.

When an individual realizes his mistake it tends to reverse the negativity that it addresses. When he understood and then accepted his fault in the affair, life reversed and cancelled the negativity of the past. A positive life response was invoked.

These are the never ending ways of life's subtle workings. To be aware of them is to become conscious, and to enable a vast mastery over life.

Emotion Enables Contradiction
Mind influenced by emotion experiences issues as dualistic contradiction, leading to side-taking, blocking the true truth of the integral whole.

The Real Heaven and Hell 1
Heaven is not a place; it is a lofty level of psychic development. Love is heaven. So is peace, understanding, compassion, tenderness. Hell is also a psychic condition; one of ignorance and unawareness. Hatred is hell. So is anger, arrogance, jealousy, competitiveness, and especially fear. Heaven or hell are right now as you well know without me even telling you. You get your first foot into heaven by courageously facing the fact that you presently have none of its peace. (THE DAILY GURU)

On Building on a Mistake
"When making a mistake of any kind it is vital to not build a second mistake on top of it. It would be a second mistake to fall into mechanical emotions over an error, such as condemning yourself or feeling bitter toward those who victimized you. Such reactions pin you down to the very level of mechanical behavior which causes mistakes. Instead, refuse to go along with your usual reactions. Try to see how unclear thinking causes the error. This separates you from mistakes, just as you might depart from an angry and dangerous mob."  (THE DAILY GURU)

On Helplessness
A sense of helplessness is the perfect condition and occasion to offer ourselves to the Higher Power. It is also an indicator and measure of our lacking faith and aspiration

Behind Failure to Accomplish
Behind failures lies one invariable reason -- trying to accomplish in the outer field and enjoy what one is not inwardly prepared for. (MSS) 

Also See Key Positive Capacities that Enable an Individual to Accomplish

 

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