Forum

Thought-control by a Positive Attitude

Try to acquire the power of closing yourself against detrimental or undesirable thoughts and influences by making yourself positive by a particular attitude of the mind. By so doing, you may be receptive to all higher impulses of the soul within and to all higher forces and influences from without. Make a suggestion to yourself, “I close myself; I make myself positive to all things below and open and receptive to all higher influences, to all things above.” By taking this attitude of the mind, consciously, now and then, it soon becomes a habit. All the lower and undesirable influences from both the seen and the unseen sides of life are closed out while all higher influences are invited and, in the degree that they are invited, they will enter. In the mind there is doubt; there is reality also. A doubt arises whether there is a God or not. This is termed Samsaya-Bhavana. Another doubt crops up whether I can realize Brahman or not. Then another voice tells: “God or Brahman is real. He is a solid, concrete Reality as an Amalaka fruit in my hand. He is a mass of knowledge and Ananda (Prajnanaghana, Chidghana, Anandaghana). I can realize!” We have clearly understood something and these ideas are well-grounded and ingrained. Some ideas are hazy and not firm. They come and go. We will have to cultivate ideas and ground them till they are firmly fixed and implanted. Clarification of ideas will remove perplexity and confusion in the mind. When a doubt arises, “Whether there is God or not, whether I will succeed in Self-realization or not,” it must be dispelled by well-directed suggestions and affirmations such as: “It is true; I will succeed. There is no doubt of this.” “In my dictionary, in my vocabulary, there are no such words, as ‘can’t’, ‘impossible’, ‘difficult’, etc. Every thing is possible under the sun.” Nothing is difficult when you strongly make up your mind. Strong determination and firm resolution will bring sanguine success in every affair or undertaking, and particularly so in the conquest of mind.