How can we stay positive when the mind is pessimistic?
Answer Podcast
Transcript
This is an AI-generated transcript and may contain some errors.
So how can you stay positive, especially say when the mind is going towards negative directions? So we have to, first of all, look at our social circles.
If our social circle is negative, it is critical, it is discouraging, then that reinforces and aggravates the negativity that we may have internally. So we need friends who are positive, who are encouraging. And now we will not be able to give up the negative friends who are there, but we can open our hearts to people who are positive and encouraging.
So that is very important. Without good association, negativity just cannot be there. Because whatever thoughts come within us, if others reinforce them, then they become almost, when thoughts get so strong that they become irresistible.
So whatever positivity we have within us, we need to reinforce that by association of positive people. And spirituality helps us to become positive. So if we associate with other spiritually minded people, it can also help us to develop positivity, both through internally changing our thinking, and also externally providing us good association.
The Bhagavad Gita tells us one thing that, within the hearts of all of us, God exists. sarvasya caham yadi sanuni vishnu 15.15 the Bhagavad Gita says that I reside in the heart of all living beings. And God’s love for us is unconditional.
So no matter what we do, no matter what happens in our life, no matter how many people turn away from us, no matter how many things we lose, God’s love for us always remains. There is nothing that can ever make God stop loving us. So the more we can connect with God, the more we get inner shelter.
So God is an endless reservoir of positivity. And the more we connect with Him, the more we relish that positivity. So the Bhagavad Gita itself starts with Arjuna discouraged.
Arjuna at the start of the Gita, he puts down his bow and says, I can’t fight. At the end of the Gita, he’s lifted up his bow and is ready to fight. So Arjuna’s bow represents our determination.
Life’s ups and downs, they make us disheartened. I give up. I can’t do this.
But when we hear the spiritual wisdom of the Gita, when we appreciate life’s spiritual side, then it’s like we preserve our bow. We get back our determination. So studying spiritual wisdom, it can very powerfully help us to develop positivity.
Because positive thinking is not just something to say, okay, don’t see the half glass is half empty, see the glass is half full. That is one level of positive thinking. Where existing reality, we try to see positively rather than negatively.
But spirituality offers us not just positive perception of reality, but it also offers us perception of positive reality. That means God and His love and the empowerment that comes from devotion to Him, all that is not just visible to us right now. But when we practice spirituality, all that becomes accessible to us.
So spirituality is the most enduring source of positivity. Great.