Positive Thinking 01 – Countering external and internal negativity

Transcript

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the ways in which we can memorize verses. Thank you. Hare Krishna.
Welcome to this series on positive thinking principles. We will be discussing different things principles for positive thinking as a series of videos which will go step by step. I am discussing first the principles of positivity as understood in a general sense of the self-help genre today.
Then we will talk about the insights about positive thinking from the bhakti tradition and then we will discuss a sutra based on acronym NRGY which talks about how we can practically apply positive thinking principles. So first let’s beginning with the sources of the need for positive thinking and the sources of negative thinking. So now positive thinking is not just a matter of thinking.
It’s a matter of perceiving. It’s a matter of responding. Now two people may look out the same window and one sees the stars and the other sees the mud.
So when two people look like this the focus of their vision also determines their energy level, their inspiration, their motivation and their action. One who looks at the sky may dream, may aspire and may strive for creative energy to make a positive difference. One who looks at the mud and thinks negative or this is what happened, that is what happened, why did this happen, this is so filthy, this is so nonsense and it just de-energizes oneself.
So there can be a difference in the focus of one’s vision and that is both a function of one’s disposition, optimism or pessimism and that also breeds one’s further disposition. So our vision and disposition in that sense are symbiotic. What we see that shapes how we think and how we think shapes what we see.
So now where do if we find that we have a negative disposition? The standard example for a negative disposition for pessimism that is given is of a person who has a glass of water which is half filled, the pessimist sees it as half empty, the optimist sees it half filled. So a negative disposition can de-energize us unnecessarily because we keep seeing what is wrong, what is wrong, what is wrong and then that just makes us irritated, disheartened and overall it creates negative energy within us. So now how do we correct this negative disposition? So to correct it we have to first recognize what are its sources, where does something come from? Just like if we see that there is some dirt in our house, we of course have to clean it, but if we want our house to be regularly cleaned, we also have to find out what is the source of that dirt and correct and prevent the dirt from coming in from there as much as possible.
So like that we can look what are the sources of negativity within us and we can try to check how those sources of negativity can be corrected. So the sources of negativity can be classified into two broad categories, there can be external negativity and there can be internal negativity. So external negativity refers to the negative talk that happens around us.
Now when a ship, a boat is in the high waters or especially if a ship is on the high waters, a ship is much bigger in size, then there is water all around the ship and yet none of that water can sink the ship unless it gets to enter the ship. So the water may be there all around, but just because the water is far bigger than the ship doesn’t mean that the ship has to sink. Only when there is some hole in the water and that, sorry, hole in the ship by which the water comes into the ship, only then the ship starts sinking.
Similarly, there may be negative talk all around us. There are many people in the world who are pessimists and they are often pessimists about say our prospects, our plans and they may say this will not work, that will not work and such negative talk, it is often disheartening, but actually it doesn’t have to be disheartening. It’s only when we let that negative talk enter into us, if we turn a deaf ear towards the negative talk, then that talk can’t affect us.
So if we don’t let that talk get to us, get to us means get inside us, if we don’t let the negative talk get inside us, then we will not be affected by that negative talk. In fact, the negative environment around us, once we understand this principle that unless it gets inside us, it can’t affect us, so then we can look for something even more positive. We can actually see the negative environment as an opportunity to do something more surprising because at that time amidst a negative environment, positive action is often not expected.
So just like the stars are there in the daytime also, but the stars are not seen because they are outshone by the sun, but at night the stars become more visible and the darker the night, the brighter the stars have the opportunity to shine. Similarly, if we are surrounded by negative people, then the people who are professing that whatever we are aiming to do, we are going to fail, that it is good for nothing, that it is never going to work, then at such a time we can see that as a positive opportunity to do something surprising, to do something special. So in that way we can gird our determination rather than letting that determination get weakened and letting ourselves get disheartened.
So external negativity can be seen not just firstly, not as binding because we understand that only when the negativity gets inside us, will it bind us and external negativity can also be seen as an opportunity to do something surprising. Now of course, we need to avoid that external negativity from influencing us, we have to ensure that we don’t let ourselves be repeatedly exposed to that negativity because just as a water that repeatedly comes in contact with the ship, somewhere some small crevice is there in the ship, that crevice can become a bigger crack and it can cause it to become lethal. So we have to minimize, if not stop entirely, the attention that we give to negative people and for that we will discuss strategies later.
But this is the first principle that external negativity does not have to breed negativity within us. If you understand it is non-binding and rather it is an opportunity to do something surprising. The second source of negativity is internal negativity that actually there may be negativity inside us and that negativity may actually be in our own disposition.
So for example, once there was a shoe salesman who salesperson who was sent to a tribal area to check for the market and the salesperson went there and sent a report back, there is no potential here because nobody wears shoes. Then the company called that person back and sent another shoe salesperson over there and this person will send a message back saying, oh please send as many shoes as possible, there’s a huge potential here, no one wears shoes. Now the fact remains the same, no one wears shoes but the response to the fact was radically different.
So one person saw the fact that no one wears the shoes and thought that no one will want shoes. The other person saw that same fact, no one wears shoes and thought, oh everyone needs shoes and therefore everyone is a potential customer and in this way they, by their change of disposition, by the change of mental focus, by their inner pessimism or optimism, they actually came up with entirely different responses. One of the most inspiring examples of an individual who overcame a lot of negativity is Helen Keller.
Although she was terribly physically having special needs, she was visually impaired, audibly impaired, verbally not functioning very well, all that validation but she overcame so many obstacles. So there may be limitations externally but those limitations externally can become aggravated or minimized by her attitude towards them internally. If say someone is visually impaired and then that’s what the person focuses on, it’s a serious limitation but when the physical limitation becomes a mental obsession, then it becomes far more limiting than what it would have been if it had not been a mental obsession.
So yes there are sources of negativity externally and we can’t do away with them and there are negative realities in the outer world also but inner negativity maximizes those external negative realities whereas inner positivity minimizes those realities and in that way our mental energy can be either maximized or minimized by our dispositions. So by identifying the external sources of negativity and the internal sources of negativity, we can plan to minimize their influences on us and by identifying the external and internal sources of positivity, we can choose to maximize their influence on us and thereby move from negative thinking to positive thinking. In our next talk we will discuss about because thinking positive or negative thinking is essentially a matter of inner dynamics of inner thinking, we will analyze our inner world, our thoughts into four broad categories and see how to cultivate the right kinds of thoughts.
Join us for the next session.