Tuesday, October 25, 2011

Unity in diversity

If you feel sad, if things just don’t go your way, if you don’t have enough money to pay your bills, your wife has left you for a nicer man, your mother is ill, the world is going under in madness and you think to yourself, “I should be more positive. Positive thinking is important because negative people have bad luck.” Then you have created a conflict within yourself.

You have now a divided mind. (Maybe it’s really two separate minds and maybe they have been there all along, I don’t know. Anyway, it doesn’t rally matter.) My point is that one part of your mind is bummed out and another part tries to fix the problem.

One part of your mind is trying to be positive but the other part is still doleful. When people you meet say: “Hi! How are you?” you’re answering, “Great, how are you?” However, half of you don’t feel great.

Sometimes you may be very angry with someone. Then you often also have another part of your mind telling your angry self to calm down. It’s ugly with anger. You have to hide it. When you meet other people, you may have to pretend that everything is fine. (Probably they do the same.)

However, you have also a third part of your mind. This third part is listening to the inner debates. If you didn’t have this third part of your mind, you wouldn’t be able to notice how the other two were struggling.

Some people have no problems to deal with. They have lots of money, nice homes and wonderful families. When they’re lecturing about the importance of positive thinking and the power of happiness, you have to be forgiving. When they explain that money will come to you in abundance when you begin to believe in yourself and stuff like that, then you have to be patient. You may have to pray for strength. You have to remind yourself that they have a very limited worldview. They are single minded. They’ve not yet discovered that human beings are compound creatures.