Aum Shanti,
Good evening and welcome to Soul to Soul.
And it's goodbye to negative thinking.
Now this is a very,
Very enjoyable topic,
So I would encourage you to write some things down if you could because unless you're a super wondrous hero person,
I think that for myself I'm learning this as I go along and I've been doing this for a long time.
So we need to keep being reminded what it's all about.
So are you strong enough to stop negative thoughts?
I would say I have to be on the case over and over.
I really do.
And yet I'm doing this all the time,
All day.
This is my work,
Meditation in the morning,
Thinking about this during the day,
Talking about what we're going to do about the next talk,
Doing all sorts of things for the place that we run in Glasgow,
And meeting with people that want to find out about spirituality.
And so it's like really immersed.
But at the same time,
I have to be watching all the time.
Why?
Because we think all the time,
Thousands and thousands of thoughts they say in a day.
The one thing I have to teach myself is the benefit of looking at my thinking.
Because no matter how I struggle to make something work,
No matter how I might look after something,
No matter how I might have made many plans,
No matter how many skills I may have,
And I enter a relationship with some kind of a business type of gathering,
And I want a certain outcome,
Which we want all the time,
Every day we have an outcome.
And the outcome doesn't so much depend on how smartly I'm dressed and how beautiful I look,
Or how clever I am.
It depends on what are my thoughts.
Because my thoughts are the energy that fuel the body at every second.
And if my thoughts,
If I'm going to an important thing,
And I'm just so concerned that it works out,
And I'm so concerned,
And I'm so concerned,
And I try everything to make sure it will work,
And it'll be absolutely perfect,
Then that worry,
That energy of worry is going to give me an outcome that won't quite be what I would have liked it to have been.
It's really important that we get this every second.
My thoughts reflect through my words,
My attitude,
My positioning.
Everything is coming from the energy of my thoughts.
So do you recognize when you have negative thoughts?
No,
I don't think we do.
We think we're okay.
We think we're trying so hard,
And we're emotionally on the case.
But we haven't checked,
Am I also on the case with my thinking?
And if I have force in my emotions,
Or worry in my emotions,
We still think we're okay because we're doing something good,
And we have a good purpose.
But still that isn't what it's all about.
Because if I'm the least bit worried,
That worry is cascading through every cell of my physical body.
And so what is a negative thought?
And what is a positive thought?
And who is thinking?
And so what we learn over and over in Raj Yoga is that I am thinking.
These are my thoughts.
And what am I thinking?
I might think I'm worried,
And yet I'm trying to be very positive.
And I'm trying so hard to be positive,
But it's force I'm using,
And underneath I'm worried.
So what will win the day will be the worry,
Because it's the energy that's fueling my words and actions.
Now this is really important to get this one.
I need strength to choose my thoughts.
Strength comes from the meditation,
Raj Yoga meditation.
If I practice peace,
Then I get my power from peace,
From practicing peace.
Because if I have periods of silence,
I will become more and more aware of my thinking.
I'll start to see that I want to be really nice to this person,
And yet inside I feel a sort of discomfort,
Maybe because of whoever's in front of me.
But I don't want to feel discomfort,
I want to feel really nice.
So what I have to do is remove my discomfort.
And for that I do need strength,
And I do need meditation.
That's most important.
And so we're always thinking,
Always thinking.
Meditation opens up my ability to choose my thoughts,
To craft beautiful and beneficial thoughts.
It's really easy to say,
Look,
Just let that go,
Understand.
Give it your best energy,
The best you can bring for yourself.
That's what's going to do whatever you want to do.
Otherwise it's force and worry and concern and emotion,
And quite often disappointment.
And we think this doesn't actually work.
Or I've been practicing this and I really,
Really put all my energy into this.
And I don't know what happened there.
But if you really checked,
You were anxious about the energy or anxious about the situation or anxious about who was in front of you.
And so we do have to keep looking at our thoughts.
I am the one who's thinking in any interaction that I'm having.
I am the one that's thinking for me.
I'm the representative of myself.
But if other others,
Disturb me or situations disturb me,
Then it's the situation that's representing me or others that are representing me.
I'm not representing myself.
So this is all good news.
And within the good news,
It means I have the power to change.
I identify what I care about.
I'm using my time for a meeting or a situation.
I want it to be my time well used.
So if the obstacle to it being well used is me,
And it is always me,
But we've got the habit of saying,
Oh,
Well,
How did one turn up or,
Oh,
This parent is very difficult to deal with,
Or,
Or whatever,
Or they or whatever,
All the different things.
If I identify what it is that I care about,
Then I'll be able to harmonize my thoughts with what I want to feel and what I value.
If I keep looking straight at this without getting carried away by feelings,
Emotions,
Delight or dislike,
We'll find that it will make a lot of sense.
So what is most important to us?
We learn through meditation,
The important values are peace,
Love,
Contentment,
Freedom,
Harmony and truth.
So in situations,
It doesn't mean I have to just become sort of totally,
Well,
Peaceful,
Peaceful.
I mean,
It's a very sort of fast moving situation,
But I could stay calm.
There's many derivatives of peace,
Steady,
Silent,
Unshakable,
Calm,
All these words.
And if I'm somewhere where I need to be more,
Use the energy of love,
I don't need to go loving someone,
I don't even know,
But I can be understanding,
Helpful,
Friendly,
Useful,
Interested.
So I can use these thoughts,
These energies of love,
And that will make a very,
Very nice connection with someone.
And if I look at contentment,
I'm looking at the clogging thing,
I wish it was,
Oh gosh,
Time to go now.
Oh gosh,
I wish this was over then.
That's not,
Obviously,
Not contentment.
And if I say,
Well,
This is the way it is,
And some good things are happening here,
And I'm enjoying this actually,
It's a lovely opportunity to be connecting with someone that I've never met before.
So I can use contentment.
And then if I think of freedom,
I can say to myself,
Oh gosh,
I feel trapped in this situation,
And this person is very,
Very clever,
They're far more clever than me,
And they've got all the answers.
However,
I also have answers,
Because I can be free within myself.
I can feel myself,
I'm a free thinker,
I can think what I want.
I can feel that this is how it is,
And let me appreciate this opportunity,
So I can still know that I'm a free-thinking being.
And harmony,
I can bring people into harmony,
Any situation into harmony,
If I recognise that I can create harmonious thoughts.
And it's the same with truth.
I can think,
Well,
It's very,
Very tricky to put forward that which is truth about the soul,
Because it can take us a long time to start looking at,
Am I negative or am I positive,
Something so simple.
But it's not simple.
When it comes to the bit,
It's like,
How long did I talk without looking at what kind of feelings are coming from my energy while I'm speaking.
It's very slippery.
So yes,
I can say goodbye to negativity,
To negative thinking,
If I start leaving a little bit,
And I can create thoughts that are in line with my inner wishes for how I wish things to be,
And bring my energy into line with how I would like my outcome to be.
Feeling grumpy inside isn't going to bring me a good-natured,
Happy,
Light-hearted outcome,
Or someone feeling,
Well,
I quite enjoyed that.
They won't feel that if inside I'm agitated.
Need to feel this is good.
This is great.
Because we have to interact with everyone and know that everyone has a place and everyone's entitled to be who they are,
But they may not be practicing anything to do with what we're talking about.
And so they cannot possibly be totally in harmony with us,
But we have to be in harmony with them,
And love them and accept them and send these good vibes.
Because this will have an effect on another soul.
Just like the grumpiness would also have an effect on another soul.
So observe ourselves,
And notice that a lot of our negativity comes from us trying to change others.
We think they should say the right things.
We think they should offer some solution.
That they should be okay with whatever's going on,
But how is it possible for us to always be like that?
It takes us to observe.
We have to observe ourselves if we want a good outcome and be prepared to change our energy.
All the time like that.
Fast.
More loving,
More understanding,
More sympathetic,
More friendly,
Sincerely caring,
Listening.
And it's us that does it.
That's what Raja Yoga is all about.
So learn also to laugh at yourself,
Because we will be sometimes doing it the opposite way.
And then thinking,
Well that's why it didn't work.
I didn't do it the light-hearted way.
And don't be hard on the self,
Because it is something that really requires a great deal of inner reflection.
And stay alert.
And good things are if you have a meeting,
You can prepare yourself in advance,
But then you can watch,
Because sometimes you'll forget halfway through or just even when you've just started you'll forget that you've made up your mind to be kind.
You find you're not in the least bit kind.
So you have to watch yourself.
But obviously a good time is to do your morning meditation and look at things like that and and kind of make resolutions for the self.
Say,
Oh I'm really going to watch this,
I really want to do this,
Because it will make me feel better.
But whoever I'm in interaction with will benefit.
And that's what Raja Yoga is for,
People who want to bring benefit to the self and others.
So keep smiling if possible and say goodbye to negative thinking.
But remember,
This is something I saw the other day and it just made me really think about this.
Every cell in your body is listening to your thoughts.
So that this is why it is that we say that your thoughts,
We've said this for years,
Not quite as succinct as this,
But we've said for years that whatever you think affects every cell in your body.
And that would that energy then cascade through every cell in your physical body.
But I like the way of this,
That every cell in your body is listening to your thoughts.
So if you're grumpy,
The cells go into a grumpy energy stance and all the grumpiness is going through your whole body,
Not good for your health.
And if you're light-hearted,
That energy is cascading through every cell in your body.
Not only good for whoever's around you,
But very good for your physical body as well.
Okay.
Sometimes it seems that negative thinking is almost excusable.
It's like,
How could I think anything other than negative about this?
And so how do I make sure I've got as many ingredients as possible?
What are all the big ingredients I need to give myself the biggest chance to stay in that light-hearted frame of mind?
It's beautiful when you spoke about that,
About going the light-hearted way no matter what.
I think if I keep remembering what my role is,
And if I find if I keep instilling in myself the energy of understanding,
Then when I hear negative things,
I can even keep a smile on my face and be okay.
And even almost say that's fine,
Kind of,
To whoever it is,
Because you can't tell people to change their thoughts right away.
It's nothing to do with whoever the other person is.
It's to do with the self.
So if I respond to that negativity,
Then there we go.
We've responded and that's what I've put out.
But if I can understand that I have to do more work on myself here if it was me that put out the negativity,
And I have to absolutely underline that I don't want to go there,
But if it's someone else,
I'm in the company of people who are very negative,
And I need to understand that's the way they are,
And not go there myself,
Because we've been there for a long,
Long time,
And the outcome for us is most uncomfortable.
I like the part at the beginning as well.
It's almost you can fool yourself into kind of a false positivity.
You think you're being positive because I'm doing it for a good thing.
It's a good outcome I'm going for,
But you can quickly go into force and get really attached to the outcome and forget,
As you're saying,
You can forget that in the moment you're not practicing or being what you wanted to be,
Which was kind and gentle and lighthearted and strong and calm and cool,
And you really quickly get into that tension.
Well I would say,
First of all,
It's trying to prove ourselves.
It's an ego thing.
Like I don't want to lose face.
We're influenced by the company that we're in.
I have to look as if I'm a winner or else.
It's quite a journey,
This.
And if I don't look like I'm a winner,
I'm going to look like I'm a loser.
I don't want that.
So we get so carried away with wanting to be the winner,
We can forget that.
Let everyone else be the winner of the wish,
But if I'm looking inside and deciding I'm not going there like that,
Then I'm a winner.
I've actually won a situation.
It took me a while to get that one.
In really tricky situations,
Not dramatically responding and looking as if I just didn't win.
Even like you said,
It's the distraction of like and dislike.
It's just such a temptation to come away from what you really care about the most.
And you forget so quickly and get caught up as you're saying that you go on trying to win in some way,
To succeed in the wrong way.
Because you see we have a lot of good information now and we can be tempted to use that in the wrong way.
Like,
Oh,
I know better.
I know better.
But we're doing it with arrogance.
Maybe we do know better,
But we're doing it with the wrong attitude.
I'm going to show them that I'm the one that knows.
And so what happens is you're using force over people who need love.
And they need you to step back and let them win if they're going to win.
OK.
So thank you all for coming.
And I hope that was useful.
And it is that I am the energy that lives this life.
No one else can think my thoughts for me and no one else can have the feelings cascading through their physical body.
Except the self.
It's the self that feels the feelings.
And whatever anyone creates in their mind,
They will feel the feelings.
And this is the law of energy.
And when you see people very,
Very distressed,
They're having very distressing thoughts.
And how do you ever start to tell from scratch?
They have to come and hear information.
And if that isn't possible,
You have to be the lighthouse that gives the information through your vibration.
So let us remember that.
So if we sit with our eyes open for a couple of minutes and think I am the living life energy in this physical body,
I am the soul,
The life energy.
Observe the self and notice how we think.
And see that a lot of negative energy comes from us when we try to make situations and everything else change.
Instead of changing ourselves in a second.
In a second I can change my thoughts from being upset to understanding.
And I teach myself to smile at myself and develop a sense of humour at the self.
You think how could I have thought that would have worked when I was thinking like that?
It's impossible actually.
And don't be hard on the self.
The self is loving.
So to pay attention to the self and meditation becoming peaceful fills the self with inner power,
Inner strength.
And it does open up my ability to choose my thoughts and to create beautiful beneficial thoughts for the self which will then affect others.
And I will learn the skills of keep changing these thoughts to change them over and over and over in the day.
So I need to change my thoughts possibly so many times a day if I have thousands and thousands of thoughts in a day.
Stay alert and pay attention and say goodbye to negative thinking.
Keep smiling and remember that every cell in your body is listening to your thoughts.
Om Shanti
