Positive Thinking, Negative Thinking, and the Truth

Ahhh, the equanimity of a life without vasanas!

There is a role for positive thinking. But it isn’t in the processing of an upset or the flattening of a vasana.

“Vasana” is a Vedantic term for a persistent reaction pattern triggered by a current upset which resembles a past upset.  (1)

When we feel upset, our behavior often becomes automatic and we revert to patterned responses.

They are not the chief impediment to an experience of enlightenment, but they are the chief impediment to retaining an experience of enlightenment.

When we go to choose the blue pill or the red pill at Ascension, (2) our incomplete vasanas of craving as well as aversion will, I predict, be the chief adversary, operating on us possibly to have us choose to remain in 3D.

Thinking at all is not useful while processing an upset or flattening a vasana. One does use the mind, to be sure, but one uses it without requiring it to think. One simply asks it for the earlier, similar situation the vasana is based on. Then one allows it to do its magic, taking the first thought the mind kicks up.

Actually thinking about the earlier, similar situation will interfere with the way the mind naturally works. It will be using the mind at a time when we want to leave the mind free to do what it does best – freely associate and feed back.

To engage in positive thinking to deflect attention away from a triggered vasana will simply drive the vasana back down into the subconscious. It will not cause it to disappear as processing will.

In the space where I’m free of upset – which I like to think of as a “blue sky” space – positive thinking engages the Law of Attraction and brings those positive things and events to me.

SaLuSa talks about this process. “Like attracts like,” he says. (3)

“Where you direct your thoughts is where your energy goes, and the more you focus upon it the stronger the link becomes for you. So you can see Dear Ones, why it is important to keep in your sight the beneficial changes promised to you. In so doing you are helping manifest them quicker than they might have done otherwise. Your present reality developed in this way and hence we say that you created it yourself.” (4)

Matthew offers an example: “Drawing to you the energy of souls in spirit whom you didn’t personally know but greatly admired and often think about is ‘like attracts like’ in operation.” (5)

Matthew tells us that it is getting critical for us to focus generally on what we want and not what we don’t want.

“Just as everything else is being accelerated, so are the results of the universal law of attraction coming more rapidly and forcefully. We cannot stress too strongly how crucial it is to focus on what you want, NOT what you don’t want!” (6)

Why are things this way? My colleague Ed would say “DOS,” by which he means “Divine Operating System.” I agree. I think it’s so because that’s the way God designed it. God designed the whole lila or divine play so that everything would lead us from Him to Him, Who is the only true and permanent thing in the play.

All the “natural” laws are “divine” laws, divine constraints placed upon life and things by God. No laws apply to God Himself, but they do apply to the realm of matter, mater, Mother. The Mother, or Shakti, or the Holy Spirit, is the phenomenal world and the energy that holds it together. In that domain, natural law applies. (7)

SaLuSa acknowledges this situation in a passage in which he shows that the Law of Attraction dovetails with the Law of Free Will:

“Freewill is a gift from the Creator that is sacred and covered by the Law of Attraction. Human beings sometimes blame others or God for their experiences, but in truth they are attracted to you by your thoughts and actions. … Freewill is still your prerogative, but having agreed a plan for your life you are drawn to those people and experiences that will help fulfil it.” (8)

Free Will is a gift from the Creator – or perhaps a requirement of the Creator. It is a design feature or design element (9) of law just as reincarnation or the longing for liberation (10) are.

But the situation is altogether different when we turn to the processing of an upset. Here we find a remarkable turn of events, still totally consistent with the Divine Plan of assisting us to realize our true identity. In this arena, positive thinking will not cause the vasana created in reaction to an earlier, similar upset to disappear. But knowing the truth will.

Jesus said “ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.” (11) He didn’t say “positive thinking shall make you free.” Why does the truth set us free? Ed would say “DOS” again. And that would be a true explanation for me.

If our task is to realize our true identity as God, then once we’ve realized that truth, it makes sense that we have finished the game and will be released.

Realize the truth of a vasana and you’ll be set free from that vasana. In the illustration I gave earlier, (12) I saw that the truth of the upset I was experiencing was that I had formed an identity based on commenting on international affairs. In letting go of posting articles from the alternative press that did not take into account the 2012 scenario, it looked to my mind as if I was letting go of the last vestiges of being an international-affairs commentator, an identity I had assumed at age seventeen.

The truth was that my mind thought I was losing an identity and so, because it is organized to save the organism and everything it identifies, it felt upset.

So, no, positive thinking will not help you get to the source of an upset. Only the truth will
While positive thinking is generally a good thing in attracting to oneself a wholesome and satisfying future, it isn’t a good thing in processing an upset or flattening a vasana.

Footnotes

(1)  See “Sri Ramana Maharshi on Habitual on the Problem of Our Habitual Tendencies” at https://sbeckow.wordpress.com/ascension/preparing-for-ascension/sri-ramana-maharshi-on-the-problem-of-our-habitual-tendencies/ and “OK, I Feel Upset … Oh, Great!” at https://sbeckow.wordpress.com/ascension/preparing-for-ascension/ok-i-feel-upset-oh-great/. See also “I Know I Came Here to Communicate This” at https://sbeckow.wordpress.com/ascension/preparing-for-ascension/i-know-i-came-here-to-communicate-this/

(2) I acknowledge my friend, Ed, for a stimulating conversation on patterns and Ascension, in which he used this metaphor.

(3) SaLuSa, June 25, 2010, at http://www.treeofthegoldenlight.com/First_Contact/Channeled_Messages_by_Mike_Quinsey.htm

(4) SaLuSa, Feb. 5, 2010.

(5) Matthew’s Message, April 26, 2010, at http://www.matthewbooks.com/mattsmessage.htm

(6) Matthew Ward, Sept. 21, 2009.

(7) See “On the Nature of the Divine Mother or Holy Spirit” at https://sbeckow.wordpress.com/spiritual-essays/on-the-nature-of-the-divine-mother-or-holy-spirit-2/ This is the mystical meaning behind the phrase “the voice of one crying in the wilderness.” the Mother is the voice; the Father is the wilderness. The voice is able to speak in the relative, phenomenal, “form-full,”  or material domain; the absolute, transcendent, formless, and immaterial wilderness is not. The Mother is the voice, which is regulated by laws; the Father is the wilderness, which is above and beyond the reach of law, except as it deigns to submit to them.

(8) SaLuSa, Sept. 18, 2009.

(9) See “Ch. 2. Is There a Plan to Life?” from The Purpose of Life is Enlightenment at https://sbeckow.wordpress.com/16244-2/the-purpose-of-life-is-enlightenment/ch-2-is-there-a-plan-to-life/

(10) See “Ch. 7. The Longing for Liberation” from The Purpose of Life is Enlightenment at
https://sbeckow.wordpress.com/16244-2/the-purpose-of-life-is-enlightenment/ch-7-the-longing-for-liberation/

(11) Jesus, John 8:32.

(12) In “OK, I Feel Upset … Oh, Great!” at https://sbeckow.wordpress.com/ascension/preparing-for-ascension/ok-i-feel-upset-oh-great/.