Education in Values and Spirituality :: Meditation and Values

Module 5 Unit 2 - Positive Thinking

Thinking is the most subtle form of action. Thinking means to create mental pictures, words, feelings and states of being. Thinking takes place within the soul and is immediately reflected on the body. Positive thinking means purposefully to create positive thoughts and to resist negative thoughts. Thoughts also create feelings. If your thoughts have a positive significance, they will produce an experience of positive feelings. If they have negative meaning, then the experience is correspondingly negative.

All thoughts have a tendency to express themselves as sustained thought streams, words or actions. Anything you experience as negative tends to overpower your mind and limit your freedom of thought. Practise stemming the flow of negative thoughts and establishing inner quiet. You can reconsider how you feel about past events and reframe a past event in order to change its impact on your thinking and reduce its ability to enslave your mind. Negative thoughts create a loop which repeats indefinitely and progressively weakens the mind.

Positive thought originates in self-respect. Self-respect means that you are aware of the essential truth about yourself and know on a deep level that any negativity within you is acquired and not original. Positive thinking generates a stream of positive thoughts and brings about a positive inner experience. This in turn draws you close to your original or true state of consciousness and counteracts any existing false ego or false consciousness. False ego is a substantial obstacle because it creates and sustains a loop of negative or waste thoughts.

Self-respect is the most authentic state of being for any individual. In your state of self-respect you are strong, clear and cannot be deceived; you are free. Your mind radiates positive energy into the environment, and you produce an atmosphere of serenity for yourself and others. Generating streams of positive thoughts also promotes mental stability and good coping skills.

When your values are well thought out and developed you can control the stream of thoughts that arise in response to various external stimuli. You have the power to choose. Your own fears, desires, and lack of clarity and your existing habits limit your power to make free choice. People who dominate your thinking, attitudes and preconceptions are also limiting influences. The more you practise positive thinking, the more you become free from these limitations. Consciously reinforce your self-respect. Humility keeps you free from false ego which drives negativity. Let self-respect be your natural condition. Criteria for determining positive and negative are concerned with values. Once you decide what your values are, it becomes clear whether any issue is positive, negative or neutral.

This unit on positive thinking encourages you to accumulate inner power through meditation to strengthen you against any potentially shocking situation. It also encourages you to accumulate habits of positive thought so that you maintain your energy. This energy is necessary to sustain your resistance to negative thinking, and empower you to guide the mind and emotions so they do not get out of control. The mental stage of being free from a false self-image, free from arrogance and other character weaknesses is your aim. It takes time, practice and study to reach such a state of mental purity and calm.