Transforming Negativity

The moment you recognise that you are being negative, you are in the present, and in presence (consciousness that illumines the negativity) there is no negativity.

It is when we are unaware of the ever-presence of self-revealing consciousness that such negative states reassert themselves.

To be ever aware of the ever-presence of self-revealing consciousness is not easy when your attention is elsewhere and it is easy when you realize it is your self which is always present. This happens easily when your mind is quiet and resolved.

To be aware of your self as you are requires you to be at peace with yourself and the world.

Much of the our attention and energy is locked up in psychological patterns that need to be addressed as a part of our spiritual practice, so that the energy trapped in our psyche can be released and become available to the transformation process of the inner instrument of the mind becoming sattvic.

This requires authentic spiritual knowledge from a teacher who has discovered the truth, dedication  spiritual disciplines. And of course it requires time and patience.

One of the tools that can be used to counter negativity is to try and replace the negativity with right attitudes to life born of understanding one's relationship to the whole(the Lord).

Negativity is an unconscious process and the positivity  of right attitudes is a conscious one.

So, when you find yourself in a negative state, and that process of awakening to that fact is already a change of state, consciously choose to think healthy thoughts born of right understanding and slowly your natural state will change.

Don't become discouraged - transformation will come with patience and effort.

My Name Is OM

My name is OM.
I am the boundless space of pure consciousness
Vast and serene, there is nothing else here other than Me
Nothing to divide Me
Nothing to stain Me
Nothing to hide Me
Nothing to limit Me.
Formless, All-pervading, Free, Independent, Changeless, Motionless
My name is OM

My name is OM
I am the all-pervading self-revealing Light of Consciousness
I illumine the clouds of multihued thoughts that appear to manifest in my vast spaciousness
They arise,  float in and resolve in Me
They cant divide Me
They can't stain Me
They can't hide Me
They can't limit Me.
Formless, All-pervading, Free,  Independent, Changeless, Motionless
My name is OM.

The Inner Strength to face the me I don't want to face

The me I don't want face is the unacceptable me who manifests as
• The hurt me
• The I am-not-ok me
•  The guilty/ ashamed me
•  The insecure me
•  The addictive/ attached me
•  The fearing, worrying, anxious me
•  The restless me
•  The jealous me
•  The greedy me
•  The helpless me
•  The lonely me
•  The selfish me
•  The mean me
•  The cruel me
•. The always-wanting-to-please- others me
•   The not-good-enough me ....etc

All these belong to ahankara....often hidden from conscious view as it is painful to face the me identified with any of these feelings.

As one becomes more and more familiar with ones patterns of feeling and behaving over the course of time, one becomes aware of this dark side of one's personality.

Why are there? Most importantly because of ignorance of one's true nature of being  self-evident non-conceptual conscious being who is everfree of body-mind complex. And of course because of one's unique experiences which have led to the formation of one's sense of identity.

Knowledge of the truth of oneself gives one the inner strength to compasssionately face the dark side, forgive oneself for it,  accept one's personality as it is knowing it  to be human, knowing it also to be not the ultimate reality about oneself. It's like the moon has a dark side and I accept the moon with it's bright and dark side.  And this self-acceptance allows one to let go and transform if one  wants. .

It is usually very difficult to approach the dark side of one's personality directly. I would choose to address it as and when it shows up in the form  of some behaviour I  can recognize as coming from the dark side. 

Whenever the dark side comes up some basic attitudes I adopt toward it are:-
1. A willingness to understand
2. Deep loving-kindness towards this part of the psyche ....
3. Staying with it with deep breathing with attention in the heart centre and my mantra and allowing myself to feel the pain without trying to fix it ...allowing it to dissipate on it's own which confirms my understanding that the entire thought-feeling-world simply arises and resolves in the non-conceptual consciousness that in reality I am. The bright side or the dark side of the psyche is illumined in my presence and even as the sunlight is unaffected by what is illumined in it's presence ...so too the light of consciousness, the self,  is untainted by anything illumined in it's presence.
4. Being open to the insights that come as a part of this process .... Usually the false beliefs and beliefs that are no longer relevant or useful will also come to light.  When they do, I use wisdom to see them as false, irrelevant, useless and I let go clinging to them, I let go allowing them to rule ....which means I do not act upon them anymore ...that's transformation.

Om Tat Sat

Practices to gain a focussed clear mind are important

One is a simple conscious being endowed with a body-mind, and independent of it. The body-mind is just an instrument which you, the simple conscious being uses to gain experiences of the world.

However what has happened is that you have as though become your mind by identifying with it and seeing it as yourself.

The mind seems to keep you totally occupied with thinking of either the experienced past,  or the imagined future or even the present conditions of your life. Consequently you don't seem to enjoy any peace of mind.

Because of this preoccupation with your mind, you don't have any occasion to consciously recognise that in reality you have a peaceful existence which is independent of your mind.

So it is important to examine and analyse if you are really your mind or are you in reality independent of your mind.

Vedanta uses the method of discrimination between the self and the non-self to to make you aware of the fact that in every experience you are the awareful conscious being who is ever the subject of the experience, the drk, and never the object of the experience. Without your changeless presence illuminating every changing experience, how can change be appreciated?

To be able to appreciate this truth which you cognitively recognize and yet want to appreciate experientially,  a quiet focussed mind is very useful. In a noisy cluttered mind, it is difficult to even cognitively appreciate this fundamental fact about the self. Even if one does cognitively appreciate the fact of one's self being independent of the body-mind, that understanding does not bless one's life with the sense of abiding freedom.

So investing time to  take to practices that help one gain a focussed mind free of impurities of strong identification with egoic thinking are a must for the person who recognizes that what he/she really wants is to own up the abiding freedom of the self.

Om Tat Sat

Breath Awareness an important tool for managing difficult emotions

Lord, the all-pervading, all-intelligent reality, is our best friend in the form of being consciously aware of our breath. Being consciously aware of one's breathing is  a great tool for learning to pause when faced with a difficult emotion. When one is aware of one's breathing when faced with a difficult emotion, it gives one the space to compassionately allow  the difficult emotion to be there,  without acting upon it with the old reactive patterns. When one is able to be there compassionately for any difficult emotion, without acting upon it, what happens is that there is space for that emotion to dissipate and one finds that one is much bigger than the emotion. It becomes easy to recognize oneself to be the witness-consciousness,  the awareful non-judgemental impartial conscious being in whose  self-evident ever- presence the emotion is revealed, in whose presence the emotion however difficult it maybe because of one's identification with it, comes to go. 

Prana Vikshanam or breath awareness, along with chanting of one's mantra  can become a very powerful tool in the management and  healing of old difficult charged emotions that come up from time to time in a sadhaka's life.

One must give time to develop the practice of consciously watching one's breath. The Buddhist tradition places great value on this practice, for very good reasons. It is a time-tested tool for a sadhaka of any tradition, which can help you to not only learn to master vikshepa (the restless discursive thinking)  but can also help in the clearing of mala, the impurities in the heart, which stand as obstacles to one's owning up one's, innate abiding freedom.

Om Tat Sat