Goodbye To Negativity

GOKULANANDA

CHAPTER ONE

GOODBYE TO NEGATIVITY

Negative Emotions

GREED, HATRED, JEALOUSY, DISHONESTY, and other negative emotions have penetrated deep into our psyche as we forget the importance of religion in our lives. We are slowly becoming slaves to these feelings that are eating away the very foundations on which this society is based and can be sustained.

We forget the basic truth—our divinity—at the back of it all. Once we realise that the same Atman dwells in every individual, there will be no question of hatred, jealousy, or any ill feeling for others. We are all Atman, pure consciousness, and this body is just the grossest covering or annamaya kosha. Within this body, there is the subtler part called pranamaya kosha. We can see and feel this physical frame but not our pranic body, and since we cannot see it, we find it hard to believe in it.

Ask yourself a basic question: How can I hate myself? Or, how can I be jealous of myself? If the same spirit (soul) is present in all of us, then where does the question of being more powerful, more beautiful, or better than others arise? Still, we sometimes find ourselves incapable of suppressing ugly and mean thoughts.

Overcoming Negativity

To subjugate all negative emotions, you need to subject yourself to spiritual discipline. You must practise four-fold sadhanas—the synthesis of four yogas—Karma Yoga, Jnana Yoga, Bhakti Yoga and Raja Yoga. Yoga means ‘yoke’ that is ‘to join’. It joins the soul of man with the supreme soul of God.

Karma Yoga

Karma Yoga teaches us to act with the spirit of detachment. You need to work vigorously but also be able to surrender the fruit of your actions to the Lord. Make it your daily practice to do whatever has been assigned to you without taking care of its consequences, be it working as a teacher or sweeping the floor. Never think that you are the actor, and actions will go on automatically.

Just like a radio or taperecorder that produces sound without there being anyone inside, the body you have can work without a ‘doer’ inside it. Mere karma for your daily life is different from Karma Yoga, which is not physical in nature.

Karma Yoga is actually a harmonious relationship between an individual and his creator.

Jnana Yoga

Jnana yoga teaches us to discriminate. You have to discriminate every day between the good and the bad, the right and the wrong. Often, you take decisions on the spur of the moment and make mistakes. The daily practice of Jnana Yoga helps you to exercise the power of discrimination and you find yourself much more capable of handling daily dilemmas and resisting petty temptations. In short, you’ll be able to handle any situation efficiently.

This process of self-control is described in the Katha Upanishad by the simile of the chariot. The body is compared to the chariot, the embodied soul to its master, the intellect or discriminative faculty to the driver, the mind to the reins, the senses to the horses, and sense-objects to the roads. The chariot can serve its purpose of taking the master to his destination only if it is built well, if the driver can discriminate between the right and the wrong roads, if the reins are strong enough, if the horses are firmly controlled, and if the roads are well chosen. Only the mind with some kind of discriminatory powers enjoys a smooth and problem-free journey of life and death.

Bhakti Yoga

Bhakti Yoga or the path of devotion teaches all of us to love others irrespective of their colour, caste, creed, and wealth. To be pure and to do service to others is the gist of all worship. Anyone who tries to find God in temples will always fail to do so if he is not engaged in the service of the poor, the afflicted and the downtrodden. In this context, Swami Vivekananda said: ‘O India! Forget not that the ideal of thy womanhood is Sita, Savitri, Damayanti; forget not that thy marriage, thy wealth, thy life are not for sense-pleasures; forget not that thou art born as a sacrifice to the Mother’s altar … forget not that the lower classes, the ignorant, the cobbler, the sweeper, are thy flesh and blood, thy brothers.’

Bhakti Yoga is love as a spiritual discipline. Bhakti can be Apara Bhakti (it means yoga for any beginner) or Para Bhakti, which is the highest form of Bhakti. A devotee engaged in the latter sees the Lord and Lord alone everywhere and experiences His power manifested in different ways.

Saint John has rightly said, ‘We do not know the real method of worship designed by the Lord by following the wrong path, we make our load of sins heavier.’

Raja Yoga

Raja Yoga or the science of meditation exhorts us to meditate daily. You should earmark a few minutes for holding communion with our inner self or God. It is spending some time quietly in self-analysis, introspection, and other such inward directed activities.

Meditation is the technique that helps you to bridge the gap between our external disturbances and inner dimension in order to keep your mind composed and focused. It enables you to meet the challenges of the external world instead of running away from it and retiring into the solitude of the Himalayas.

Raja Yoga is a science that involves an analysis of the mind, gathering the facts of the inner self and thus building up the spiritual world. It is an appeal to reason like any other form of science.

The daily practice of these four forms of yoga helps you to face and conquer circumstances in the present and future. Without it, you cannot have either the present or the future.

CHAPTER TWO

HOW TO END SUFFERING

SUFFERING HAS BEEN WITH man from the beginning of time. It is very much with man even today. Sometimes, through long association, you begin to like a thing, though initially you disliked it. But this has not happened in regard to man’s attitude to suffering. Man hates suffering as passionately today as he has always done. He will do anything to get rid of it. Seeking to end suffering, man down the ages has done ever so many things. Behind the development of science, art, and philosophy, there is the story of man seeking the end of his sufferings. Behind many religious practices is the same story. Behind the stories of many a crime, including committing suicide, is the story of a man who was desperately seeking the end of his suffering. Those who take drugs of various sorts and those who become alcoholics are doing so seeking to end their suffering.

How much suffering man has caused himself by seeking to end his suffering. And what has been the result? Has he succeeded in finding out the methods of ending his sufferings? The answer to this question is both ‘no’ and ‘yes’. In spite of all his efforts man has not yet succeeded in destroying suffering as a fact of life. As with day, night is a fact, so with life, death is a fact. As long as life is here on earth, suffering is going to stay. Man cannot destroy this fact of suffering. It is not given to him to do so. But man has succeeded in finding out methods of ending personal suffering. It is a very hopeful message. Every intelligent human being should know about this in order to make this life worth living.

The ‘no and yes’ answer to the question as to whether man has succeeded in finding out methods for ending suffering means one thing. There will be thorns but you can avoid getting pricked. Or even when pricked you can take another thorn and remove the first thorn and be free of pain. Suffering, by its nature being a fundamental problem of life, calls for a solution of fundamental nature. The first thing to remember about personal suffering is that for most of our suffering we ourselves are responsible and we ourselves shall have to work for its removal.

We must clearly understand that there are levels of existence in which suffering is inherent. If you decide and persist to stay in a particular level, then your personal suffering cannot be ended. There is the level of existence where you press your finger on the thorn, refuse to take it out, bleed and weep. In this level of existence none can help you unless you change your mind.

There is the level of existence in which you think that you are the body and the mind; that you will always stay young and never grow old; that you will not be attacked by disease; that death will not come to you or your dear ones; that the things you hold dear will abide with you forever in an unchanging manner—in this level of existence you can never end your suffering for all your expectations are wrong and will be violated.

There is a level of existence in which you think that by cleverness or by any other device you will avoid the consequences of your own evil deeds. In this level of existence you cannot end personal and mental suffering.

Why can we not end suffering in these levels of existence? Because these levels of existence are characterized by false identifications and ignorance about the facts of life. It is only by changing the level of existence which is characterized by true insight into the nature of things and our acceptance of the facts of life as they are that we can prepare ourselves for getting rid of personal suffering. If you drink molten iron your stomach cannot help getting somewhat disturbed. But you do not have to drink it.

Regarding methods of ending personal suffering we must turn to the authentic scriptures of the world and the greatest spiritual masters of the world who knew the truth about things and who were compassionate, and not to dubious sources of controversial assertions and counter assertions. Such methods alone should be adopted which are authenticated by the test of time and have been found truly helpful down the ages.

Confining ourselves to Indian thought alone, we shall now briefly indicate how we should work for complete cessation of personal suffering. The essence of Indian wisdom is in the Upanishads. In the Upanishads we can find the solution for all the fundamental problems of life, spiritually speaking.

Striking the keynote of all Hindu thought, on our issue in hand one Upanishad says: ‘When men shall roll up space as if it were a piece of hide, then there will be an end of misery without one’s cultivating knowledge of God.’ Here is the most complete and categorical answer to our inquiry: How to end personal suffering? ‘As it is not possible to roll up the sky like a piece of hide, so it is impossible to end suffering without knowing God.’

The implications of this statement are two:

(a) Only he who has known God has completely ended his personal suffering.

(b) To the extent we have moved and applied ourselves to the practice of such disciplines as are helpful for knowing God, we are on the way to ending our personal suffering.

All other methods of ending personal suffering are like palliatives, which would not last one single shower of adversity.

Kathopanishad classifies the same idea in more positive terms in the following statements:

‘There is one who is the Eternal Reality among non-eternal objects, the one truly conscious entity among conscious objects, and who though non-dual, fulfills the desires of many. Eternal peace belongs to the wise, who perceive Him within themselves—not to others.’ (2. 2. 13)

‘Atman, smaller than the small, greater than the great, is hidden in the hearts of all living creatures. A man who is free from desires beholds the majesty of the Self through tranquillity of the senses and mind and becomes free from grief.’ (1. 2. 20)

Human wisdom and spiritual insight have not travelled further. And here is the complete answer to the problem—how to end personal suffering:

‘A man who is free from desires beholds the majesty of the Atman through tranquility of senses and mind, and becomes free from grief.’

No improvement on this wisdom is ever possible because it is an immutable, absolute truth. In subsequent Indian thought this truth has been expounded and elaborated in various religious and psychological terms. The complete answer, however, is already here: know the Atman and end all your suffering.

In the subsequent Indian thought great spiritual teachers taught us how to apply this truth in life. In the Gita, Sri Krishna deals, in passing, with the problem of personal suffering in many places. In some of his teachings there is a direct answer to our question, and in others there are implied answers. From the teachings of the Gita we can get those direct and implied answers to our question—How to end personal suffering.

The most categorical statement Sri Krishna makes on this issue is as follows:

‘Yoga kills out all pain.’ He defines yoga as perfect equanimity, dexterity in work, and balanced living. He calls it yoga because it helps one to unite his mind with God.

By implication Sri Krishna says:

(a) By becoming a man of steady wisdom one ends personal suffering. A man of steady wisdom is not affected by the pair of opposites.

(b) By going beyond the gunas, the substantive forces which constitute these phenomenal goings on in the world, and staying unaffected by them, one ends personal suffering.

(c) He who knows that God is the friend of all beings and works out the implications of this in his life, ends personal suffering.

(d) Having come to this impermanent abode of misery, he who worships the Lord with unswerving devotion ends all personal suffering.

(e) He who crosses maya through resigning himself completely to God in all possible ways ends all personal sufferings.

(f) That perpetual ascetic who neither hates nor desires, who is free from the pairs of opposites—he ends all personal sufferings.

(g) He who is not perplexed by sorrows, does not crave happiness, is free from attachment, fear, and anger—he ends all sufferings.

It would appear that after saying all this, Sri Krishna emphasized that for the generality of mankind complete self-surrender to God was the easiest way of ending all personal suffering. These authentic teachings, when properly put into practice by anyone, at any point of time, anywhere in the world, will cause the end of personal suffering. There can be no doubt about this.

Among the great world teachers, it was Buddha who attacked the problem of suffering in the most thoroughgoing manner. In fact, Buddha was not a seeker after God. He was a seeker and path-finder for the elimination of human suffering. He even refused to discuss metaphysical problems on the grounds that they were not burning issues of life. The burning issue, according to him, was ‘dukkha’, or suffering.

Regarding the origin of suffering, Buddha entirely agreed that it was ‘Trishna’ or Desire, as taught by Vedanta. But regarding the methods of ending suffering Buddha gave his own formula. It is entirely psychological without any reference to soul or God. His was the analytical approach in which man has to take the entire responsibility of suffering himself and work out its solution.

We read in the Buddhist scripture Samyaka Nikaya that