Q) Can You Please Explain More About Positive And Negative Thoughts?

A) As such, there is nothing called negative thoughts in our being. Understand light and darkness. Light has got positive existence but darkness has no positive existence. Lightlessness is called darkness. It doesn't mean lightlessness has got an existence; it just means an absence of light, that's all.

In the same way, negative thoughts have no positive existence. They are there, no doubt, but they don't have such an existence that you can push them out.

All we need to do is create enough light so that lightlessness no longer exists. You can't directly do anything with darkness. For example, if a room is dark, no matter how much you try to push the darkness away, you cannot. Even if ten people sitting in that room try their best to throw the darkness away, do you think they can? No! You can't do anything directly with darkness, because it doesn't have a positive existence. All you can do is just bring in light and darkness disappears.

In the same way, you can't remove your negative thinking by fighting with it. The more you fight, the more you will be creating negativity. With negative thinking, you can't do anything with it, because it has no positive existence. You can't try to push. If you try to suppress your negative thinking, control your negative thinking, please be very clear, you are doing the same thing as when you try to push darkness away from a room. Can you suppress darkness?

All you can do is just bring light into the room and the darkness will disappear. All we can do is just bring in positive energy, positive thoughts; simply, the negativity will disappear. As darkness disappears, the negativity will disappear. To remove darkness, bring in light. To remove negativity, bring in enlightenment, that's all!

Q) In America people have difficulty in stilling the mind for meditation. What will you tell them?

A) Not only in America, all over the world, wherever people have a mind, they have difficulty in stilling it! It is not just in America. If you are a human being with a mind, the problem is there. The very word 'mind' means that which oscillates.

Somebody came and told me, 'I have too much trouble from my wife.' I told him, 'If she doesn't give you trouble, how can you call her your wife?'

Anyway, the very word 'mind' means trouble. There must be some trouble, otherwise we can't call it mind. In Sanskrit, we have a beautiful word for mind, manas. Manas means 'that which oscillates'. So all we can do to still the mind is, don't bother about it, don't try to stop it, just relax and it will also relax.

Don't create a thought; don't try to sustain a thought by supporting it nor try to destroy a thought. Just stop these three and sit with yourself. You will see there will be nomind. If you try to create a thought, there will be mind; you will be giving power to the existence of the mind. If you try to sustain a thought by supporting it, again you are sustaining the presence of the mind. If you try to destroy a thought, again you are strengthening the presence of the mind.

When you are trying to still the mind, the first thing you try is to destroy the thoughts. By trying to destroy them, you will be creating only more thoughts. Our mind is like a lake. If somebody throws a small stone, ripples are created. If you want the ripples to settle down, if you want the silence and, if you go and try to stop the ripples by hand, what will happen? You will be creating only more and more ripples. And you will wonder why the ripples are increasing when you are trying to stop them with your hand! You will get confused and in the process, you will start creating waves instead of ripples!

That is what we usually do when we try to still our mind. Please be very clear, if someone has thrown a pebble and if ripples are created in the lake, just sit silently and see that no more pebbles are thrown. Sit silently and make sure no more pebbles are thrown. That's enough; it will become silent.

In the same way, neither create a thought nor support it by your energy nor try to destroy it. Just drop these three. Sit and you will become God, the Ultimate Energy, the Divine. In Bharat, we call God a Trinity comprising these three parts – creator, sustainer and destroyer. When you don't do these three things with your mind, you enter into God consciousness.

Creating a thought, sustaining a thought or destroying a thought; if you don't do any of these three, you enter into the consciousness of God, Super Consciousness, Christ Consciousness or whatever you may name it. You enter into that ultimate spiritual being.

So, let us pray to that Divine to help us try it once in awhile and give us that experience. Try to make some time for yourself. Try to make one appointment with yourself. We give appointments to everybody but we don't give appointments to ourselves.

Please give an appointment to yourself and have a little time for yourself. Sit with yourself without creating any thought, maintaining any thought or destroying any thought. Just sit with yourself. You will see that you are sitting with God. When you sit with yourself, you will be sitting with God.

I pray to that Ultimate Divine Energy, God, to give us all the same experience of unity with him, God Consciousness. Let Him lead us all from words to silence, Eternal Bliss, nithyananda.

Thank you.