Tantra on Negative Thoughts

[Guest guest]

In many of my sojourns in body on planet Earth I have aligned myself with

Tantra,

seeking to fully understand the intricacies, subtleties and depth of this path.

Again in this lifetime I have continued this journey. If we go to the core of

Tantra, it is about living a Divine life in the physical, not about aspiring to

the

Divine in the hereafter. It offers some really powerful answers to how we can

do

that. This involves stripping away the illusions we have developed about

ourselves

and getting down the core, the truth of who we are.

 

I am writing a series of essays on Tantric "tools" which will form a book on the

subject.

This post is one of those.

 

Tantra on Negative Thoughts

 

We all have negative, critical and judgmental thoughts of others. No matter

hard

hard we castigate ourselves for these, they just won't go away. These negative

thoughts won't disappear because they are our best tool to use in understanding

the

deeper aspects of ourselves. Our negative thoughts, and words if we ultimately

express our thoughts, are our truth about ourselves. What we judge, criticise

and

devalue in others is exactly what we believe, deep down, about ourselves.

 

The role these negative thoughts have for us is to highlight for our conscious

self

what our subconscious can see clearly, that we have faults and issues that we

need

to face and resolve. Our thoughts move through our awareness rapidly and go

from

one subject to another in a long connected process. Unless we pay particular

attention to our thoughts throughout the day, we remain fairly oblivious to the

huge

amount of negativity we are projecting.

 

We judge our spouse and family, we judge the store keeper, the hairdresser, the

dog

over the road. All day long we think negatively and we apply it to others.

Each of

these people that we consign some awful behaviour to are God’s messengers to

show us

where we own that behaviour. A girlfriend was complaining to me about her

mother-in-law. She said to me that the other woman was rude, inflexible,

patronising and uncompromising. These traits that she sees in her

mother-in-law

are all her traits. She exhibits these things in her dealings with her

mother-in-law and with others. Her mother-in-law is a Divine messenger to act

in

a way that mirrors her and to help her see the truth about herself. Once she

recognises these are her behaviours, she can change them and will no longer need

the

mirror message. She will no longer see those behaviours in her mother-in-law

when

she no longer has them herself.

 

Ultimately to grow, we have to change. When we resist changing, we receive some

very powerful mirror messages that will shock us and force us to re-assess our

position. We can make very powerful changes when we use our negative thoughts

as

tools to understand our underlying beliefs about ourselves. Negative thoughts

won’t

disappear because we need them to give us understanding about ourselves that may

be

deeply hidden within. Many of our judgmental thoughts won’t be obvious to us

but

contemplation and reflection will allow them to surface and reveal the truth.

 

Thoughts are personal and individual. We don’t have to reveal them to others so

they aren’t a tool to help others, they are there to help us uncover the truth

about

ourselves. Our truth isn’t what we pretend it is. We try to keep maintaining

that

we are OK. We pretend we don’t judge like others, we aren’t insensitive, we

don’t

lie or we don’t deceive, like others. Our illusion is that we haven’t got the

human

frailties that so embrace others we know. Our conscious mind can block out our

behaviour but our inner self knows the truth of who we really are.

 

You can really utilise this magnificent tool by spending a few days observing

your

thoughts. Write down the negative things that you think about others as you

encounter them in your daily life. Then look at where those negative things

apply to

you. Take your attention totally away from the other person and just concentrate

on

you and how those words you‘ve written apply to you. When you recognise where

that

attitude or behaviour is manifest in your life, look at ways you can change it.

 

This is a particularly powerful tool to use with people that are constantly

around

you and regularly push your buttons. Write down what you think about them and

their

behaviour. Take some time out and go back later and look at your list as the

traits

that you need to recognise in yourself and change.

 

Regards,

Sue

http://www.adelaide.net.au/~smacrae