Exploring Sources of Positive Strength By Dadi Janki

Exploring Sources of Positive Strength

By Dadi Janki

Contrast between positive and negative:

There is a lot of power in positivity.  Positivity is like nectar and negativity is like poison.  Negativity is to take sorrow and give sorrow to others.  

Positivity is to take happiness and give happiness to others.  When I go inside myself and understand the contrast between the two then there is the natural tendency to take and give nectar and to stop taking and giving poison.  Where there is positivity, there is the experience of blessings and good wishes for others.  When I think in a positive way there is natural happiness and good wishes for others.  I think good things of myself and good things of others.  When I think before speaking then I am able to think carefully and then speak.  Where there is positivity whatever I think and speak will be useful and filled with deep significance and good feelings.  Positivity creates an atmosphere of love before my words are expressed.  My words are filled with feelings of love and are spoken in a way that makes it easy for others to accept the words that I speak.  

When I explore the contrast between negativity and positivity, I find that negativity is like being in the dark but I am not aware that I am in the dark.  It is like having eyes, but being blind and unable to see.  What would the quality of interactions with others be like when there is darkness?  Those who don’t have sight, they themselves need support.  How is it possible for them to give support to others?  Those who are positive stay light themselves and their interactions with others are light.  The wisdom they have in their interactions with others comes from understanding and truth inside of them.  I have to understand the contrast between these two – positivity and negativity – and really remove all traces of negativity from within me.

The power of being positive:

Positivity means that I have patience, I have peace, and my thoughts are elevated and pure, my thoughts are selfless, and there is humility.  This helps me to prepare my mind to draw power from God and through this I am able to take personal benefit.  Then I am able to appreciate my own fortune, time, and God.  I am able to appreciate that the time has come for me to keep myself in a positive state.  What should I appreciate?  God, time or the realization that what was not possible before has now become possible.  At the right time, the right thing has come for which my soul was hungry and thirsty.  The soul was distressed and so nothing seemed good – the food did not taste good, the water did not quench the thirst.  It was as if there was no solution to 

anything.  This is known as a state of restlessness.  Such a soul becomes awakened through positivity.  Darkness is removed, there is understanding, and the soul is able to experience so much power and strength through positivity, and this puts the soul into a state of happiness and joy.  Some moments ago the soul may have been in a restless state, very distressed inside wondering:  who should I call out to?  Who should I tell about my condition?  No friend or relative could offer the soul any solutions.  Now through positivity the soul becomes its own friend. No one or nothing is his enemy.  So what happened?  

Did God become his friend or did the soul become his own friend?  Or was it that the soul heard the call of the time?

Now that the time has come, I have to pay attention.  Everything came to me, fortune, God, time and the power of the gathering.  What did I have that God pulled me here to be part of this?  It is as if I find the solution to everything.  In today’s world people say that to go straight from negativity to positivity is not that easy.  There is negativity everywhere -- in the world outside, in my own self, in the people around.  Someone may have love for me because of their attachment to me, but they don’t really have that true power of love inside them.  I do not receive inner strength because of relationships or because of the amount of wealth I have.  I may have wealth, friends and relatives, but look within the heart and see if there is positivity.  True help can only come from my own self.  Help will come when I go inside myself.  Let there be such deep love inside that the negativity that has penetrated my heart, I am able to pull it out and throw it out.  This is hard work.  Sorrow is like a huge mountain inside me. If you want to remove a mountain, you just can’t start smashing it, for if you do there will be even more rocks flying around and you, yourself will get hurt by the flying rocks and others as well will be hurt.  Little by little things get accumulated inside and become like a huge mountain.  Now learn to make a mountain into a mustard seed.  How would you do that?  It will happen through the power of positivity.  However you would need that much positivity.

Waste weakens positive strength:

Become free from wasteful thoughts because they make me weak.  Check the self and see to what extent I have wasteful thoughts.  The funny thing is that there are wasteful thoughts but I consider those thoughts to be right thoughts.  I just don’t realize that they are the wrong type of thoughts.  I become stubborn and prove myself to be right even though I am not right.  Negativity has ego but wasteful thinking has subtle arrogance.  Subtle arrogance means that it is not easy for me to accept other people’s ideas and I end up thinking that others should do what I am saying.  There should be an atmosphere of truth and love and subtle arrogance is not conducive to this.  Actually it is easy to realize negative thinking and positive thinking, but it is not so easy to realize one’s own wasteful thinking.  Wasteful thinking does not allow strength and power to be accumulated within the self.  And whatever little I do have, that will start to dissipate.  I have understanding, and I may have a practice, but I still do have wasteful thinking and I do not realize the damage that this causes.

I have to go deep within and see to what extent are my thoughts elevated, thoughts that are of benefit to others.  I have to keep my own record inside.  Thoughts of the past and thoughts of other people get mixed into wasteful thinking.  Things that have happened in the past sneak into my thinking and create waste, and my interactions with others are mixed with good and bad things.  And so when someone has something good I am impressed and therefore influenced by them. And when there is negativity in them then I will have dislike toward them.  And this may be in percentage, but it means that my thoughts and feelings cannot be pure or positive.  Waste thoughts are such that they will never make me realize that this is my wasteful thinking.  I check myself and find that I do not have any waste thoughts any more and I made the effort to free myself from them realizing the damage that they cause.  I understand that when there are wasteful thoughts the energy that I have accumulated is lost.  With wasteful thinking there isn’t the space for pure and positive thinking.  I have to create space for pure and positive thinking.  If I do not remove the waste that is inside of me then the positive and elevated thinking won’t work.  There is also ordinary thinking and we justify this by saying we are ordinary human beings and so we should have ordinary thoughts.  

Make time to be positive:

Where there is peace, love and truth my thoughts become elevated automatically.  I do not have to consciously think about it.  When someone is in a position of authority, that position keeps everything in order.  For such a person if things are not working well in their absence it would be considered to be their weakness. Those who are not in positions of authority can be careless in their work, and only under supervision do they put things right.  It would not be natural to them. All my interactions and relationships should be filled with so much truth and positive feelings that I don’t have to think twice about them.  Even the subtle thought – this is not right, this is not good – what type of thought is that?  -- I can’t bear to see someone else’s mistake. – This is a thought filled with anger.  – I don’t like this, and I don’t like that -- what quality of thinking is this?  My thinking is like that, then my face reflects it, then my interactions are like that.  What is all of this? Even if I don’t say anything in words, but my interactions are definitely affected.  I may not tell the person that I don’t like something, but inside I know and I step aside.  Is this pure, positive, powerful thinking?

That which is real, clean and positive should happen because of my own feelings. My thoughts should be so clean that they become filled with love.  Whatever it is that God wants for something, let me able to fill that in it.  God wants me to care, share, and inspire others.  Don’t be careless.  Don’t do anything wrong. You must not make a mistake.  Absolutely not in your words, but more so not in your thoughts either.  Do not enact wrong thinking.  Thoughts bring things into words and activities.  Where there is purity there is honesty generated; honesty with the self.  Do not be dishonest with the self.  When it comes to doing this type of spiritual work people say that they don’t have time and I wonder what they are saying.  What does it mean that you don’t have time?  You don’t have time to make yourself honest!  Am I not able to make myself honest?  This is amazing! There is immense benefit in being honest with one’s own self and with God.  Nowadays people do not have the intense desire to be honest with themselves. Only when you are honest will pure and positive thoughts be generated.  You will be able to finish the root of negativity with honesty.  The seed of honesty is purity and this is what will bring beautiful fruits.  Go deep inside, uproot all the rubbish and throw it out.  Let me not play around with this or be careless saying – a little is O.K. The subtle point to understand is in whatever way I look at others they will look at me in the same way.  Vision, feelings from the heart, and attitude should give happiness to others.

Be tireless in the effort of being positive:

Understand positivity deeply and become an image of positivity.  To know, to practice and to create such an image of experience that I am generating enthusiasm within my own self and I also generate enthusiasm in others.  People study and then practice what they have studied.  It is practice that brings the conviction to what I know and convinces others of this.  Pay such attention to be always successful in the effort of being positive.  There should never be a point where I am not successful in this effort.  Sometimes my nature takes over and I rush into doing things.  Then there is less success and I become sad as a result of this.  When sadness makes its home inside of me it is difficult to remove it.  With the power of truth, let me smile and deal with situations in such a way that they are removed.  It is my power of truth that would not allow me to be sad with any situation.  Rather it would give me love and patience to let the situation sort itself out.  If I think how it will happen, when will it happen, then I will become disheartened.  This type of thought makes me stuck inside.  Thoughts of disheartenment finish the power of positivity.  If you were to ask God for one blessing it should be – never to become tired of being positive.  Be tireless in this effort.  Tiredness causes a lot of damage – to me, to what I do, to my relationships, to everything.  If I react to a situation then I put myself in a dangerous place.  Then it takes time to set it right.  When I continue to smile and not be influenced by what is outside of me, I will experience my own good feelings from inside, help from God, then I know that the power of positivity is working.  Things don’t happen just with positive thinking but also with faith.  I must learn the art of creating a good atmosphere.  No matter what the mood might be, but my ability to create a good atmosphere will transform that.  Should it be that I become affected by other people’s moods or should it be that my mood is such that it changes their mood.  This is an incognito gift received from God that wherever I set foot, I create an atmosphere of lightness.  Situations will be situations; and people will be people.  But why does that affect my mood?  If you are speaking of someone else why does your face become like the one you are speaking of?  The nature of human beings is together with compassion, they experience unhappiness.  Actually there has to be compassion with no sorrow or pain.  If out of compassion I am feeling someone else’s sorrow actually I cannot help them.  If I have compassion, let me give cooperation and let me help them.  Together with sorrow comes worry and fear.  If I have sorrow, worry, and fear to whatever degree then I cannot have a merciful heart.  I would want to help but I won’t be able to do it.  I won’t have the strength to do it.  Let me work on myself that I don’t have worry, fear, and sorrow.  Work on the self with love in the heart.  Then God will help me to help the world remove itself from worry, fear,  and sorrow.  Worry, fear, and sorrow don’t allow me to keep my thinking pure.  These two things don’t go together – worry and good thinking.  Worry, fear, and sorrow can be transformed with mercy, truth, and love.  When these three are imbibed then I can start the work of removing the sorrow of others.  The reason why I am not able to maintain positivity is because negativity has penetrated my nature and sanskars. There is my own negativity and with this other people’s negativity is also accumulated within me.  I have to remain beyond the influences of that which I want to change both on the inside and on the outside.  Just as weapons fight with weapons, let silence work with silence.  Because of fear, people store weapons and so if attacked with weapons they will fight with weapons.  They know that weapons are dangerous but they keep it for safety.  We need to have silence in such a way that we are able to create peace outside.  Nothing should attack me in my nature or sanskar (personality).  External things attack me because I am careless.  I was not cautious or alert enough.  I may have virtues but it is only when I live those virtues, there is value in my thoughts and my time.  There needs to be the method to check the self and the method to change the self and to change the self in the moment it is checked.  If I don’t change in that same moment then it takes time to change.  The power of truth and the power of God’s love enable me to change in the moment of checking the self.  I have great value for thoughts and time.  If even for a second something waste goes inside of me then I am not maintaining my dignity.  Once I get caught up in something wasteful it is difficult to remove myself from it.  Pay attention to the sanskars (personality).  One is a gross intellect that finds it difficult to understand these concepts.  We are in bondage to 4 things: God is watching me, every second of time is watching me, every thought me, and the world is watching me.  Now I should be watching myself.  Do not be careless even for one second in any of these.