Why do we have negative thoughts? When we have negative thoughts we need to understand that some garbage is being cleaned from the mind. Let it come out and we should not feel guilty about it. The garbage is there in our mind, because it has not been cleaned out. If we clean everyday through spiritual practices such as meditation, we will have less and if we clean once a year, we will have lots.

Most of our so called problems are nothing but wild projections of our own minds. It is our minds that cause us utmost pain than even physical discomforts. The world of imagination and the illusion of fear and hope are great obstacles to the pilgrim on the path.

Mind sees problems where in reality none exists! The two of the biggest tricks that the mind plays on us is making us feel that there is doership and free will where neither exists!! If there is no doership, the question of free will doesn’t arise at all.

The only way we can overcome negative thoughts, feelings and emotions such as anger, selfishness, jealousy, etc., is by increasing our awareness level and analyzing the root cause or source from where these negatives manifest. If the effect is there, there has to be a cause. Once the cause is known it can be eliminated. With the elimination of cause the effect ceases to exist.

For example, when anger rises within us, the moment we become aware of it, it loses its sting, its power. What do we need to do immediately after that? When anger is welling up within, the moment one becomes aware of it, one should leave the place and be alone or with someone with a good sense of humour. Laughing activates positive emotions in the brain. It is an expression of pure deliverance and total tension release. Laughing induces good mood and that in turn engenders hearty and intense laughter. Look in the mirror and observe the contortions on the face resulting from anger. Practise deep breathing exercises at such time. Observe the anger in mind as a witness.

Engage in sacred chants. Meditate on the emotion of anger. Drink a glass or two of cold water.

Now we go into the analysis. What is anger? Anger is defined as an intense attachment for an object when expressed towards an obstacle that comes between us and our object of attachment. It is also defined as revenge taken on ourselves by us for somebody else’s mistakes, since it is our temperature and blood pressure that rises, it is our body that shakes and our eyes that become blood-shot. In the end we only suffer physically and psychologically. Anger also slows down the healing process in case of wounds, injuries and surgeries. So it is always beneficial to maintain tranquility.

Further, this anger arose because of our attachment to some being or thing. When we analyze our attachment itself, we realize that this attachment was due to the false sense of security or a false notion that it gives us some kind of joy, pleasure or benefits us in some way. It is nothing but illusions projected by the deluded mind on things and beings of the world.

Nothing from the finite world can ever give us what we really seek and that is Eternal, Infinite Happiness. At the most the world can give us only ephemeral, impermanent, fleeting, momentary pleasure which is invariably followed by pain. We also realise through analysis that only those things and beings whom we have given some value invoke negative or depressive thoughts, emotions and feelings if they are not in our favor.

We cannot be jealous of something for which we have given zero value. The entire manifest world is impermanent and constantly subject to change. So it is foolhardy to give any value to the world. To the extent we start giving zero value to the world to that extent it ceases to affect us and invoke negative thoughts or feelings in us.

Now how to increase our awareness level? The only way we can increase our awareness level is by living hundred percent in the present moment. Whatever activity we are engaged in at any moment, we need to be intensely aware of it without allowing the mind to wander into the past or the future. Constant practice of living in the present moment will result in higher levels of awareness.

Errors happen in ignorance not in awareness.