What’s the best way to deal with negative thoughts?
- What’s meaning of negative? Negative is supposed to be ‘neerog’ or healthy in medical terms. Such as Corona negative. HIV negative is supposed to be good for health, etc.
- Negative is supposed to be dark or unhealthy in common terms. “He’s a pessimist. He’s dark. His thinking is dark,” etc etc
- I looked for many positive thinkers in books, in articles, in newspapers, online, offline : I found some acharyas, thinkers and teachers.
- They were all using words like “bhakti” or “mukti” etc. These were supposed to be end of dukkha or suffering. Nirvana of Buddha, deliverance by Christ, Moksha of Hinduism and Jainism, heaven of Judaism or Islam.
- I discovered that Bhakti only meant rejection. Failure. Frustration.
- They were all teaching death.
- It took countless disguises: hunger, thirsty, shame, desire, failure, anger, pride, envy, alienation, delusion, helplessness. Malady. Darkness.
- It was only death.
- I tried everything I could.
- I surrendered to gods, prayed to saints, I followed advice of elders, youngest, friends and family. I arrived only at this conclusion: there was no escape.
- The death was true rest of all was false. Heaven, life, devotion and everything else were just masks death was wearing.
- Death was true. What was death? Nobody knows. Nobody. Let nobody pretend it to you. You shouldn’t pretend it to anyone.
- There were messengers of God claiming to defy death and promising treasures of devotion, liberation etc etc
- They’re false prophets and messengers.
- Death is the only prophet, only messenger, only lord. It’s called Yama in Indian mythology. Night, darkness and all other synonyms are synonyms of death including aging, decay, accidents etc etc.
- Death is what they were teaching all along.
- Devotion was rejection, abuse and work after work. Never ending list of tasks. Thoughts.
- Let’s come to thoughts: Ludwig Wittegenstein for reference. There’s no thought that exists in isolation. Hence there’s just mind. Thoughts don’t have boundaries. If you examine what you call mind you will not find a single thought in isolation. You will find that your mind isn’t a mind. It’s the mind of all- a common mind or universal mind and it’s not really different from spirit or matter. It’s one with reality, existence or whatever you want to name it. It’s what it’s.
- Bhawan Shri Raman Maharshi used to say:
- “Asking people to do more things when they approach you for refuge is akin to playing the role of Yama- God of death.”
- Why?
- Because: if they were really capable of changing their lives or making them better by doing more things: they wouldn’t have approached you.
- And if you think grace of Guru or God was like a loan to be repaid later- they were not gods or guru to begin with- they were all death in disguise.
- “God isn’t your uncle.” Osho reference.
- Hence: when death is accepted as goal of all activity, all teaching, all endeavours: there’s nothing else remaining to be discovered. Moksha, heaven, liberation, bhakti or anything else.
- In the Kathopnishad story where Yama is approached by the Nachiketa, son of sage Uddalaka- Yama refuses at first to answer the question about Death. He asks him to get any boon he wanted except the knowledge of death.
- Nachiketa refuses to accept anything else.
- This was the first spiritual story I read in a book by Eklavya Publications books. It used the word Moksha. And since Hinduism taught that Moksha was the liberation from the cycles of birth and death- I tried to attain liberation.
- I was convinced that I had attained liberation. Not just once. Many times. It was a wrong conviction.
- However, after last few months I am convinced that devotion or bhakti is the way to know about the ultimate secret of my life.
- It’s Death. It was death.
- Death is the only reality.
- There’s no Mrityupnishada. There’s no real discussion on death anywhere. There are near death experiences on internet but they don’t talk about Hinduism version of death.
- Time is the word used for death ( Kaal ) in Hinduism. Time is death. It’s measurement. It’s also called Maya. They’re death. Death is called The End but it’s not. It’s a mystery of mysteries. Nobody knows what death is. Is it a Black Hole of Astrophysics?
- Is it an infinity? Or a series of infinities?
- Nobody knows death. It’s darkness.
- For kaal there’s a mahakaal. Greater and greater time for smaller time and so and so on.
- It never ends. Nobody knows death. Not even the death itself knows itself.
- Fear and desire are merely two names of death. Core of existential modes of living. They’re death.
- There’s no other entity free from death.
- Death is the changeless background behind life. The constant. Brahm. Reality is death. All teachers were teachers of death.
- Is this article a way to get free from negative thoughts? I don’t think so. Especially as death is not supposed to be talked about among people.
- My final submission is: I don’t think I know anything that can permanently cure death or darkness or negativity. It’s going to be more and more of death only. From death it all has emerged. In death it all lives and in death it finally merges and comes out from. It’s the final destination.