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THE ART OF POSITIVE THINKING
others. Al these are stored in memory. Not the accumulated experience of one life, but of many previous lives as well. All these leave their mark on the mind. When a man, freeing himself from outer interests and inclinations, sits in concentrated attention, the inner memories rise and manifest themselves. Is there a man who has never perpetrated violence, never killed anything, never told a lie, never indulged in deceit and illusion, never committed thefts, robberies and plunder or other crimes? Each of us is guilty of these crimes, if not in this life, in innumerable previous lives at least. These proclivities in subtle forms cling to our emotional being for ever. These are not visible. When a man is in a state of meditation, inner warmth increases. Under the pressure of this inward heat, the subtle imprints on the mind soften and appear in gross forms. It seems then that some demon is causing harassment, creating endless trouble. Strange visions arise and a man is quite perplexed.
According to an ayurvedic doctrine, one should start one's day at dawn with the incantation of 'Om'. Every religious community holds that one should remember God immediately on getting up in the morning, Spiritualistic philosophies recommend self-contemplation or self-perception as the first activity of the day. All these serve as a means of awakening constructive thought. If the wheel of constructive thinking is set in motion at the very beginning of the day, all actions thereafter are likely to be performed with full awareness. On the other hand, if the wheel of negative thinking is set in motion at matin, the whole day is engulfed by the destructive aura thereof.
Modern man's mode of living is somewhat different. Nowadays, a man likes to begin his morning with a cup of tea and a perusal of the newspaper or by listening to the radio. The newspaper is full of material for rousing negative tendencies, enough to vitiate the quality of the entire day. The daily newspaper is mostly full of news of violence of various kinds, murder, rape, theft, robbery, pillage or accidents; it is largely filled with romantic incidents, all of which are expressions of negative and destructive thinking and which nourish morbid thoughts and feelings in the reader's mind. A man spends the entire day under their domination. That is what constitutes modern man's worship of God, his act of self-observation, his cherished substitute for the incantation of the sacred word Om', with which he begins his day!
All this shows that man's approach in determining the course of his everyday living is not scientific; rather it is most unscientific. What to speak of meditation and practice thereof, even his daily routine (which is of foremost importance) is not properly chalked out.
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