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THE ART OF POSITIVE THINKING
that all living beings use penal force. But there are also trees which employ force to embroil a man in their tentacles. There are trees whose leaves are at first open, but as soon as a man sits under these, the leaves close round him, and after extracting all sap out of him, fling off the empty shell of a carcass. And there are not one, but many such trees and plants which use violence, which suck the life out of living beings and exploit them. Likewise the ants maintain social order among themselves, the queen-ant directing the movement of the whole community. The ants which shirk work and become lazy, are excommunicated. Similar is the organisation of the bees, the bee-queen awarding punishment to and boycotting the shirkers.
In the whole world of living creatures, penal force and power is employed for maintaining order. But man has also developed selfdiscipline to replace brute force. It is his distinction to use the minimum of brute penal force, and to awaken self-discipline instead.
The first principle of effecting a revolution in the psyche, a complete change of heart, is self-discipline. Until self-discipline is evolved, one cannot be said to have revolutionised one's being. Change of heart is an imperceptible process of our consciousness; it cannot be seen. But the evolution of self-discipline in an individual is an indication that a change of heart has actually taken place.
The evolution of self-discipline is an important step in the establishment of society and social values. Non-violence is unimaginable without self-discipline. Self-discipline, in fact, is the basis for the full development of non-violence.
The second element of a psychic revolution is the development of fearlessness. Non-violence is unimaginable without fearlessness. Fear is one of the primal drives. Man is afraid. Fear informs the whole of human life. Man fears the past, the present and the future. He is cowed down by the past; the fear of something which happened and is now no more, is indelibly imprinted upon his mind and man continues in fear of that happening throughout his life.
Something happened in a man's life. He was terribly frightened and by no means he was able to get rid of his fear. Somebody suggested, “The simplest and an infallible way to get rid of your fear is to forget the incident that caused it. Erase it from your memory altogether." The man liked the idea. Now he grew extremely selfconscious and found himself constantly iterating, "I must forget that event. I must obliterate the past." However, the more he tried to forget it, the more strengthened in memory the event stood. Thus, through memory, the event was constantly rejuvenated. The fear of the past continued unabated.
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