SpiritWeb

The Wrong Kind of 'Positive Thinking'

Everything can be dealt with and met when it is conscious, whereas it smolders like a time bomb when it is enclosed in the subconscious mind. There disharmonious forms build themselves every bit as destructively as from conscious thought. Diligent students of positive thinking are therefore often encouraged to do just what is worst for them. They are so concerned about not harboring any negative thoughts that they are inclined to push all negative thoughts into their subconscious and thus disregard the discrepancy between what they want to think and what they actually still think or feel.

It should be stressed that thoughts can be controlled by your conscious direction of will, just as your actions can; however, you cannot directly control your feelings. You may know very well that it is sinful to hate, but when hatred is still in you, you cannot change this inner current merely because you try to force yourself. Similarly, if you do not love a person you cannot force yourself to do so, as much as you may want to. The change can be brought about only indirectly, by remote control, so to speak. With every upward step you take on the path, your feelings will change automatically, naturally, and gradually.

One way to bring this about is to make your subconscious known to your consciousness. But the system of positive thinking works the other way; it tries too hard to induce you to convince yourself about something that exists merely on the surface and has no root in you. Thus you live a lie, well meant as it may be. And this is the most harmful of all things! Therefore, it is imperative to meet squarely what actually still exists in you and face it. When you are so concerned with positive thinking, right as it is in the proper way, you may partly fall into danger by your own good will and partly by that side in you which hates to recognize unpleasant currents within yourself. You then disregard what actually exists in you, locking it up where it will ferment and work harder against you than negative thoughts that remain conscious. This is one important consideration that you all should remember.

Certainly, you should practice positive thinking. Observe your thoughts, but observe them quietly, with detachment and in a relaxed way, without guilt feelings, so that you can perceive whenever your emotions are not always parallel to your thoughts or to the way you want your thoughts and feelings to be. You have to learn to view your lower self, accepting its present temporary existence—how temporary depends entirely on you. Your lower self is still a reality on the plane where you now live, and you cannot close your eyes to any reality on whatever plane it may be.

Another misunderstanding, misuse, or abuse that often arises out of the principle of positive thinking is the following: Everybody wants to be happy. This is a most natural wish, which comes from the higher self as well as from the lower self, but only the higher self knows that there is a price to be paid for happiness. The price is all the effort one has to make on the path: self-knowledge, overcoming one’s faults, learning the spiritual laws generally and applying them particularly and personally, and so on. The lower self, on the other hand, wants to attain happiness by outer means and without the price of conquering itself. And the basis for conquering the lower nature is self-knowledge, honesty toward oneself, and self-analysis. The lower self, in its pride, wants to be perfect without doing the necessary and often tiresome work to accomplish this. Thus it is that both the higher and the lower self want happiness, but each in a different way. Your higher self knows that only by perfection within can you achieve perfection without, and that is happiness. Your lower self is not prepared to pay any price; it wants to have its cake and eat it too.

- Excerpt taken from Pathwork Guide Lecture #13 Positive Thinking: The Right and the Wrong Kind