Question of the Month

April 1999

Dealing with Disturbing Thoughts

Why do we get disturbing and unwelcome thoughts? Sometimes, quite out of the blue,you find yourself thinking of unpleasant or undesirable things. This disturbs the even tenor of your mind. Why is this?

I have tried to tell myself that it is wrong to think so, but the temptation is always great. I have tried taking a vow not to think such thoughts, but invariably when these thoughts arise, quite unexpectedly, I am lost.

I tried praying to the Mother, but when such things happen, I feel guilty. How do I resist the temptation and regain the peace and calm I so desire?

 

Your question about bad thoughts has a relevance for most of us. There are a few things you should keep in mind. Your problem is not peculiar to you. It is a universal problem and nearly all of us face this problem in some form, at some time, to different degrees. But most of us are so unconscious of what goes on within us that either we are not even aware that we are indulging in wrong thoughts or we take them as normal. Sometimes we know that they are wrong but we enjoy indulging in them.

Therefore, the very fact that you are aware and would like to get rid of wrong or bad thoughts and are making efforts in that direction is a big step forward towards the ultimate control and mastery.

Because the problem is of a universal nature, you need not feel guilty and brood on it. It will give the wrong thoughts a greater strength of persistence. Nor does the solution lie in struggling with them and trying to fight them in the normal way. Like an irritating fly, the wrong thought will keep coming back the more you drive it away and leave you completely exhausted, but exactly where you were.

If you would like to have a real control and mastery you must understand the origin and cause of the wrong thoughts and deal with them in a quiet, persistent and enlightened manner.

The very question you have asked was also asked to the Mother. Therefore it would be best to give you the answer in her own words.

Why do bad thoughts come?

"For as many reasons as there are bad thoughts! Each one comes for its own special reason: it may be through affinity, it may be just to tease you, it may be because you call them, it may be because you expose yourself to attacks, it may be all this at once and many more things besides.

Bad thoughts come because there is something corresponding somewhere within you: otherwise you might see something passing like that, but they would not come inside you. I suppose the question means: why do you suddenly think something bad?

Because the stages are very different. I have already explained to you that the mental atmosphere is worse than any public place when a crowd is there: innumerable ideas, thoughts of all kinds and all forms criss-cross in such a complicated tangle that it is impossible to make out anything precise. Your head is in the midst of it, and your mind even more so: it bathes in it as one bathes in the sea. And all this comes and goes, passes, turns, collides, enters, goes out... If you were conscious of the mental atmosphere in which you live, obviously it would be a little maddening!...

So one cannot ask where bad thoughts come from - they are everywhere. Why do they come? - where would they go? You are right in the midst of them!

What governs this filter of consciousness which makes you conscious of certain thoughts and not conscious of others, is your inner attitude, your inner affinities, your inner habits - I am speaking of the mind, not of the psychic - it is your education, your cerebral development, etc. That is a kind of filter formed by your ego, and certain thoughts pass through it and others don't - automatically. That is why the nature of the thoughts you receive may be quite an important indication for you of the kind of character you have - it may be quite subconscious for you, for a man is not in the habit of really knowing himself, but it is an indication of the general tendency of your character. To put things in a very simplified way, if you take an optimist, for instance, well, in general, optimistic ideas will come to him; for a pessimist they will generally be pessimistic ideas - I am speaking very broadly - for a person with a rebellious nature, they will be rebellious ideas; and for a very sheepish person, they will be sheepish ideas! Granting that sheep have ideas! That is the usual normal condition. "

Progress and Resistance

"Now, if it so happens that you have decided to progress and if you enter the path of yoga, then a new factor intervenes. As soon as you want to progress, you immediately meet the resistance of everything that does not want to progress both in you and around you. And this resistance naturally expresses itself in all the thoughts that correspond to it.

Suppose that you want to make a progress regarding attachment to food, for example; well, almost constantly there will come to you thoughts particularly interested in food, about what should be taken, what should not be taken, how it should be taken, how it should not be taken; and these ideas will come to you, they will seem quite natural to you. And the more you say within yourself, "Oh! how I would like to be free from all that, what a hindrance to my progress are all these preoccupations", the more will they come, quietly, until the progress is truly made within and you have risen to a level of consciousness where you can see all these things from above and put them -in their place -- which is not a very big place in the universe! And so on, for all things. Therefore, your occupations and affinities are going to put you almost contradictorily into contact not only with ideas having an affinity and relation with your way of being, but with the opposite. And if you don't take care from the beginning to keep an attitude of discernment, you will be turned into a mental battlefield.

If you know how to rise to a higher level, simply into a region of the speculative mind which is not quite the ordinary physical mind, you can see all this play and all this struggle, all this conflict, all these contradictions as a curiosity which does not touch or affect you. If you rise a step higher still and see the the goal towards which you want to go, you will gradually come to discern between ideas favourable to your progress which you will keep, and ideas opposed to this progress which harm and impair it; and from above you will have the power to set them aside, calmly, without being otherwise affected by them. But if you remain there, at that level in the midst of that confusion and conflict, well, you risk getting a headache!

The best thing to do is to occupy yourself with something practical which will compel you to concentrate specially: studies, work or some physical occupation for the body which demands attention - anything at all that forces you to concentrate on what you are doing and no longer be a prey to these ramblings. But if you have the misfortune, to remain there and look at them, then surely, as I said, you will get a headache. For it is a problem which must be resolved either by a descent into practical life and a concentration on some practical effort or else by rising above and looking from above at all this chaos so as to be able to bring some order into it and set it right.

But one must never remain on the same plane, it is a plane which is no good either for physical or moral health".

How to get rid of Wrong Thoughts?

You would no doubt like to know what practical steps you can take to get rid of wrong thoughts. The Mother was once asked:

"Mother, at times unpleasant thoughts come and disturb us. How can we get rid of them?"

The Mother's answer is very direct and extremely practical. She said:

"There are several methods. Generally--but it depends on people -- generally, the easiest way is to think of something else. That is, to concentrate one's attention upon something that has nothing to do with that thought, has no connection with that thought, like reading or some work -- generally something creative, some creative work. For instance, those who write, while they are writing (let us take simply a novelist), while he is writing, all other thoughts are gone, for he is concentrated on what he is doing. When he finishes writing, if he has no control, the other thoughts will return. But precisely when one is attacked by a thought, one can try to do some creative work; for example, the scientist could do some research work, a special study to discover something, something that is very absorbing; that is the easiest way. Naturally, those who have begun to control their thought can make a movement of rejection, push aside the thought as one would a physical object. But that is more difficult and asks for a much greater mastery. If one can manage it, it is more active, in the sense that if you reject that movement, that thought, if you chase it off effectively and constantly or almost repeatedly, finally it does not come any more. But in the other case, it can always return. That makes two methods.

The third means is to be able to bring down a sufficiently great light from above which will be the "denial" in the deeper sense; that is, if the thought which comes is something dark (and especially if it comes from the subconscient or inconscient and is sustained by instinct), if one can bring down from above the light of a true knowledge, a higher power, and put that light upon the thoughts, one can manage to dissolve it or enlighten or transform it -- this is the supreme method. This is still a little more difficult. But it can be done, and if one does it, one is cured -- not only does the thought not come back but the very cause is removed.

The first step is to think of something else (but in this way, you know, it will be indefinitely repeated); the second is to fight; and the third is to transform. When one has reached the third step, not only is one cured but one has made a permanent progress."

We feel the above insights will help you in taking the initial steps and with persistence, prayer and aspiration, we are sure you will succeed.