Power of Your Own Thoughts

It is important to know that there is a relationship between your thinking and the way you feel. It’s important to realize that you are constantly thinking. Don’t be fooled into believing that you are already aware of this fact! Think, for a moment, about your breathing. Until this moment, when you are reading this sentence, you had certainly lost sight of the fact that you were doing it. The truth is, unless you are out of breath, you simply forget that it’s occurring.

Thinking works in the same way. Because you’re always doing it, it’s easy to forget that it’s happening, and it becomes invisible to you. Unlike breathing, however, forgetting that you are thinking can cause some serious problems in your life, such as unhappiness, anger, inner conflicts, and stress. The reason this is true is that your thinking will always come back to you as a feeling.

Try getting angry without first having angry thoughts! Okay, now try feeling stressed out without first having stressful thoughts – or jealous without thoughts of jealousy. You can’t do it – it’s impossible. The truth is, in order to experience a feeling; you must first have a thought that produces that feeling.

Unhappiness doesn’t and can’t exist on its own. Unhappiness is the feeling that accompanies negative thinking about your life. In the absence of that thinking, the unhappiness, or stress, or jealousy, can’t exist. There is nothing to hold your negative feelings in place other than your own thinking. The next time you’re feeling upset, notice your thinking – it will be negative.

Remind yourself that it’s your thinking that is negative, not your life. This simple awareness will be the first step in putting you back on the path toward happiness. It takes practice, but you can get to the point where you treat your negative thoughts in much the same way you would treat flies at a picnic: You shoo them away and get on with your day.

Seek first to understand and then be understood

Essentially, “seek first to understand” implies that you become more interested in understanding others and less in having other people understand you. It means mastering the idea that if you want quality, fulfilling communication that is nourishing to you and others; understanding others must come first.

When you understand where people are coming from, what they are trying to say, what’s important to them, and so forth, being understood flows naturally; it falls into place with virtually no effort. When you reverse this process, however (which is what most of us do most of the time), you are putting the cart before the horse.

When you try to be understood before you understand, the effort you exert will be felt by you and the person or people you are trying to reach. Communication will break down, and you may end up with a battle of two egos.

Seeking first to understand isn’t about who’s right or wrong. It is a philosophy of effective communication. When you practice this method you’ll notice that the people you communicate with will feel listened to, heard, and understood. This will translate into better and more loving relationships. 

Ignorance is no excuse

At present everyone is suffering due to ignorance, just as one contracts a disease out of ignorance. If one does not know hygienic principles, he will not know what will contaminate him. Therefore due to ignorance there is infection, and we suffer from disease. A criminal may say, "I did not know the law," but he will not be excused if he commits a crime. Ignorance is no excuse. Similarly, a child, not knowing that fire will burn, will touch the fire. The fire does not think, "This is a child, and he does not know I will burn." No, there is no excuse. Just as there are state laws, there are also stringent laws of nature, and these laws will act despite our ignorance of them. If we do something wrong out of ignorance, we must suffer. This is the law. Whether the law is a state law or a law of nature, we risk suffering if we break it.

The guru's business is to see that no human being suffers in this material world. No one can claim that he is not suffering. That is not possible. In this material world, there are three kinds of suffering. These are miseries arising from the material body and mind, from other living entities, and from the forces of nature.

The guru sees that suffering is due to ignorance, which is compared to darkness. How can one in darkness be saved? By light. The guru takes the torchlight of knowledge and presents it before the living entity enveloped in darkness. That knowledge relieves him from the sufferings of the darkness of ignorance. 

True Religion

At the present moment, no one actually knows the meaning of religion. Religion means to abide by the laws of God, just as good citizenship means to abide by the laws of the government. Because no one has any understanding of God, no one knows the laws of God or the meaning of religion. This is the present status of people in today's society. They are forgetting religion, taking it to be a kind of faith. Faith may be blind faith. Faith is not the real description of religion. Religion means the laws given by God, and anyone who follows those laws is religious, whether a Christian, a Hindu, or a Muslim.

The religious system might have been misused, but that does not mean that religion should be avoided. Real religion should be taken. It does not mean that because religion has not been properly executed by the so-called priests, religion should be rejected. If my eye is giving me some trouble on account of a cataract, it does not mean that the eye should be plucked out. The cataract should be removed. That is Krishna consciousness.