BHAKTI-VEDANTIC PSYCHOLOGY AS A SOLUTION TO EXISTENTIAL PROBLEMS: EMOTIONS AND THOUGHTS IN THE EVOLUTION OF OUR CHARACTER AND DESTINY

EMOTIONS AND THOUGHTS IN THE EVOLUTION OF OUR CHARACTER AND DESTINY

by Matsya Avatara Dasa.

Problems without solution do not exist. The in-depth psychological knowledge of the Vedic tradition, in harmony in modern psychological researches, identifies conscious and active willpower  as the turning point for the solution to existential problems: one ought to desire to find solutions and methodically pursue them with determination, instead of plunging deep in pain, thinking it incurable. A remissive attitude sets the person for failure. The first steps out are undoubtedly strenuous, as coming out of a moor or quicksand, but later, walking in the direction of light, the joy of living rises again from within, bearing all its vital power. Attitude is the focal point: the way you approach life, life responds to you, as it happens in relationships with fellow humans. We are the directors of our mental scenery: if we find one scenery is wrong and unfitting we can take it out, replace it with the proper one, and our mood will change. If we avoid complaints and save our energies, once we hit the profound conviction of how we want to act, we will have energies at our disposal to invest and multiply. You can multiply your resources by investing them in evolution, or you can destroy them in wasteful lamentations: it is all up you. In the evolution of consciousness, thought is a tool and emotions the means; we can use emotions for a quality jump in perception, instead of living them as knots which tie to conditioned existence. Therapy can start the moment we counter hot-natured emotions with cool-natured thoughts which have the power to clarify any turbid content. It is certainly difficult for thought to counter emotions on its own, as the latter's psychic charge is significantly higher. A series of positive emotions well instilled in our memory is our ready to hand emergency kit: when we wish to evoke them, they are immediately in our reach. Positive emotions are themselves a strong emotional charge, generally a luminous, expansive, penetrating one which can refine the healing operation only partially accomplished by thought.

It could be teachings we have received, beautiful life moments when we've experienced spiritual happiness: these memories will be extraordinarily precious if we can evoke them at the right moment, the moment of a trauma or serious crisis, even when death is approaching. If you try and change the scenery and evoke some moments of happiness from the memory archive, moments of intense spiritual growth together with people engaged in positive thinking and acting, you'll see your mood suddenly change and the course of thinking take a more vibrant and luminous direction.

Careful storage of positive moments is then all the more important: moments of joy, moments when we deeply understand others and  they understand us, and most of all moments of truth which open our vision. If we are accountable for our thinking, then who forces us to  store anguishing emotions or sad thoughts? There is no obligation, we ought only to learn to substitute them with other positive emotions and thoughts. As Patanjali (Sadhana Pada, sutra 34) suggests to meditate on the opposite thought, when negative thoughts haunt the mind.