The task for this week is to work on the purity of thought.
Whenever we catch ourselves harboring negative or hateful thoughts about others, envious thoughts, inappropriate erotic thoughts, inter alia, even negative thoughts, perhaps especially, about ourselves, we are to do the concentration exercise.
Bring attention to your selected body area and while you maintain that awareness, observe those thoughts while striving – without effort – and see what happens.
We need to be gatekeeper’s of our thoughts, like an esoteric version of Maxwell’s Demon.
Most of you did not choose to speak last night, so I have to assume that you found it difficult to remember to do the concentration exercise. Nevertheless, the effort is worthwhile and it is important to notice the difference from our “normal” waking state.
There is a small tension in the birth of Christ in the soul. On the one hand, we are to judge our thoughts objectively and impartially, like Christ the Judge. We shouldn’t want to be burdened by negativity.
On the other hand, Christ the Redeemer, will forgive (under the appropriate circumstances) these negative thoughts. There is the tendency in the modern world, under the influence of Freud and the “masters of suspicion” to consider negativity as representing “what we really are” or “our true feelings”. Quite the contrary … they are usually temptations from lower forces, not what we are meant to be.
Fortuitously, I just found out about this talk that may be of interest, at least the first half of it: The Psychological & Spiritual Effects of Being Negative