It is better whether with work or with sadhana to go on quietly, allowing the Force
to act and doing your best to let it work rightly, but without this self-tormenting and
constant restless questioning at every point. Whatever defects there are would go much
sooner, if you did not harp on them too much; fo r by dwelling on them so much you lose
confidence in yourself and in your power of openness to the Force—which is there all the
same—and put unnecessary difficulties in the way of its working.2
Bad thoughts and mind control
Sweet Mother, do people have bad thoughts because they have no control over their minds?
Bad thoughts?.... There can be several reasons for that. In fact there are several reasons.
It may be due to a bad nature—if people have nasty feelings, these nasty feelings can
be the cause of nasty thoughts. It may be the opposite. Perhaps they are wide open to
all sorts of suggestions from outside and, as I said, these suggestions enter them and
gradually create nasty feelings. It may be due to subconscious influences which are
conflicting precisely because they are uncontrolled. When these influences rise to the
surface, instead of being controlled and those which are undesirable refused, everything
is allowed to enter as it likes, the doors are open.
You are bathed in all kinds of things—good, bad, neutral, luminous, dark; it’s all
there, and each one’s consciousness should, in principle, act as a filter. You should receive
only what you want to receive, you should think only what you want to think; and then,
you should not allow these thoughts to be changed into feelings and actions without
formal authorisation.
In fact, this is the very purpose of physical existence. Each person is an instrument
for controlling a certain set of vibrations which represent his particular field of work;
each one must receive only the ones which are in conformity with the divine plan and
refuse the rest.
But not one in a thousand does that. You do it a little, half consciously, due to the
friction of circumstances and surroundings, but as for doing it deliberately, surely there
are very few human beings who do it deliberately; and even when it’s done deliberately,
to do it in the true way and with the true knowledge, that indeed is still more exceptional.
Thought-control! Who can control his thoughts? Only those who have trained
themselves to it, who have tried hard since their childhood.
There is the whole range, you see, from total lack of control, which for most people
comes to this: it is their thoughts which rule them and not they their thoughts. The vast
majority of people are troubled by thoughts they cannot get rid of, which literally possess
them, and they don’t have the power to close the door of their active consciousness to
these thoughts. Their thoughts govern them, rule them. You hear people saying every
day, “Oh! That thought, all the time it comes back to me, again and again, and I can’t
get rid of it!” So they are assailed by all kinds of things, from anxiety to ill-will and
fear. Thoughts which express dread are extremely troublesome; you try to send them
away, they return like a rubber band and fall back on you. Who has control? It requires
years of labour and such a long practice. And so, to come to something which is not
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