Negative Thoughts

Thinking deeply and with full attention seems strange in this devolving and decadent era. From the Intellectual Centre arise various thoughts originating, not from a permanent Self as the ignorantly enlightened suppose, but from the different “Selves” within each of us.

When a man is thinking, he firmly believes that he, by himself and by his own will, is thinking. The poor intellectual mammal doesn’t want to realise that the multiple thoughts that cross through his understanding originate in the different “Selves” we carry within.

This means that we are not true thinking individuals; we don’t really have an individual mind yet. However, each of the different “Selves” that we carry within uses our Intellectual Centre, using it whenever it can to think. It would be absurd, therefore, to identify with this or that negative and harmful thought, believing it to be our own particular property.

Obviously, this or that negative thought comes from whichever “Self” has abusively used our Intellectual Centre at a given moment. There are different kinds of negative thoughts: suspicion, distrust, ill will towards another person, passionate jealousy, religious jealousy, political jealousy, jealousy over friendships or of a familial type, greed, lust, revenge, anger, pride, envy, hatred, resentment, theft, adultery, laziness, gluttony, etc., etc., etc.

Really, we have so many psychological defects that even if we had a palace of steel and a thousand tongues to speak, we wouldn’t be able to enumerate them fully. As a sequence or corollary to what has been said, it is absurd to identify with negative thoughts.

Since it is not possible for there to be an effect without a cause, we solemnly affirm that a thought could never exist by itself, by spontaneous generation… The relationship between thinker and thought is ostensible; each negative thought has its origin in a different thinker.

In each of us, there are as many negative thinkers as there are thoughts of the same kind. Looking at this question from the pluralised angle of “Thinkers and Thoughts”, it happens that each of the “Selves” we carry in our psyche is certainly a different thinker.

Unquestionably, within each of us there are too many thinkers; however, each of these, despite being only a part, believes itself to be the whole at any given moment… The mythomaniacs, the egomaniacs, the narcissists, the paranoids, would never accept the thesis of “The Plurality of Thinkers” because they love themselves too much, they feel like “Tarzan’s dad” or “the mother hen”…

How could such abnormal people accept the idea that they do not possess an individual, brilliant, wonderful mind?… However, such “Know-it-alls” think the best of themselves and even dress in the robe of Aristippus to demonstrate wisdom and humility…

The legend of the centuries tells that Aristippus, wanting to demonstrate wisdom and humility, dressed in an old robe full of patches and holes; he grasped the staff of philosophy in his right hand and went through the streets of Athens… They say that when Socrates saw him coming, he exclaimed in a loud voice: “Oh Aristippus, your vanity is seen through the holes in your garment!”.

Whoever does not live always in a state of alert novelty, alert perception, thinking that they are thinking, easily identifies with any negative thought. As a result of this, they lamentably strengthen the sinister power of the “Negative Self”, author of the corresponding thought in question.

The more we identify with a negative thought, the more slaves we will be to the corresponding “Self” that characterises it. With respect to Gnosis, to the Secret Path, to the work on oneself, our particular temptations are found precisely in the “Selves” that hate Gnosis, the esoteric work, because they are not unaware that their existence within our psyche is mortally threatened by Gnosis and by the work.

Those “Negative” and quarrelsome “Selves” easily seize certain mental corners stored in our Intellectual Centre and sequentially originate harmful and detrimental mental currents. If we accept those thoughts, those “Negative Selves” that at a given moment control our Intellectual Centre, we will then be incapable of freeing ourselves from their results.

We must never forget that every “Negative Self” “Self-Deceives” and “Deceives”, conclusion: It lies. Every time we feel a sudden loss of strength, when the aspirant becomes disillusioned with Gnosis, with the esoteric work, when they lose enthusiasm and abandon the best, it is obvious that they have been deceived by some Negative Self.

The “Negative Self of Adultery” annihilates noble homes and makes children unhappy. The “Negative Self of Jealousy” deceives the beings who adore each other and destroys their happiness. The “Negative Self of Mystical Pride” deceives the devotees of the Path and these, feeling wise, abhor their Master or betray him…

The Negative Self appeals to our personal experiences, to our memories, to our best hopes, to our sincerity, and, through a rigorous selection of all this, presents something in a false light, something that fascinates, and failure comes… However, when one discovers the “Self” in action, when one has learned to live in a state of alertness, such deception becomes impossible…