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THE ART OF POSITIVE THINKING
appear that the dog chases a man to bite him, but the real cause is the dog's attraction for the smell. The man is running because of fear; the dog runs for the sake of the smell which it finds very pleasant. One is in the grip of fear, the other simply allured.
Indeed, allurement and fear are the two basic offences. One man acts out of fear, the other out of temptation. All our urges, all our social motivations, lie within the orbit of fear and temptation. There is the action of fear and there is the action of greed. If fear and greed come to an end, human action, as it is at present, will also come to an end.
We shall have to explore the hidden causes behind appearances. The real cause of all human action lies within. One man is swayed by anger, the other by love. Still another is dominated by fear. Someone indulges in back-biting or abuse. Still another is utterly restless - restless without a cause; he finds himself in the grip of a strange melancholy and despair. All these various moods cannot be adequately explained in terms of the external situation alone; it is also necessary to delve deeper and be fully acquainted with the inner condition of a man's mind. If anything, it is even much more important, for the inner overcomes the outer. Every man longs for a change; he wants to get rid of his restlessness. He wants to be happy; to free himself from all kinds of tensions and frustration. Nobody wants to live in fear. A man confided to me that when he was in a state of fear, all his dreams were coloured by fear. He saw a leopard or a lion, or a wild bear. Or he would find himself near the edge of a stream and see himself drowning in it. He had such terrible dreams that he did not know what to do with himself. He wanted to get rid of fear altogether. It was not at all a very pleasant state to be in. He wanted to get rid of his deficiencies. He wanted his morale to be high, and not so inhibited by fear as to imagine calamities everywhere. Even a little problem appeared to be very acute and irresolvable in a state of fear; one then created mountains out of mole hills. So to change oneself was a dire necessity. But how to change? The first essential is to comprehend the inner compulsions. What motives are at work inside, creating a particular situation. Only then something could be done. First insight, then action.
Change in attitude, change in thinking, change in the body chemistry- these are the three inner changes. First of all there has to be a change in attitude. When the attitude undergoes a change, thinking, too, is transformed. Thought does not create attitude; it is the other way round - it is attitude that shapes thought. Some people give out wrong interpretations. Even today I came across an exegesis that what arises first is thought and that in turn creates
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