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114
THE ART OF POSITIVE THINKING
interspersed with thorny bushes and in parts marshy. The pedestrian trod carefully, avoilding all the pitfalls. The rider went galloping without a thought. As he approached a marshy patch, his horse slipped and both the rider and the horse found themselves rolling helplessly in the swamp. The steady walker reached his destination by evenfall, but the horseman could not make it.
Logic of course says that the man who rides a swift horse will cover four miles within ten to twenty minutes, or say half an hour. Whereas the man who walks on foot might take an hour. Arithmetically, the horseman would reach his destination earlier than the pedestrian. But in life logic and arithmetic are not everything. What seems logical, mathematical, does not sometimes come to pass. In real life, the slow and steady goer reaches his desitnation while a swift runner staggers to a halt midway. Everything revolves around practical work, it is a matter of maintaining one's balance, doing away with one's restlessness. The man who has not been able to transcend his impatience, who is not steady, experiences such difficulties that he is often bogged down in the morass of endless new problems. Not to be fickle, appears to be inaction, though such inaction is the highest form of action and a sure guarantee of success. He who has been able to end restlessness is better able to achieve his goal. He finds himself capable of accomplishing 10 hours' work within five hours because of greater concentration. In the absence of single-minded concentration, one finds that a mere two hours' work is not accomplished even in cight hours, and sometimes even in eight days. One loses oneself in endless gossip, the mind keeps flitting from one thing to another, and no work is accomplished. The man who has not learnt to end restlessness, to be fully integrated, can never attain a real change of heart because he has not done any groundwork in this direction.
Another important principle is that of rising above like and dislike. Which means, the evolution of equanimity, of what is right and proper. The capacity to do the right thing at the right time does not come easily. One has to excercise a great deal of restraint. On the right hand flows the stream of 'like', on the left flows that of 'dislike'. Our right eye views the pleasant; our left eye views the unpleasant. To adopt a middle course between these two streams and steer clear of each, to be fully aware of the right as well as the left, but not to be influenced by them, is rather arduous. The cultivation of equanimity requires austerity. To keep a fast is not so difficult, nor is it so difficult to abstain from drink; but to steer clear of like and dislike is a formidable undertaking. The mind gets badly involved. When through the practice of meditation, through kayotsarg, cquanimity develops, the consciousness of equableness For Private & Personal Use Only
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