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146 Twelve Facets of Reality easy to fall into hatred, bitterness, sorrow, negativity; it is difficult to lift oneself out.
Drug addiction comes from this kind of negativism. Some may say that taking drugs is for getting high; really that is self-deception. The person who takes drugs does not want to be with himself. He wants to forget himself and hide the truth from himself. Unfortunately, by taking drugs, the person is slowly destroying his own brain cells. Brain cells which are naturally active no longer function, and the person wallows in a kind of slow motion. When these cells are burned, the intelligence, awareness, and keenness of thinking cannot shine forth. The mechanism by which they come out has been destroyed.
In this bhavana, you have to watch what you are doing and remember to meditate constantly on your reality. Meditate on your inner unity and say, “I am I. Why should I worry about the opinions of other people? If I am not with myself, who will be? I will be I. That is all.” All of the problems arise from not remembering the Self. It must become your habit day and night to remember it as you remember your own name. Your name is merely a tag, yet think how deeply this tag has gone. Even in sleep, you remember your name. If someone mentions it when you are asleep, you will open your eyes and say, “Hello!" If your name, which was given before you had a chance to approve of it, has gone so deep, why should not your own reality be as deep?
When one thing is taken for another, when a lie is taken for truth, when unreality is taken for reality, when the temporary is taken for the permanent, that is called mithyathva, or wrong belief. It is the most dangerous element in the path of a spiritual aspirant. It is this lack of clarity which causes us to take our name, which is
