LIVING WITH SIVA - EMOTIONAL SLUMPS

LESSON 293 from Living with Siva

Emotional Slumps

Everybody falls into negative slumps at one time or another when they
deny the God principle within themselves, when they deny their knowing
power, absolutely, deliberately deny it, by allowing their thinking
principle--what they themselves think as a little ego--to take hold and
cancel off, just like an eraser on the blackboard of life, the soul's
attempts to express itself.

For example, you are going along fine, just wonderful, you are feeling
great, and a little opportunity to serve comes up and you miss it. You
know you should, but you don't think it is quite the time, when it would
be just as easy to fulfill whatever you know you should fulfill. But you
think, "Well, this isn't exactly the best time for me." You have very
good reasons to say no, excellent reasons, because the thinking mind is
always filled with excellent reasons. They are wonderful for the time,
but they wear out. That is why we don't exercise our memory and remember
all the reasons we had for our actions.

If I asked why did you do this and that and those unseemly actions,
you might say, "Yes, I know what you're thinking. I had a very good
reason at the time, but I can't recall it just now." You don't want to
remember the reason, because you know it was only an excuse sufficient
for a time. Yet the action remains, along with the reason, which was a
weak one, vibrating in the subconscious mind. If you accumulate two or
three such incidents, pretty soon you fall into a negative slump, where
you don't feel like doing anything and nothing seems to make sense to you
in the spiritual world or any other world. You just drag along and say,
"Oh my, the burdens of life are getting pretty heavy." Eventually that
condition wears out, too, and you swing back and get a little light
in you. That is why people turn to stimulants, excesses of chocolate,
sugary yum-yums (the junk food business makes millions on the negative
slumpers) and various innervating beverages, such as coffee and soft
drinks, to pep up the physical body. But the body can take only so
much of these negative slumps before it reacts and, in its reaction,
becomes unhealthy. Finally it succumbs to disease; it is not at ease
within itself because the subconscious mind is not at ease.

When you refrain from denying that soul source within you and fulfill
what you know you should do, then you are filled and thrilled with
life force. Your soul is shining out in the material plane. You don't
go into negative slumps. You become like the people who don't just get
up to do things, they jump up and are happy to do anything they have an
opportunity to do. But deny your knowing principle, and it becomes an
effort to do anything--even an effort to remember how you should respond
and what you should do.

Many people know they should do certain things to help out, to help
their families, their relatives and friends. But as the weeks go by,
what they know they forget, because they really didn't want to do it
in the first place. They didn't think they had time; they didn't think
they could help; they didn't think they could afford it. They have so
many limitations. They put their poor old soul into a cage. Excuse me,
I am going to rephrase that. They put their poor young soul into a cage,
because old souls manifest consideration. Young souls are just learning
how. And this poor young soul climbs right into this little cage and sits,
like a newborn baby, waiting for the subconscious mind--which has been
filled with negative activity, negative thoughts and a negative approach
to life--to unwind itself. But the soul within has to first watch itself
wind up--and it winds up through the many lives, with all its negative
creations, all of its thinking versus knowing, and thinking winning
out every time. Then it has to unwind, and when it does unwind, pretty
soon knowing gets stronger than thinking. Then we notice a spiritual
unfoldment. Then we know that observation is taking hold.

Do you know how I can tell when someone is spiritually unfolding? When
I suggest something, and he takes me up on the suggestion and observes
and thinks of the next step before I think of it, I know that he is
spiritually unfolding, because through his observation he is producing
knowing, and through his knowing he is being considerate of his fellow
man, just as he expects everyone to be considerate of him.