The Power of positive thinking. 2

JAY SHRI KRISHNA
LKrishna THINKING



A PEACEFUL MIND GENERATES POWER

AT BREAKFAST IN A HOTEL dining room three of us tell to discussing how well we had slept the night before, a truly momentous topic. One man complained of a sleepless night. He had tossed and turned and was about as exhausted as when he retired. "Guess I'd better stop listening to the news
before going to bed," he observed. "I tuned in last night and sure got an ear full of trouble."
That is quite a phrase, "an ear full of trouble." Little wonder he had a disturbed night. "Maybe the coffee I drank before retiring had something to do with it," he mused.
The other man spoke up, "As for me, I had a grand night. I got my news from the evening paper and from an early broadcast and had a chance to digest it before I went to sleep. Of course," he continued, "I used my go-to-sleep plan which never fails to work."
I prodded him for his plan, which he explained as follows: "When I was a boy, my father, a farmer, had the habit of gathering the family in the parlor at bedtime and he read to us out of the Bible. I can hear him yet. In fact, every time I hear those Bible verses I always seem to hear them in the tone of my father's voice. After prayers I would go up to my
room and sleep like a top. But when I left home I got away from the Bible reading and prayer habit.
"I must admit that for years practically the only time I ever prayed was when I got into a jam. But some months ago my wife and I, having a number of difficult problems, decided we would try it again. We found it a very helpful practice, so now every night before going to bed she and I together read the Bible and have a little session of prayer. I don't know what there is about it, but I have been sleeping better and things have improved all down the line. In fact, I find it so helpful that even out on the road, as I am now, I still read the Bible and pray. Last night I got into bed and read the 23rd Psalm. I read it out loud and it did me a lot of good."
He turned to the other man and said, "I didn't go to bed with an ear full of trouble. I went to sleep with a mind full of peace." Well, there are two cryptic phrases for you—"an ear full of trouble" and "a mind full of peace." Which do you choose? The essence of the secret lies in a change of mental attitude.
One must learn to live on a different thought basis, and even though thought change requires effort, it is much easier than to continue living as you are. The life of strain is difficult. The life of inner peace, being harmonious and without stress, is the easiest type of existence. The chief struggle then in gaining mental peace is the effort of revamping your thinking to the relaxed attitude of acceptance of God's gift of
peace. As an illustration of taking a relaxed attitude and therefore receiving peace, I always think of an experience in a certain city where I lectured one evening. Prior to going on the platform I was sitting backstage going over my speech when a man approached and wanted to discuss a personal problem.

I informed him that at the moment it was impossible to talk as I was just about to be introduced, and asked him to wait. While speaking I noticed him in the wings nervously pacing up and down, but afterward he was nowhere about. However, he had given me his card, which indicated that he was a man of considerable influence in that city.
Back at my hotel, although it was late, I was still troubled by this man so I telephoned him. He was surprised at my call and explained that he did not wait because obviously I was busy. "I just wanted you to pray with me," he said. "I thought if you would pray with me, perhaps I could get some peace."
"There is nothing to prevent us from praying together on the telephone right now," I said.
Somewhat in surprise, he replied, "I have never heard of praying on the telephone."
"Why not?" I asked. "A telephone is simply a gadget of communication. You are some blocks from me, but by means of the telephone we are together. Besides," I continued, "the Lord is with each of us. He is at both ends of this line and in between. He is with you and He is with me." "All right," he conceded. "I'd like to have you pray for me." So I closed my eyes and prayed for the man over the telephone, and I prayed just as though we were in the same room. He could hear and the Lord could hear. When I finished I suggested, "Won't you pray?" There was no response. Then at the other end of the line I heard sobbing and finally, "I can't talk," he said.
"Go on and cry for a minute or two and then pray," I
suggested. "Simply tell the Lord everything that is bothering you. I assume this is a private line, but if not, and if anybody is listening, it won't matter. As far as anyone is concerned, we are just a couple of voices. Nobody would know it is you and I. 
Thus encouraged, he started to pray, hesitantly at first, and then with great impetuosity he poured out his heart, and it was filled with hate, frustration, failure—a mass of it. Finally he prayed plaintively, "Dear Jesus, I have a lot of nerve to ask you to do anything for me, because I never did anything for you. I guess you know what a no-account I am, even
though I put on a big front. I am sick of all this, dear Jesus.


Please help me."
So I prayed again, and asked the Lord to answer his prayer, then said, "Lord, at the other end of the telephone wire, place your hand on my friend and give him peace. Help him now to yield himself and accept your gift of peace." Then I stopped, and there was a rather long pause, and I shall neverforget the tone in his voice as I heard him say, "I shall always remember this experience, and I want you to know
that for the first time in months I feel clean inside and happy and peaceful." This man employed a simple technique for having a peaceful mind. He emptied his mind and he received peace as a gift from God.
As a physician said, "Many of my patients have nothing wrong with them except their thoughts. So I have a favorite prescription that I write for some, but it is not a prescription that you can fill at a drugstore. The prescription I write is a verse from the Bible, 'Romans 12:2.' I do not write out that verse for my patients. I make them look it up and it reads:
'...be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind...' To be happier and healthier they need a renewing of their minds, that is, a change in the pattern of their thoughts. When they 'take' this prescription, they actually achieve a mind full of peace. That helps to produce health and well-being." A primary method for gaining a mind full of peace is to practice emptying the mind. This will be emphasized in another chapter, but I mention it here to underscore the importance of a frequent mental catharsis. I recommend a mind-emptying at least twice a day, more often if necessary.
Definitely practice emptying your mind of fears, hates, insecurities, regrets, and guilt feelings. The mere fact that you consciously make this effort to empty your mind tends to give relief. Haven't you experienced a sense of release when you have been able to pour out to somebody whom you can trust worrisome matters that lay heavy upon the heart? As a pastor I have often observed how much it means to people to have someone to whom they can truly and in confidence tell everything troubling their minds.
I conducted a religious service on board the S.S. Lurline on a recent voyage to Honolulu. In the course of my talk I suggested that people who were carrying worries in their minds might go to the stern of the vessel and imaginatively take such anxious thought out of the mind, drop it overboard, and watch it disappear in the wake of the ship. It seems an almost childlike suggestion, but a man came to me later that day and said, "I did as you suggested and am amazed at the relief it has given me. During this voyage," he said, "every evening at sunset I am going to drop all my worries overboard until I develop the psychology of casting them entirely out of my consciousness. Every day I shall watch them disappear in the great ocean of time. Doesn't the Bible say something about 'forgetting those things that are behind'?"

The man to whom this suggestion appealed is not an impractical sentimentalist. On the contrary, he is a person of extraordinary mental stature, an outstanding leader in his field. Of course, emptying the mind is not enough. When the mind is emptied, something is bound to enter. The mind cannot long remain a vacuum. You cannot go around permanently with an empty mind. I admit that some people seem to accomplish that feat, but by and large it is necessary to refill the emptied mind or the old, unhappy thoughts which you have cast out will come sneaking in again. To prevent that happening, immediately start filling your mind with creative and healthy thoughts. Then when the old fears, hates, and worries that have haunted you for so long
try to edge back in, they will in effect find a sign on the door of your mind reading "occupied." They may struggle for admission, for having lived in your mind for a long time, they feel at home there. But the new and healthy thoughts which you have taken in will now be stronger and better fortified, and therefore able to repulse them. Presently the old thoughts will give up altogether and leave you alone. You will permanently enjoy a mind full of peace. At intervals during the day practice thinking a carefully selected series of peaceful thoughts. Let mental pictures of
the most peaceful scenes you have ever witnessed pass across your mind, as, for example, some beautiful valley filled with the hush of evening time, as the shadows lengthen and the sun sinks to rest. Or recall the silvery light of the moon falling upon rippling waters, or remember the sea washing gently upon soft shores of sand. Such peaceful thought images will work upon your mind as a healing medicine. So now and then during every day allow motion pictures of peace slowly to cross your mind.
Practice the technique of suggestive articulation, that is, repeat audibly some peaceful words. Words have profound suggestive power, and there is healing in the very saying of them. Utter a series of panicky words and your mind will immediately go into a mild state of nervousness. You will perhaps feel a sinking in the pit of your stomach that will
affect your entire physical mechanism. If, on the contrary, you speak peaceful, quieting words, your mind will react in a peaceful manner. Use such a word as "tranquillity." Repeat that word slowly several times. Tranquillity is one of the most beautiful and melodic of all English words, and the
mere saying of it tends to induce a tranquil state.
Another healing word is "serenity." Picturize serenity as you say it. Repeat it slowly and in the mood of which the word is a symbol. Words such as these have a healing potency when used in this manner.
It is also helpful to use lines from poetry or passages from the Scriptures. A man of my acquaintance who achieved a remarkable peace of mind has the habit of writing on cards unusual quotations expressing peacefulness. He carries one
of the cards in his wallet at all times, referring to it
frequently until each quotation is committed to memory. He says that each such idea dropped into the subconscious "lubricates" his mind with peace. A peaceful concept is indeed oil on troubled thoughts. One of the quotations which he used is from a sixteenth-century mystic, "Let nothing
disturb you. Let nothing frighten you. Everything passes away except God. God alone is sufficient."
The words of the Bible have a particularly strong therapeutic value. Drop them into your mind, allowing them to "dissolve" in consciousness, and they will spread a healing balm over your entire mental structure. This is one of the simplest processes to perform and also one of the most
effective in attaining peace of mind. A salesman told me of an incident that took place in a
Midwestern hotel room. He was one of a group of
businessmen having a conference. One man was very much on edge. He was snappy, argumentative, high-strung. Everyone present knew him quite well and realized he was under great nervous pressure. But finally his irritating attitudes began to get on everybody's nerves. Presently this nervous individual opened his traveling bag, took out a big bottle of brackish-looking medicine, and poured himself a
large dose. Asked what this medicine was, he growled, "Oh, it's something for nerves. I feel like I'm going to break in pieces. The pressure I'm under makes me wonder if I am going to crack up. I try not to show it, but I suppose even you fellows have observed swallowed several bottles of it, but I don't seem to get any better." The other men laughed, then one said in a kindly manner, "Bill, I don't know anything about that medicine you are taking.


Maybe it's all right. It probably is, but I can give you
some medicine for those nerves that will do you more good than that. I know, because it cured me, and I was worse off than you are." "What is this medicine?" snapped the other. "This book will do the job, and I really mean it. I suppose you think it strange that I carry a Bible around in my bag, but
I don't care who knows it. I am not a bit ashamed of it. I have been carrying this Bible in my bag for the past two years, and I have marked places in it that help keep my mind at peace. It works for me, and I think it can do something for you too. Why not give it a trial?" The others were listening with interest to this unusual speech. The nervous man had sunk low in his chair. Seeing that he was making an impression, the speaker continued, "I had a peculiar experience in a hotel one night which got me
into the habit of reading the Bible. I was getting into a pretty tense state. I was out on a business trip and late one afternoon came up to my room terribly nervous. I tried to write some letters, but couldn't get my mind on them. I paced up and down the room, tried to read the paper, but that annoyed me, so I decided to go down and get a drink— anything to get away from myself. "While standing by the dresser, my eye happened to fall upon a Bible lying there. I had seen many such Bibles in hotel rooms, but had never read any of them. However, something impelled me, and I opened the book to one of the
Psalms and started to read it. I remember that I read that one standing up, then sat down and read another. I was interested but certainly surprised at myself—me reading the Bible! It was a laugh, but I kept on reading.
"Soon I came to the 23rd Psalm. I had learned that one as a boy in Sunday school and was surprised that I still knew most of it by heart. I tried saying it over, especially that line where it says, 'He leadeth me beside the still waters; he restoreth my soul.' I liked that line. It sort of got me. I sat there repeating it over and over—and the next thing I knew I
woke up. "Apparently I had dropped off to sleep and slept soundly. I slept only about fifteen minutes, but upon awakening was as refreshed and rested as if I'd had a good night's sleep. I can remember yet the wonderful feeling of complete refreshment. Then I realized that I felt peaceful, and said to myself, 'Isn't it strange? What is wrong with me that I have missed something as wonderful as this?' "So after that experience," he said, "I bought a Bible, a little
one I could put in my bag, and I've been carrying it ever since. I honestly like to read it, and I am not nearly so nervous as I used to be. So," he added, "try that, Bill, and see if it doesn't work."
Bill did try it, and he kept on trying it. He reported that it was a bit strange and difficult for him at first, and he read the Bible on the sly when nobody was around. He didn't want to be thought holy or pious. But now he says he brings it out on trains and planes or "any old place" and reads it, and it "does
him a world of good." "I no longer need to take nerve medicine," he declared. This scheme must have worked in Bill's case, for he is easy to get along with now. His emotions are under control. These
two men found that getting peace of mind isn't complicated. You merely feed your mind with thoughts that cause it to be peaceful. To have a mind full of peace merely fill it full of peace. It's as simple as that. There are other practical ways by which you can develop serenity and quiet attitudes. One way is through your conversation. Depending upon the words we use and the tone in which we use them, we can talk ourselves into being nervous, high-strung, and upset. We can talk ourselves into
either negative or positive results. By our speech we can also achieve quiet reactions. Talk peaceful to be peaceful. In a group when the conversation takes a trend that is upsetting, try injecting peaceful ideas into the talk. Note how it counteracts the nervous tensions. Conversation filled with expressions of unhappy expectation, at breakfast, for example, often sets the tone of the day. Little wonder things
turn out according to the unhappy specifications. Negative conversation adversely affects circumstances. Certainly talk of a tense and nervous nature enhances inner agitation. On the contrary, start each day by affirming peaceful, contented, and happy attitudes and your days will tend to be
pleasant and successful. Such attitudes are active and definite factors in creating satisfactory conditions. Watch your manner of speech then if you wish to develop a peaceful state of mind. It is important to eliminate from conversations all negative ideas, for they tend to produce tension and annoyance inwardly. For example, when you are with a group of people at luncheon, do not comment that the "Communists will soon take over the country." In the first place, Communists are not going to take over the country, and by so asserting you create
a depressing reaction in the minds of others. It undoubtedly affects digestion adversely. The depressing remark colors the attitude of all present, and everyone goes away with a perhaps slight but definite feeling of annoyance. They also carry away with them a mild but definite feeling that something is wrong with everything. There are times when
we must face these harsh questions and deal with them objectively and vigorously, and no one has more contempt for Communism than I have, but as a general thing to have peace of mind, fill your personal and group conversations with positive, happy, optimistic, satisfying expressions.


The words we speak have a direct and definite effect upon our thoughts. Thoughts create words, for words are the vehicles of ideas. But words also affect thoughts and help to condition if not to create attitudes. In fact, what often passes for thinking starts with talk. Therefore if the average conversation is scrutinized and disciplined to be sure that it contains peaceful expressions, the result will be peaceful ideas and ultimately, therefore, a peaceful mind.
Another effective technique in developing a peaceful mind is the daily practice of silence. Everyone should insist upon not less than a quarter of an hour of absolute quiet every twenty- four hours. Go alone into the quietest place available to you and sit or lie down for fifteen minutes and practice the art of silence. Do not talk to anyone. Do not write. Do not read. Think as little as possible. Throw your mind into neutral. Conceive of your mind as quiescent, inactive. This will not be easy at first because thoughts are stirring up your mind, but practice will increase your efficiency. Conceive of your mind as the surface of a body of water and see how nearly quiet you can make it, so that there is not a ripple. When you have attained a quiescent state, then begin to listen for the deeper sounds of harmony and beauty and of God that are to be found in the essence of silence.
Americans unfortunately are not skilled in this practice, which is a pity, for as Thomas Carlyle said, "Silence is the element in which great things fashion themselves." This generation of Americans has missed something that our forefathers knew and which helped to condition their character—and that is the silence of the great forest or of the far-reaching plains.
Perhaps our lack of inner peace is due to some extent to the effect of noise upon the nervous system of modern people.



Scientific experiments show that noise in the place where we work, live, or sleep reduces efficiency to a noticeable degree. Contrary to popular belief, it is doubtful if we ever completely adjust our physical, mental, or nervous mechanisms to noise. No matter how familiar a repeated sound becomes, it never passes unheard by the subconscious. Automobile horns, the roar of airplanes, and other strident
noises actually result in physical activity during sleep. Impulses transmitted to and through the nerves by these sounds cause muscular movements which detract from real rest. If the reaction is sufficiently severe, it partakes of the nature of shock. On the contrary, silence is a healing, soothing, healthy practice. Starr Daily says, "No man or woman of my acquaintance who knows how to practice silence and does it has ever been sick to my knowledge. I have noticed that my own afflictions come upon me when I do not balance expression with relaxation." Starr Daily closely associates
silence with spiritual healing. The sense of rest that results from a practice of complete silence is a therapy of utmost value.
In the circumstances of modern life, with its acceleration of pace, the practice of silence is admittedly not so simple as it was in the days of our forefathers. A vast number of noise- producing gadgets exist that they did not know, and our daily
program is more hectic. Space has been annihilated in the modern world, and apparently we are also attempting to annihilate the factor of time. It is only rarely possible for an individual to walk in deep woods or sit by the sea or meditate on a mountaintop or on the deck of a vessel in the midst of the ocean. But when we do have such experiences, we can print on the mind the picture of the silent place and the feel of the moment and return to it in memory to live it over again just as truly as when we were actually in that scene. In fact, when you return to it in memory the mind tends to remove any unpleasant factors present in the actual situation.

The memory visit is often an improvement over the actual for the mind tends to reproduce only the beauty in the remembered scene.
For example, as I write these words, I am on a balcony of one of the most beautiful hotels in the world, the Royal Hawaiian on the famed and romantic Waikiki Beach in Honolulu, Hawaii. I am looking into a garden filled with graceful palm trees, swaying in the balmy breeze. The air is laden with the aroma of exotic flowers. Hibiscus, of which on these islands there are two thousand varieties, fill the garden. Outside my windows are papaya trees laden with ripening fruit. The brilliant color of the royal poinciana, the flame of the forest trees, adds to the glamor of the scene; and the acacia trees are hung heavily with their exquisite white flowers.
The incredible blue ocean surrounding these islands stretches away to the horizon. The white waves are surging in, and the Hawaiians and my fellow visitors are riding gracefully on surfboards and outrigger canoes. Altogether it is a scene of entrancing beauty. It has an indescribably healing effect upon me as I sit here writing about the power generated in a peaceful mind. The insistent responsibilities under which I ordinarily live seem so far away. Though I am in Hawaii to give a series of lectures and to write this book, nevertheless the peace with which this place is filled envelops me. Yet I realize that when I have returned to my home in New York, five thousand miles away, I shall only then truly savor the exquisite joy of the beauty which I now behold. It will become enshrined in memory as a private retreat to which my mind can go in the busy days that lie ahead. Often, when far from this idyllic place, I shall return in memory to find peace along the palm-lined, foam-washed beach at Waikiki. Fill your mind with all peaceful experiences possible, then make planned and deliberate excursions to them in memory. You must learn that the easiest way to an easy mind is to create an easy mind. This is done by practice, by the application of some such simple principles as outlined here. The mind quickly responds to teaching and discipline. You can make the mind give you back anything you want, but remember the mind can give back only what it was first given. Saturate your thoughts with peaceful experiences, peaceful words and ideas, and ultimately you will have a storehouse of peace-producing experiences to which you may turn for refreshment and renewal of your spirit. It will be a vast source of power.


I spent a night with a friend who has a very lovely home. We had breakfast in a unique and interesting dining room. The four walls are painted in a beautiful mural picturing the countryside in which my host was reared as a boy. It is a panorama of rolling hills, gentle valleys, and singing streams, the latter clean and sun speckled, and babbling over
rocks. Winding roads meander through pleasant meadows. Little houses dot the landscape. In a central position is a white church surmounted by a tall steeple.
As we breakfasted my host talked of this region of his youth, pointing out various points of interest in the painting around the wall. Then he said, "Often as I sit in this dining room I go from point to point in my memory and relive other days. I recall, for example, walking up that lane as a boy with bare feet, and I can remember yet how the clean dust felt between
my toes. I remember fishing in that trout stream on many a summer afternoon and coasting down those hills in the wintertime.
"There is the church I attended as a boy." He grinned and said, "I sat through many a long sermon in that church but gratefully recall to mind the kindliness of the people and the sincerity of their lives. I can sit here and look at that church and think of the hymns I heard there with my mother and father as we sat together in the pew. They are long buried in that cemetery alongside the church, but in memory I go and stand by their graves and hear them speak to me as in days gone by. I get very tired and sometimes am nervous and tense. It helps to sit here and go back to the days when I had an untroubled mind, when life was new and fresh. It does something for me. It gives me peace."
Perhaps we all cannot have such murals on the dining-room walls, but you can put them around the wall of your mind: pictures of the most beautiful experiences of your life. Spend time among the thoughts which these pictures suggest. No matter how busy you may be or what responsibilities you
carry, this simple, rather unique practice, having proved successful in many instances, may have a beneficial effect upon you. It is an easily practiced, easy way to a peaceful mind.
There is a factor in the matter of inner peace which must be stated because of its importance.
Frequently I find that people who are lacking in inner peace are victims of a self-punishment mechanism. At some time in their experience they have committed a sin and the sense of guilt haunts them. They have sincerely sought Divine forgiveness, and the good Lord will always forgive anyone who asks Him and who means it. However, there is a curious
quirk within the human mind whereby sometimes an individual will not forgive himself.
He feels that he deserves punishment and therefore is constantly anticipating that punishment. As a result he lives in a constant apprehension that something is going to happen. In order to find peace under these circumstances he must increase the intensity of his activity. He feels that hard work will give him some release from his sense of guilt.
A physician told me that in his practice a number of cases of nervous breakdown were traceable to a sense of guilt for which the patient had unconsciously attempted to compensate by hectic overwork. The patient attributed his breakdown not to the sense of guilt, but to his overworked condition. "But," said the physician, "these men need not have broken down from overwork if first the sense of guilt had been fully released." Peace of mind under such circumstances is available by yielding the guilt as well as the tension it produces to the healing therapy of Christ.
At a resort hotel where I had gone for a few days of quiet writing I encountered a man from New York whom I knew slightly. He was a high-pressured, hard-driving, and exceedingly nervous business executive. He was sitting in the sun in a deck chair. At his invitation I sat down and chatted with him."I'm glad to see you relaxing in this beautiful spot," Icommented. He replied nervously, "I haven't any business being here. I've so much work to do at home. I'm under terrible pressure.
Things have got me down, I'm nervous and can't sleep. I'm jumpy. My wife insisted that I come down here for a week. The doctors say there's nothing wrong with me if I just get to thinking right and relax. But how in the world do you do that?" he challenged. Then he gave me a piteous look.
"Doctor," he said, "I would give anything if I could be
peaceful and quiet. It's what I want more than anything in this world."
We talked a bit, and it came out in the conversation that he was always worrying that something sinister was going to happen. For years he had anticipated some dire event, living in constant apprehension about "something happening" to his wife or his children or his home.

It was not difficult to analyze his case. His insecurity arose from a double source—from childhood insecurities and from later guilty experiences. His mother had always felt that "something was going to happen," and he had absorbed her anxiety feelings. Later he committed some sins, and his subconscious mind insisted upon self-punishment. He became victim to the mechanism of self-punishment. As a result of this unhappy combination I found him this day in a highly inflamed state of nervous reaction. Finishing our conversation, I stood beside his chair a moment.

 There was no one near, so I rather hesitantly
suggested, "Would you by any chance like me to pray with you?" He nodded, and I put my hand on his shoulder and prayed, "Dear Jesus, as You healed people in the long ago and gave them peace, heal this man now. Give him fully of Thy forgiveness. Help him to forgive himself. Separate him from all his sins and let him know that You do not hold them
against him. Set him free from them. Then let Thy peace flow into his mind, and into his soul, and into his body." He looked up at me with a strange look on his face and then turned away, for there were tears in his eyes and he didn't want me to see them. We were both a bit embarrassed, and I left him. Months later I met him, and he said, "Something happened to me down there that day when you prayed forme. I felt a strange sense of quietness and peace, and," he added, "healing."
He goes to church regularly now and he reads the Bible every day of his life. He follows the laws of God and he has lots of driving force. He is a healthy, happy man, for he has peace in his heart and mind.


Jay shri krishna
LKrishna THINKING



Contact MAIL. lkrishna.htat@gmail.com

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