I Was Victimized by My Own Negativity

I have met so many toxic people in my life -some more so than others. Some have cheated me, some have stolen my ideas and made them their own. Some have been very critical and negative. I have tried to stand up to these people but more often than not, it has made life more complicated. Very often, I just prefer to walk away from a messy situation.

However, there has always been one person who has been worse than any other. He is always very negative and somehow, I just cannot get away from him. He was with me when I lived in India, he was with me in the US and, again in Canada. I cannot stand up to him very effectively, and I cannot walk away from him no matter how hard I try.

That person is none other than me. Yes, I am the most negative person that I know and, also, the most difficult to confront, or to live with. He has made life a living misery for me, with all his negativity.

On rare occasions, the negativity is justified when it is due to external circumstances. I was very negative and depressed when there were personal tragedies in my life. There was not much I could do in those situations, I just had to accept what happened and let time do its magic.

However, there have far too many occasions when the negativity is spontaneous, it just arises within me. I just have to sit by myself for a while, or lie awake in bed, and the negativity rises to the surface.

The trouble is, we are surrounded by negativity. It is there in the news media that invariably picks on some unusual event and magnifies it until it becomes the only reality. For example, there is a major war going on in one part of the world and it is unfortunately a very tragic event. It’s a huge manmade disaster causing immense suffering to many people. However, there are much bigger parts of the world where there are no wars going on, but they do not get any media coverage.

There are also doom and gloom predictions about the end of the world, or, at least, about things getting much worse. It could be due to climate change, there could be food shortages, there could be uncontrolled inflation, there could be more conflicts, more pandemics. These are all very real possibilities but essentially, they are just unknowns. They may or may not happen. However, just thinking about them makes my mind go all negative. I am sure the same thing happens to other people, too.

There are some people – a very small number- who are not negative at all. They are brimming with positivity and there is mostly a smile on their face. They are the self-realized people of the world, people like the Dalai Lama and Swami Vivekananda.  Most important of all, it is our beloved Om Swami ji. Through intense Sadhana, carried out in extremely tough conditions, he has learned to reduce the flow of millions of thoughts that run through our minds.

We can do it, too, if we get truly serious about our spiritual practices, no matter what path we follow.  Even writing a blog with seriousness is a spiritual practice, as it allows us to confront our deepest negative emotions and erase them from our memory as much as possible.

Once the negativity is gone, all that remains is positivity. Also, the negative experiences carry the seeds of positivity within them, just like a photographic negative. When I faced up to my personal tragedies, I became more spiritual with a deeper understanding of what different religions are all about. Otherwise, I would have drifted through life, only skimming the surface.

As Om Swami ji has emphasized, it is the seriousness of our efforts that counts, the quality and not just the quantity. Let us do our spiritual practices with utmost sincerity, being completely true to ourselves.

Otherwise, we will victimize ourselves with our own negativity again and again, just like I did.