The myth of positive thinking and discourse by western authors

There is no dearth of books on the subject of “positive thinking”. Any book written by any author is a best seller, atleast in the U.S. I doubt if there is so much of negativity out there though the country tries to put up an image of a Super power that can save the Earth from any catastrophe. To better understand this mentality of theirs, please watch movies like Armageddon etc. Returning to the subject on positive thinking, I honestly feel these western (and even some copy-cats from other parts of the world as well) authors are very naïve at the subject, especially if one gives even a cursory glance to the magnum opus from India, the “Bhagavad Gita” and then read their books again. Some of its prominent concepts like “Soul and Body are separate, soul is born again and again and takes different forms” and “Do your duty and do not bother about the results”, sums up “LIFE” and how we must approach life to lead a life filled with positive energy and happiness.

What is being repeated in these books is how to respond to particular situations or incidents in life and not a holistic and comprehensive approach to life. It is like advising people to control anger without looking in to the background factors that lie behind “Anger”. When one tries to address the background factors like materialistic affinity, Ego, Selfishness to name a few, “Anger” will be phased out of life as a side effect. The emphasis should be to address the cause and not the effect. For example, Ego is the cause and Anger is the effect of being egoistic. Any suppression of a negative feeling in the name of adopting positive thinking will only lead to an eruption at a later point of time.

On the other day, I was almost moved to tears to see a poor old man in his seventies, carrying his handicapped grand daughter on his shoulder who was blind, deaf and was suffering from polio attack. I cannot even imagine talking about the western concept of positive thinking to that gentleman. I wondered if any of those authors or their books can create any positive thinking in that gentleman unless they were able to answer his most fundamental questions of life, as to why on earth he was suffering like that.

The question here is how we react to those situations where we feel injustice is being done to us, though to our conscience, we have not done any wrong and hence we don’t deserve it. Some events happen to us in our lives, the reasons for which are beyond our comprehension. The truth is that there is a meaning to our lives and suffering and this meaning will remain beyond our comprehension unless we make an attempt to know it. I am sure whatever logical thinking that has evolved in the western world until now is still lacking to understand this meaning. Even the top most scientists are still struggling to answer the question of “WHY” about life though they claim to have answered some of the “WHAT”s and “HOW”s. The eastern thought of soul being separate from the physical body and that a soul will be born again and again until its “karma” is relinquished is the best closest logic to understand this. It makes sense to account for the good and bad of our previous lives to understand today’s suffering. Otherwise everybody should be born equal in terms of all aspects. All our lives and karma are interlinked. The goal of this life should be to realize this and take measures to minimize or eradicate the bad karma. If we start pursuing the goal, we will not even think about positive thinking! Ofcourse “what is good and bad karma” is a separate topic and needs another article!