MAN SHOULD learn to observe life deeply. If we observe ourselves we will find that we are not one ?I? but multiple ?I?s. There is an ?I? that supports us an an another that pulls us down. One should lean not to identify with the negative ?I? and instead invite the positive one.

If our thoughts and attitudes are negative, a negative system gets created which takes control of our life. The negative system develops its own survival mechanism and we become slaves of that system. The art of wise living is to dismantle the negative system from our lives. For this we have to learn that art of inner separation.

Inner separation comes about by not allowing negative thoughts and attitudes to eat into our lives. These ignorant, addictive, narrow, foolish ?I?s should not be allowed in. Some ?I?s in us are our friends and some our enemies. To recognize and ?dis-identify? with them is inner separation.

The traffic on the reads does not belong to us, so too the traffic of thoughts. Let us learn to select and reject. We know how to reject and select things in the outer world. So why not do this to the inner world as well?

Don?t allow moods that emerge from the negative ?I? to spoil your life. Allow wise influences to impact you. Associate with the conscious humanity and not the sleeping one. This will make you look at ordinary things in a new way. And a new meaning will emerge.

Be like a bee and not a fly. A bee goes from one flower to another, whereas a fly goes from a gutter to a rose garden and then back to the garbage. Good and bad are it abode.

By Swami Sukhabodhananda, published in innervoice column of The Hindustan Times