What are the negative four traits? They are the characteristics which we all have. They are ignorance, greed, anger and delusion. The positive four qualities are based on stability, physical, emotional, mental and spiritual, and the conversion happens through some simple yogic practices.

My dear ones, we are all born with these traits and many of us go through life without shedding them. What is interesting is that it is possible for us to be rid of them? How do we go about it?

Let us examine ignorance. What is ignorance? It is incomprehension, mindlessness and sometimes stupidity. It can also be described as innocence.

What is greed? It is desire for something, especially wealth, power or food. It is also described as hunger.

What is anger? It is annoyance, vexation, temper, or outrage. It is also described as irritation.

What is delusion? It is misbelief, misinterpretation, or fallacy. It is described as being in a fool’s paradise.

Now that we know the meaning of these words. What can we do? We can become aware, detached and centered. How do we develop awareness? Close your eyes. Sit comfortably with your spine straight. Practice breath awareness. Become aware of your spontaneous breath, inhalation and exhalation. Visualize the breath going in and out of your nostrils. When you are comfortable with the process, count your breath backwards, from 54 to 0. Make no errors, and the counting is like so, 54 ‘I am breathing in’, 54 ‘I am breathing out’.

Becoming more observant

What is happening in this practice? You are aware of your breath; you are visualizing your breath and are concentrating on your breath by counting. You are becoming mindful. Being mindful, automatically heightens your perception and you become conscious of your thoughts. This leads to reducing your ignorance by you becoming more observant.

Let us now address greed, and anger. We all are greedy and angry. Not one of us is born without craving for something. Our anger is also present in us. Our anger is generated from small hurts and is compounded. It also needs to be fed. This hunger and anger that we possess, is created by our thoughts. They are engaged in fanning our desire and the flames of the fire of anger. We wish to possess more and more. It is very difficult to order our thoughts not be greedy or angry. It does not happen. We need to practice Antar Mouna, Inner Silence.

Examine your thoughts

We sit still, with our eyes closed. We listen to the sounds around us without identifying who or what is making those sounds. This is called external awareness, then we switch to internal awareness listening only to the sound of our breath. We go back and forth between external and internal awareness. Then after 20 minutes, we examine our thoughts in the space behind our brows. This space is called the Chidakasha and we let our thoughts come and go in this space. Again, we do not engage with them.

What happens is that we just see these hungry and angry thoughts performing. We are not participants. We are witnesses. Finally we are able to control our greed and anger, because the root is being pruned and finally destroyed.

Delusion takes us into a situation where we imagine what we wish to do, and fantasize. It suppresses our reality, and leads us into a false world. Delusion is also handled with Antar Mouna. We are looking at the source of the delusion? Since we will not engage with what we re seeing in the Chidakasha, the fantasy becomes weaker and weaker and helps us to be in harmony with ourselves.

There is no way that we can rid ourselves of these negative four traits, other than by developing self–observation, and practicing atmabhava. Love for our fellow beings enables us to tolerant of others and ourselves. Then only we can attain four–fold stability (physical, emotional, mental and spiritual).

Aim Hrim Klim