Negativity in Perspective

“Evil tongue” both reflects and maintains a very low level of being, far short of what we humans are capable of and what actually feeds our souls. Another wise modern teacher, Maurice Nicoll, puts it this way: “As your being increases, your receptivity to higher meaning increases; as your being decreases, the old meanings return.” “Receptivity to higher meaning” means your capacity to experience joy, goodness, coherence and ultimately, divine compassion; it allows you to live in a world in which you can actually personally experience that “all things work together for good.” To do this requires a fairly high level of being. The more you are dominated by negativity, the more you will experience the world as threatening, isolated, competitive, harsh and even meaningless. And the more you lash out at others to shore up your fragile sense of identity, the more firmly you chain yourself to the bottom of the staircase. Your level of being dictates the reality you perceive, not the other way around.