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depression, or these negative things give them an edge.They think they need to hold on to that anger and fear so they can put it in their work. And they don’t like the idea of getting happy—it makes them want to puke. They think it would make them lose their edge or their power.
    But you will not lose your edge if you meditate. You will not lose your creativity. And you will not lose your power. In fact, the more you meditate and transcend, the more those things will grow, and you’ll know it. You will gain far more understanding of all aspects of life when you dive within. In that way, understanding grows, appreciation grows, the bigger picture forms, and the human condition becomes more and more visible.
    If you’re an artist, you’ve got to know about anger without being restricted by it. In order to create, you’ve got to have energy; you’ve got to have clarity. You’ve got to be able to catch ideas. You’ve got to be strong enough to fight unbelievable pressure and stress in this world. So it just makes sense to nurture the place where that strength and clarity and energy come from—to dive in and enliven that. It’s a strange thing, but it’s true in my experience: Bliss is like a flak jacket. It’s a protecting thing. If you have enough bliss, it’s invincibility. And when those negative things start lifting, you can catch more ideas and see them with greater understanding. You can get fired up more easily. You’ve got more energy, more clarity. Then you can really go to work and translate those ideas into one medium or another.

LIGHT OF THE SELF
     
     
     
He who sees everything as nothing but the Self,
and the Self in everything he sees,
such a seer withdraws from nothing.
For the enlightened, all that exists is nothing but the Self,
so how could any suffering or delusion continue
for those who know this Oneness?
    UPANISHADS
     
     
     
    Negativity is like darkness. So what is darkness? You look at darkness, and you see that it’s really nothing: It’s the absence of something. You turn on the light, and darkness goes.
    But sunlight, for instance, doesn’t get rid of negativity. It gets rid of darkness, but not negativity. So what light can you turn on that removes negativity the way sunlight removes darkness? It’s the light of pure consciousness, the Self—the light of unity.
    Don’t fight the darkness. Don’t even worry about the darkness. Turn on the light and the darkness goes.Turn up that light of pure consciousness: Negativity goes.
     
    Now you say, “That sounds so sweet.” It sounds too sweet. But it’s a real thing.

A TOWER OF GOLD
     
     
     
Just as a mirror shines bright once it has been cleaned of dust,
so those who have seen the Self shine in mind and body.
They are always and forever filled with happiness.
     
UPANISHADS
     
     
     
    How does meditation get rid of negativity?
    Picture it this way: You are the Empire State Building. You’ve got hundreds of rooms. And in those rooms, there’s a lot of junk. And you put all that junk there. Now you take this elevator, which is going to be the dive within. And you go down below the building; you go to the Unified Field beneath the building—pure consciousness. And it’s like electric gold. You experience that. And that electric gold activates these little cleaning robots. They start going, and they start cleaning the rooms. They put in gold where the dirt and junk and garbage were. These stresses that were in there like coils of barbed wire can unwind. They evaporate, they come out. You’re cleaning and infusing simultaneously. You’re on the road to a beautiful state of enlightenment.

RELIGION
     
     
     
    I was raised Presbyterian. I respect people who are religious, and I think they find something there that’s beautiful, just beautiful. There’s truth there. Because these religions are old, though, and they’ve been fiddled with, possibly, I feel some of the original keys from the masters have been lost.