Written by Paramahansa Yogananda, Edited by Lak Loi
The mind must be protected from the four alternative psychological states of ego:
- Sorrow,
- False happiness,
- Indifference, and a
- Passive peace.
Waves whipped up in the middle of the ocean by a storm rise high, recede into a hollow, and then rise again, one after the other, until the storm ceases and the waves dissolve in the sea.
Likewise with the mind. The mental peaks are life’s alternating joys and sorrows; the hollows in between are indifference or boredom. These are the first three mental states.
A deceptive, passive peace, is that which claims the ego for brief intervals, whenever it manages to shake off the other three.
Transcending all of these four states of ordinary consciousness is the unconditional, ever new state of bliss of superior superconsciousness, felt only in meditation and contact with the soul.