Weeding the garden of the mind
In The Yoga Sutras, Patanjali underscores the importance of replacing negativity and disruption with positive actions and thoughts (Book II:33). According to my transliteration (1993), this sutra reads, “When overcoming destructive forces, one should cultivate their opposites.”
This sutra applies readily to the proliferation of uncontrollable thoughts and negative thinking in our own time. The brilliant translator, commentator and teacher, Edwin F. Bryant, likens our unwelcome and unhealthy thoughts to weeds in a garden:
“In even the best-tended gardens, weeds inevitably pop up from time to time…As in a garden, the more one makes an effort to uproot weeds, the more the bed will eventually become a receptacle for fragrant flowers, which will then grow and reseed of their own accord until there is hardly any room for the weeds to surface.” (Edwin Bryant’s text on The Yoga Sutras of Patanjali, North Point Press, 2007, pp. 255 and 257.)
Linda Brown Holt
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