Pedro de Souza –  The Ocean Frog

A compilation of lecture and seminar manuscripts edited by Stefan Barres
Translation from the German by Estelle Raschka

These manuscripts from Pedro de Souza represent neither a chronology of his material, nor do they claim to be a complete or systematic representation of his philosophy. This is not a scientific textbook that you have before you, but rather a book that came about as a result of lecture manuscripts and recorded open dialogs of several seminars in 1996 and 1997. Often for the moment, a single aspect is discussed and considered from different views, only to be completely forgotten and then resurface in another topic, and then to be surprisingly a solution to a problem. For that very reason, take your time reading this book. Let the words take hold of you, and give yourself and these thoughts the chance to unfold their power. This book can then set free unknown potential in you.

Special thanks go to Ms. Heidrun Maurer (†), whose transcription of the recorded material made this book possible.

 

Chapter I

Reaching for the Stars

 

 The secret to enthusiasm

                            What feelings to you associate with the future? Many look forward to it. Others fear it. There are so many changes taking place in the world. And even though you often cannot change things and prevent them from occurring, you can, at least, change how you react to them! In that way, you can decide for yourself how you want to live your life. You do not need to let yourself be manipulated by external circumstances, but rather can take control of your own life. You decide the changes you want to make in your life, and you can realize them yourself. This is how you can reach for the stars.

Once upon a time, a man was carrying an apple tree under his arm, because he always wanted to have apples. At the seashore, he collected a sack full of stones, choosing only the heavy ones. He didn’t even touch the small gems also lying there. He carried this heavy sack on his back, and in addition, transported a basket on his head, in which he collected thick, gnarled branches from his garden. He never once paid any attention to the flowers and ended up walking right past them.

With all these things, he wanted to participate in the Olympics and win the gold medal in hurdles. What do you think—did he do it? You shake your head no? Even though you try to do just this yourself? You go through life with the apple tree under your arm, instead of picking a few apples from the garden when you need them. Instead of collecting gems, you collect stones. In the garden you pick the gnarled branches instead of the flowers. Do you think you can reach for the stars when you act like this man? Everyone has the chance to reach for the stars. Soon you will know what it means to have the tree under the arm, the sack laden with stones on your back, and the basket full of gnarled branches on your head, and how you can get rid of them.

Everyone carries the potential within himself/herself to reach for the stars. Where does this potential come from? Your education, your training, everything you know and can do is part of your potential. But is that enough? Knowledge alone is not enough. You also need enthusiasm! You have to be motivated to do what you do! You must love and believe in your goal. When you know how you can create love and belief in yourself, then you can act with enthusiasm. Then you can realize your ideals and apply your knowledge.

A salesman, for example, had knowledge. He knew everything there was to know about his product, but he feared meeting people. For this reason, he avoided contact with his customers who eventually stopped coming. What was he lacking? He could not work with motivation and enthusiasm, because he was numb with fear.

Feelings decide if one is motivated or not. Neither knowledge, nor training, nor beliefs are decisive factors, but rather feelings are the fuel for motivation and enthusiasm. One has to have the right feelings. But where do feelings come from? Feelings are part of our outlook, our conscious. And most important of all are our feelings. A computer can save all sorts of information systematically. But it cannot be motivated, because it does not have feelings. People are, however, created such from God that they can be motivated by feelings.

 

Your inner switchboard

                 Notice how you feel when I ask you to come forward and summarize what I have said up until now. You have the ability—but what about the motivation? (After hesitating a few minutes, a participant comes forward and gives a summary.) We want to analyze why the participant was actually able to come forward and speak.

It has nothing to do with her ability, but rather with her emotions. All of you have the ability to come forward and give a summary. But your emotions were against doing that.

Everything you learn, you learn with emotions. You do not learn anything that is not associated with your emotions. You cannot save anything in your conscious that is not, at the same time, associated with your emotions. Everything we learn is associated with emotions. We call this connection between knowledge (information) and emotions “outlook” or “view”. Your outlook is composed of the information that you have learned, and the feelings that are associated with that.

Your actions are dependent on your outlook. But you are often unaware of your outlook. For that reason you collect gnarled branches instead of flowers, or you collect stones instead of gems. How you react in a certain situation, how effective you are, how you cope with a task depends on your outlook towards them. How you react to other people and how you deal with them is all a question of your outlook. If we want to act more effectively, we have to change our outlook. I will explain to you step-by-step how we can do that. But first we want to understand why we collected branches and stones when we could have just as easily collected roses and gems. Unknowingly you collected thorns. When we are aware of why that happened, then we can begin to collect roses.

You cannot take your experiences back, nor can you deny the negative feelings you have experienced in the past. But you can associate all this information with new, positive feelings. Your inner switchboard, which in certain situations automatically calls up anger, fear, or guilt, has to be changed. The situations act as switches that call to mind the previously saved feelings. You cannot extinguish the negative feelings you have associated with situations up until now, but you can build a new, stronger association to positive feelings. Then, just as bitterness, sadness, or insecurity flared up within you until this moment, love, joy, and enthusiasm can arise. And to do that, you need to know how the mechanism within you works.

There is a way you can be loving. Change your current switchboard and switch to positive feelings. Where you have always automatically switched to anger or fear, you can now switch to love. And then you can also reach for the stars.

 

The power of your convictions

It is not what you know that decides how you will act, but rather what you feel. When I asked you to come forward to speak, what made you decide if you wanted to or not? Your feelings! If you have associated good feelings with speaking before a crowd, then you will come forward. On the contrary, if you have associated bad feelings, then you will not trust yourself to come forward. You are thinking, “I can’t” or “They’ll laugh at me.” Those are the “news reports” that you have saved in your subconscious, and which come to the surface every time you are faced with such a request.

Why are some people not afraid to speak before a crowd? Because they have experienced people listening to them when they speak, and thus have associated good feelings with it. It is also a matter if you were allowed to speak freely as a child and people genuinely listened to you. Such experiences lie deep in your subconscious, shaping who you are and influencing you even today. The connections you make between your past experiences and the current situation are sometimes very simple, and at other times quit complex and not noticeable right away.

It still holds that you can change these “reports” that lie in your subconscious to positive ones. Then you can reach your goals. Each and every one of us can.

What do you think: when you arrive at the Olympics, will you win? Maybe! When you believe that you can do it, then the probability increases that you will actually succeed. Before 1936 people thoroughly believed that it was impossible to run a mile in under 4 minutes. All the experts were convinced, until Dr. Roger Bannister took on the challenge. After training and preparing for the event, he succeeded in setting the world record: Dr. Bannister ran the mile in 3 minutes and 59 seconds. Since then many athletes have also succeeded in running the mile in under 4 minutes. Positive convictions are a good foundation from which success—through the power of enthusiasm—can grow.

 

 

Mind, body, and soul

If you believe in your ability to succeed then you will achieve what you set out to do. If you do not have a goal then of course you will not reach one. Man is a combination of mind, body, and soul. When one part of this “system” changes, the whole system changes. The body can influence the mind. That is only possible, however, to a certain extent; for breathing, digestion, blood circulation, and other functions operate on their own, without any conscious effort from the mind. It is possible, for example, by means of autogenous training, to make these functions become a conscious effort, allowing them to be influenced.

Likewise, the mind can also influence the body. Our thoughts are easier to access and shape. You can control and change your thoughts, thus changing the entire system. Your mind-body-soul system expresses itself in its own personal way. Scientists say that we experience thousands of stimuli a second. How can we handle so much? We only consciously take in some of them. The others go into our subconscious. But who decides which conscious stimuli are recorded and which are not? It is more or less outlook that makes these decisions. Do you have a good feeling about something? Are you loving towards it or not? The things that interest us go directly into our conscious. What does not interest us goes into our subconscious. The more we are interested in something, the more it sticks in our conscious. Anything that is unimportant, or only seems so, goes into the subconscious.

 

Self-fulfilling prophecies

He who has a positive outlook on life collects positive views of the world and is happy. He who has a negative outlook is unhappy. There are positive and negative expectations, and both are “self-fulfilling prophecies.” If you expect something to not work out, then it will most likely not work out. Positive expectations are met in just this way as well. Your expectations send signals into the universe and the universe supports them. When I have a loving outlook, the universe supports me in this respect. When I am unhappy and angry or sad, then the universe supports me in this outlook, too. The gnarled branches and stones that you carry with you are your negative outlook, which you unknowingly chose. At any time you can choose to have a different outlook. God does not discriminate.

Everyone has the chance to grow, be happy and experience love. It is all a matter of which outlook you choose.

 

 

Happiness can be yours

When you have a negative outlook, it seems as if you have to work hard for every moment of happiness; for you associate something negative with most events and have to search for a long time before you find one that you can call positive. If, however, you have associated positive feelings with many events and have saved them in your subconscious, it seems as if they come to you. That is what determines happiness. Let us clarify, therefore, how we save things in our subconscious and how we can change the negative associations. You were unaware and did not notice how you came to be unhappy. But you can change all that.

A man wanted to visit a friend in the neighboring village. He asked a taxicab driver how much it would cost to drive him there. “One hundred and twenty-five dollars,” said the driver. “Oh,” said the man, “that’s much too expensive! I’d rather walk then.” And he started on his way. The driver wanted to see what would happen, and so drove behind the man slowly, following him. The man walked and walked. After two hours his feet started to hurt, and he hailed the taxi. “I’ve thought about it,” he said, “could you please drive me after all?” “Of course,” answered the driver, “but now it will cost you two hundred dollars.” “What!” that man exclaimed disgusted. “But I’ve already walked quite a long way!” “Yes,” said the driver, “but you walked in the wrong direction.”

 

 

Perception and evaluation

How does our perception work? After you have perceived something, your databank is asked automatically if the same thing or something similar has already been saved. If something has already been saved, then the perception is meaningful, and if not, then it is meaningless.

Whatever it is that we perceive, we put a value to it according to our knowledge and experiences we have had until then: “Is it good? Is it bad? Is it wrong? Is it dangerous? Is it safe?” These judgments whirl around in your heads very quickly, and therefore take place often subconsciously.

At any given moment, you decide how you will act and what you will do. When the perception effects, for example, a person, you need to decide according to your assessment of the situation: “Should I attack her? Should I defend myself? Should I leave? Should I give in? Should I do nothing?” Your decision is a function of what you have saved in your subconscious. It is not a function of what has really happened.

Our doctrines and experiences that we have saved in our subconscious determine our actions and reactions, not the event itself. The event is compared to what you have saved in your subconscious at lightning speed, and from this you reach your decision. That is why your past is so important to you, because the convictions you made about past events decide how you will act today.

If you have always been betrayed, then you see everyone with a mistrustful eye.

The decision as to how you will act towards another person is not determined by this person who stands before you, but rather by the experiences you have saved.

 

 

The weight of feelings

But it is not the number of negative experiences you have had, but rather the intensity of the feelings that decides the importance of the experience. Feelings give the weight to your outlook.

Let us experiment: I say a word, and you observe which feelings you experience. —Salmonella! First reaction: fear, danger, disease. Don’t eat any raw eggs! Second reaction: I have heard of it, but will continue to eat eggs. Why are there different reactions? Some did not believe the news. For them it is meaningless. Others believed the news and do not eat eggs anymore, at least not any raw eggs. Thus, always interpret for yourself the news that comes to you.

How you react depends on your conscious, your interpretations. The one continues to eat raw eggs, the other eats only cooked eggs, and a third does not eat eggs anymore. It is a question of how reliable the source of the news is. A scientist who has thoroughly examined the case at hand is believable, while the neighbor who spreads rumors is not. Depending on your view of the world, it could also be exactly the opposite. That is also dependent on your outlook on life. Your subconscious is “a pair of spectacles” through which you see the world, and which even decide how or if you will clean them or not. It is not your knowledge that is the decisive factor, but rather your feelings about things. Your feelings depend on how valuable you hold your knowledge to be, as in our example of how you took the news of salmonella.

 

 

The standard—reality

Some interpretations help you to participate in the “Olympic Games” and increase your chances of winning. Other interpretations are unnecessary burdens that you carry around with you.

A man said to his friend, “Isn’t that great! The Americans have landed on the moon!” “What is so great about that,” replied the friend, “I fly to the sun!” “You’re pulling my chain,” said the man, “the sun is much too hot!” “I fly at night,” answered the friend.

Why did you laugh at the friend?

We need to check the truth of our view. When we have the news from a scientist who has objectively researched the case at hand, then we need to check and measure our view against it.

Now you know which outlooks make you unhappy: those, which do not agree with reality. You can find those that you have saved in your databank and that make you unhappy, and then correct them. You need to compare them against reality and continue to optimize them.

 

 

Detour

When you orient yourself more and more to reality, your old views do not leave you, but rather lose their importance, because true information brings positive experiences with it, and thus good feelings. Then you are not fixated on the thorns, on the negative feelings that exist in your databank, but rather you are glad to have roses.

We overlap the saved information in our subconscious that makes us unhappy with new and right information that helps us to reach for the stars. Then we only save roses in our databank, and when the “thorn key” is pressed, the switchboard automatically detours it to the “rose key.” We have to make this detour. That means, we save only good and positive experiences. Then negative feelings will not resurface anymore. That is the secret to growing. It is very simple, when you are headed in the right direction.

 

 

Love’s secret

Every person acts differently, because he or she has saved different views. And this is what determines how we relate to one another. “I hate this person, because he doesn’t take the danger of salmonella seriously, even though he cooks for others.” “I love this person, because he is so conscientious.” The secret of love and hate depends on if we agree with another’s view of the world or not. That is what determines how people relate to one another.

Our man thinks it is crazy what his friend is doing. If he flies to the sun and realizes that it is hot, he will change the view he has had up until then. If he does not do that, he will suffer. Everyone has collected his or her own experiences and is, on account of that, programmed differently. That explains why people act differently.

We reveal our divine nature when we record within us the right information that makes us happy. We recognize wrong information when it makes us unhappy. It keeps us from realizing God.

 

 

Dialog

Question: Can I really understand God’s infiniteness with my limited thinking?

Pedro de Souza: God as a whole is unfathomable. But you can experience one part of him, namely love. Experiencing love brings us closer to God. For God is love and, and, and . . .. A billion things can be added. His infiniteness cannot be understood. The more you know, the more you understand that there’s so much you don’t know. It’s enough when we understand love.

When you’ve understood love, then you’ve taken the most important step to bringing you closer to God’s infiniteness. You can also continue to gain knowledge.

That’s why there is also no limit to wisdom, but rather you’ll continue to gain knowledge and with that the possibility to participate in God’s wealth. But the basic prerequisite is love.

Question: The data in our heads is determined by our experiences. If I learn, therefore, to have positive thoughts, will more positive thoughts and feelings come out of my databank?

de Souza: Yes, the data have to be calculated positively. That’s the way to rid yourself of the stones and branches. Then you can win at the “Olympic Games” and reach for the stars. The possibilities for experiencing joy are endless.

Question: But aren’t the negative feelings also a part of my personality?

de Souza: The hate, the anger, the suffering, the fear, and the feelings of guilt, which we are used to, we don’t need in order to ensure our identities. Your subconscious says, “What? Hate goes away? Anger goes away? What’ll I do without them? How’ll I feel without my branches and stones?” You’re familiar with this suffering, but joy is unknown to you. You’re scared. You think a familiar devil is better than an unfamiliar angel. Don’t be afraid to go to the unfamiliar angel, and rid yourself of your anger and pain!

 

 

The subconscious

Knowledge and feelings determine your views. You are often unaware of them taking affect in you, and thus they lead to your automatic actions and reactions. It is a good characteristic that we can perform certain actions automatically. We write, speak, steer a car, and can do a lot of things without having to exert ourselves. When we have repeated something enough times, then it happens automatically on its own. Our subconscious steers our bodies and saves all our experiences.

That includes those things that we just imagine in our heads. They too are saved by our subconscious. It does not differentiate between reality and what we imagine. That seems negative. However, it can also be positive when you use it to your advantage. By means of these characteristics of our subconscious we can change our actions.

There is another characteristic of our subconscious: when what we experience does not agree with what we have saved, then conflict arises. The subconscious tries to balance the discrepancy, because the outside events—the new information—have to be assimilated into the information that has already been saved. If I say something that goes against your saved information, then you feel threatened and attacked.

The views you have saved can also prove to be wrong later. When you were a child, you believed in Santa Claus. Today you do not believe in him. Are your saved memories of Santa Claus then gone? No! They are still there, but are meaningless to you now. In exactly this way you cannot give your traumatic feelings meaning anymore.

The experiences you have saved and the feelings associated with them determine your reality. You reach your decisions according to the information from your subconscious. When something happens, you do not make a decision based on the actual event, but rather on your experiences and their saved feelings. The buttons in your subconscious—your views—are therefore responsible for your current feelings.

                No one has the power to enter things in your databank apart from you yourself. Therefore, it is up to you to not let the negative things into your databank.

There are positive and negative entries in your databank. When you experience something negative, you create a negative outlook. A single experience is often not enough for this to occur. But when you have several such experiences, then the outlook gains strength.

 

 

Switching to the positive

What can you do when you have saved a negative outlook? The change is only possible through feelings. Let us assume your aversion has been created either through hundreds of experiences or through five very intensive experiences. How can we switch them, the experiences, to being positive? By bringing in positive feelings. But it is not enough to do that with just two or three slightly better feelings. The negative experiences are there. They do not go away just by talking about them. But you can save so many positive experiences that they eventually become stronger than the negative ones. Then you have switched from the thorns to the roses. We can switch both in positive as well as in negative directions. We usually fall unknowingly into the negative direction. For example, when all your friends smoke. The first time you protest, the second time you remain silent, and the third time you try a cigarette.

Your experiences vary in their intensity. Let us say your aversion to give a speech has the strength of 50. Now you have to develop a positive outlook with the strength of 60 or more in order to be able to give a speech. You do that by creating positive experiences with giving speeches. You can do that in reality or in your imagination. Both have the same effect. In addition, you have to do that so often until the positive 50 overlaps the negative 50. How can we, therefore, switch from the negative to the positive? The negative cannot be extinguished. The image of Santa Claus, for instance, is still there. How does the belief in Santa Claus then disappear? You have learned more precisely the reality of the facts and now know that Santa Claus does not exist. The reality and your outlook have to be brought into harmony.

 

Dialog

Participant: How can you prevent negative influences from having an effect? Does that mean you simply don’t let them in?

de Souza: Yes, by means of inner dialogs you decide, which outlooks you choose. Someone says to you, “What? You like this disgusting cod-liver oil?” “Yes, I like the taste of it!” You do not have to accept this negative comment. Your self-affirmation decides over everything. The term speaks for itself, in that it is not about defending yourself against others. You have to speak positively to yourself. You decide if you program yourself or if you let others do that. If you are unaware, then you will be programmed by others, by accepting their comments into your inner dialog as your own. Prevent others from programming your conscious. Do it yourself. That is the secret to growth. Someone says to you, “You’re mean!” Do not let this comment in, but rather say to yourself, “Let him say what he wants. I know that I am a person worthy of love.” You can strengthen your positive or negative outlook. You baked a cake, and it did not turn out. Perhaps that has happened to you once before. “I just can’t bake,” you say to yourself and thus strengthen with that your negative outlook. Or the cake did not turn out for someone else. “She can’t bake either, poor thing. I know just how she feels!” Here again you are strengthening your negative outlook. —You get up in the morning and look out the window with a sigh, “What terrible weather!” or you hum a song, “What a beautiful mornin’ . . .”

The secret is to strengthen your positive outlook through your inner dialog. Until now you have been unknowingly programmed by both your positive and negative experiences. You do not have to let in the negative ones. Rather you have to change them to positive ones very consciously through your inner dialog. You may no longer react to hate with hate, which is what often happens when couples argue. What should you do instead? What did Christ say? “Love your enemy!” Why should we do that? Because everything you say goes into your subconscious. When you hate, your subconscious is fed with negativity.

 

The positive and the negative egos

What happens when I say something that goes against your beliefs? You sense a conflict, because it goes against your view. Your ego is comprised of all your positive and negative views, which you have saved. When it states in the Holy Bible that the ego should be subdued, then it is only the negative ego that is meant. “Subdued” is actually the wrong word. The negative ego needs to be overlapped by the positive ego. That happens on its own when you strengthen your positive ego. Christ knew this. “Love your enemy,” he said. In other words, balance out the negative with the positive.

You have to strengthen the positive experiences and ignore the negative ones. How do you do that? The husband says, “I’ll wash the dishes today.” The wife exclaims surprised, “What? I can’t believe it! You want to wash the dishes? Since when?” “Well, I only thought . . . but I’d rather just leave it.” The wife could have supported the positive, “That is great! I would be very thankful!” We often make this mistake. It is important to learn to support the positive.

When someone is angry with you, create a positive inner dialog. Never let something negative into your databank! The negative stimuli come constantly. They seem to be delivered to you. But only when you are unaware. God has given you the power to shut them out. It is a question of consciousness.

How do you prevent the negativity from influencing you? Through a positive inner dialog! When someone says to you “You idiot!” you can prevent this comment from affecting you by saying to yourself, “I am great and worthy of love.”

 

 

Praise and self-praise

Everyday you can strengthen your positive view of yourself: “I feel young. I am intelligent. I am full of love . . ..” Many women do not think of themselves as beautiful. How can others then find them beautiful? The change will take a while, because you have believed in your negative self-image for so long. Now you have to save a lot of positive data—through your inner dialog—to neutralize the negative view and overlap it with a positive one.

A child takes in all experiences as they come. You do that, too! A child is motivated by pain or pleasure. These motivating factors can either help build you up or cause you to close in. How does a child learn, for example, to walk? She watches how the adults do it, and thus has a positive outlook toward walking. She also wants to do it. She has the right motivation. You see, God instilled that in us to be automatic. The child walks and falls down. Her mother comes and says, “Try it again.” She is motivating the child in a positive way. What do you say to yourself when you fail to manage something? Do you also motivate yourself in a positive way? When the child has taken her first steps, the mother praises her, “Bravo!” The child saves this and then has the outlook, “I can do it!” She learns by trying and failing, by succeeding and repeating. The experience of trying and failing and then succeeding is the basis for learning and gaining a positive outlook.

When I ask you to come up here and sing a son, what does your subconscious say? “I can’t do that.” You have saved this image, because your colleagues said at one time, “I’ve heard better sounds coming from a dying cat.” When a child hears such things as, “You dumbhead! Don’t act so stupid. How often do I have to tell you? You’ll never learn,” then the child programs, “I can’t . . .”—and you! That has been saved, although it has nothing to do with the reality of things.

 

Dialog

Participant: Does only parental conditioning play a role, or does our own personality also play a role?

de Souza: Your personality plays the largest role. The wrong up bringing can intensify a negative personality. You can influence, however, a negative personality in a positive way by intensifying your positive experiences through your inner dialog. “You did a great job!” You can also always find something positive to say even in a negative situation.

Participant: When a mother has negatively programmed her child, and now that child is an adult, can she still do something to change things?

de Souza: Yes. She can speak with him: “What I said at one time isn’t true. You’re wonderful.” Praise him also for the little things he does. Trust him to certain tasks, “You can do it!” The problem is, his negative data has, let us say, a strength of 50. Now you can create, little by little, so many positive experiences to add up to a strength of 60. That takes time. As a child he believed you. He associated your comments with feelings. Now you have to just as intensely praise him so that he believes you. And continue to praise him!

 

 

Land and map

Every person has his/her own image of reality. But it does not always match with the actual reality. For example, there were once Native Americans who sacrificed humans to their gods. They thought that they could soothe, for instance, Hunrakan, the God of the Hurricanes, by sacrificing an especially precious human life. That is why they were able to take human lives without any feelings of guilt. Our experiences are like a map. The map is not, however, the land. We reach our goals only when the map corresponds to the land. When the map is not right, I will not reach my goal. —You believe, for example, that the tiger is a friendly cat, and you can pet it. That is your “map.” What happens then when you really come into contact with a tiger—when you come onto the “land?” Could you really pet him? Your “map” does not correspond to the “land”. —There is only one reality. Try to bring your views in harmony with the true facts of reality.

 

Dialog

Participant: That means, when my inner reality corresponds to the outer reality, then I’m happy?

de Souza: That is a pillar of luck.

Participant: So, I create my own reality, in that I save all information in my databank in my own personal way. What I don’t understand, then, is where the objective reality is?

de Souza: In your databank you’ve saved, for instance, “The tiger is a friendly cat that you can pet.” You’re then confronted with reality when an actual tiger comes along, and you try to pet him. Then it’ll go to show if he acts according to the information you have saved. I fear, he doesn’t know about the information. The Englishman Tim Corbett, who lived in India for several years, proclaimed that the tiger is a gentleman. Do you believe him?

What are some of the signs that my reality corresponds to the actual reality? How can I find out? Through bodily pain. When I stick my hand into an open fire, I feel pain. And then I realize that it’s not good to stick my hand into an open fire. At the spiritual level, happiness and love are the indicators. You’re happy, when you’ve dealt with something properly. In addition, the higher values are, of course, not hurt.

Participant: We always make the mistake of trying to fit our outer reality to our inner reality, instead of the other way around.

de Souza: That is a reason why many people breakdown and need therapy. They have certain convictions in which they believe. When other convictions don’t agree with those, then there’s war. They try violently to fit their outer reality to their inner reality.

 

 

Personality

You say either “I can’t . . .” or “I have to . . ..” Both programs are restricting. How can we change that? Now we come to my method.

Your personality is a summary of all your experiences, beliefs, thoughts, and feelings. You act according to this pattern that you have saved in your subconscious through your previous experiences. Therefore, you do not act according to your potential. Your inner program is your reality. That is, your “map.” When it is wrong, you will not arrive where you want to, but rather somewhere completely different.

You act according to your program and will either be a fanatic or full of love. It depends on if the “map” in your head matches the outer reality or not. When it corresponds to the “land,” then you are happy; when not, then you are unhappy and insecure. Then you react to criticism slightly aggressively. The errors on your “map,” the wrong thoughts, have to go.

Your personality also contains what you think of yourself. You can have a positive or negative view of yourself.

You have taken many things from other people as your own. You have taken them as your own, because you have accepted them into your inner dialog. In this way, you have believed in them.

You act according to your pattern, your programming, your ego, your self-image, your personality. Those are different words for the same thing.

 

 

Comfort zone

Your personality encompasses, thus, a certain spectrum of views with which you feel comfortable. You become afraid when confronted with a view outside the spectrum and are then unhappy. You have the tendency to do anything it takes to return to your comfort zone. Similar to central air-conditioning that goes on when the room temperature increases.

“I’m always in a bad mood when the weather is terrible.” What happens then when there is bad weather? You are in a bad mood. Even when you are actually in a good mood, you either do not notice it, or you quickly convince yourself that it cannot be good. After all, the weather is bad, and when the weather is bad, you are always in a bad mood!

In other words, you do not act according to your potential, but rather to your self-image, which you have programmed.

The people living in the slums received nicer apartments. After a short period of time, they too began to look like slums. If you were to move into a king’s palest tomorrow, would you feel comfortable there? It does not agree with the view you have of yourself. You are outside your comfort zone and will do anything to go back.

If you are forced to live in India, then you will do anything to make your apartment as “American” as possible. Why do you not want to give a speech at the podium? It is outside of your comfort zone. You are not used to it, and thus, feel threatened. The air-conditioning goes on and creates panic. That is the reason why you will not come forward to sing.

 

 

The Gennao technique—self-programming

What do you do? You can change your programming. Your negative outlook is there. It cannot be extinguished, but it can be overlapped by a positive one. The most important part of your program is your feelings. Your knowledge does not determine your actions, but rather your feelings; for your knowledge is always associated with feelings. Your feelings motivate you to learn and change.

We are going to use our power of imagination as the key to changing our programming, to switching to the positive; for our subconscious can be programmed by both our imagination as well as by real experiences. I will now explain to you the self-programming method, with which you can change your current programming and create a new, positive pattern of action.

 

First step:                          We know what we want. For example, I would like to be able to concentrate better. I would like to become so deeply involved in a lecture that I forget the world around me.

Second step:                     Which emotions are associated with that? I imagine what I feel when I am deeply concentrated on a lecture. I am there with enthusiasm and interest.

Third step:                        Now we write down positive affirmations—our own personal secret mantras: “I simply need to bundle my attention and listen or participate with enthusiasm.” “I feel strong and secure when I am concentrated.” Up until now you have spoken mantras in Sanskrit without really knowing what they meant. Now you can say clear mantras in English. With our personal “secret mantras,” we can create the most intensive and animated images.

Fourth step:                      We imagine most intensively the new image and try to experience the feelings that are associated with it. We experience this new image in our minds. I imagine myself reading this book. I hear how the pages ruffle as I turn them. I am completely concentrated when I read, because I am amazed by the contents. I am full of enthusiasm.

Fifth step:                          We practice this new image in reality.

 

Another example:

First step:                          My goal is to give a speech without being afraid.

Second step:                     The feelings: I am glad to stand in front of people. I am very relaxed, as if I were having a regular conversation.

Third step:                        The mantra: “It is simple for me to give a speech as if it were a regular conversation. I feel a lot of joy, because I can then share my ideas with others.”

Fourth step:                      The image in your mind: I give a wonderful speech and am happy, because my enthusiasm is conveyed to other people. I see the people seated in front of me and feel good. I imagine how I give a speech in front of an ever-growing audience.

Fifth step:                          Give a speech (in front of a small audience at first).

 

People often speak of the “mental preparation” when it comes to sports. The athletic achievement is imagined. You can also do “mental training” before going to an interview.

 

A summary of the steps:

First step:                    You see the good qualities you want to have.

Second step:                     You imagine the feelings you will experience.

Third step:                        You write down affirmations about them.

Fourth step:                      You imagine yourself practicing these affirmations and how you feel when doing them.

Fifth step:                          You practice your new image in reality.

 

This is how you expand your comfort zone and change your actions to positive ones. You can apply this technique to all goals: to the spiritual goals, for example, to having a fulfilling relationship or to being an artist; but also to the worldly goals, for example, to having a career, to being computer literate, to giving a speech, to being challenged in your career, to going on a trip, etc.

 

 

Dialog

Participant: The question is which goals are important. Goals are after all short-lived.

de Souza: That is the philosophy of denying life! When you don’t have any goals, you can’t be happy. Only when you work and realize your worldly goals, only when you reach for the stars can you be happy. Our highest goal is joy, for God is joy. Why do you have a bad feeling when you realize your worldly goals? That is the way to God. I will now speak about this way.

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go on reading chapter II …

https://pedrodesouzablog.wordpress.com/book-the-oceanfrog-chapter-2-english/