ЁЯТР Question: "This morning my practice was very powerful, but in the afternoon I began to feel really hopeless and angry, and to think, 'Oh, what's the use!' It was just as if when the meditation was strong, an enemy inside me— the ego perhaps—matched that strength and knocked me out. And then I felt I did not have the strength to fight it. Is there some way to sidestep so that I don't have to fight so hard, some clever way to do it?"
"Goenkaji:
Maintain equanimity; that is the smartest way!
What you have experienced is quite natural. When the meditation seemed to you to be going well, the mind was balanced, and it penetrated deeply into the unconscious. As a result of that deep operation, a past reaction was shaken and came to the surface level of the mind, and in the next sitting you had to face that storm of negativity.
In such a situation equanimity is essential, because otherwise the negativity will overpower you, and you cannot work. If equanimity seems weak, start practising the awareness of respiration. When a big storm comes, you have to put down your anchor and wait until it passes away. The breath is your anchor. Work with it and the storm will pass.
ЁЯМ╖ It is good that this negativity has come to the surface, because now you have the opportunity to clear it out. If you keep equanimity it will pass away easily."
