The Science of Promises

A promise is considered very sacred. In Asia, a sage formulated a saying which emphasizes the importance of a promise. It says “one would rather die than to make a promise, but if he promises, he must fulfill his promise to his death”.

Our promises cause certain patterns in relation to their time, daily work, feelings, thoughts, plans, motives, and in their relationships with other people. Let us imagine such a pattern as a set, electrical pattern in which things are done automatically according to how it is set. As long as the promise continues, things go as they were planned to go, but, when the promise is broken, the whole pattern of set activities of the physical, emotional, and mental levels and the set patterns of relationship are disturbed.

Many physical, emotional, mental disturbances and states of confusion are the result of broken promises, whether it was a promise formed with a friend, a mother, a father or your own promise to yourself. People do not pay attention to this subtle factor, which plays a great role in our health, sanity and behavior. Promises from others or from our own self considerably damage our health and sanity if they are not met and fulfilled.

During childhood, unfulfilled promises by parents, teachers, and friends have such an effect on our system that we may even wait for the fulfillment of the promises for 70 years and run our life in accordance with the thought forms of the promises given to us long ago. Thus a promise builds a prison around us and does not let us take self-activated actions.

Throughout our life, whenever the promise is attached to any circumstance or event, we go through acute crises, depressions and failures.

A promise forms a special thought form in our mind and a strong expectancy within our emotional vehicle. Sometimes, even the awareness of the futility of the promise does not annihilate such thought forms, and the expectancy of the lower mind brings in many rationalizations and lets us hang on to the promise.

Great depressions, disillusionments, inertia and apathy are the result after the thought forms and the expectancy melt away. In such cases, the best way to help is to find the promise and the one who promised it and dissipate the promise through analytical logic, replacing it with a spiritual challenge. It is also helpful to analyze the one who made the promise and search for the motives behind the promise and the circumstances which were related to it.

It must be remembered that the moment of the dissolution of the promise is a moment of pain and suffering. Once this phase is over, joy will be witnessed by the observer.

It is very interesting to note that the promiser builds a thought form within his mental sphere. If he fulfills his promise, this form melts away. If he does not fulfill his promise, no matter how lightly made, it bothers him in subtle ways, creating confusion in his mind and behavior.

If the promise is forgotten by him, the thought form still exists, and it is registered as a defect in the mental computer which does many things wrong because of this invisible defect.

The thought form of a promise can be re-stimulated either in the mind of the one who promised, or in the mind of the one who was promised. Everytime the thought form is re-stimulated, it takes away the clarity of the mind and creates minor or major disturbances in it.

In certain cases, one promises but for a while does not carry it out. Later he wants to meet his promise but cannot find any opportunity to fulfill it because of many circumstances. But the thought form of the promise remains in his being as a sore spot until it is analyzed and dissipated.

Some people make false promises. In this case, they have a weak thought form of a promise in their minds. This thought form gradually grows and bothers them because the one who was promised nourishes the weak thought form by the force of his expectation. The thought form of a false promise not only becomes a promise but also a hated thought form within the man. It is mostly such thought forms that weaken the memory and the clear thinking of a human being.

It is very helpful to do a review to find your promises and either dissolve them consciously or fulfill them if possible.

A promise has a form element in it. It has etheric, astral, mental elements and will power. The melting process is almost impossible left to itself, but through logic and analysis, it is possible to dissipate it, paying some taxes in the meantime for the delay.

Promising to oneself is also a very serious matter. In most cases, a person promises when he is in a higher state of consciousness or is soul infused. A promise made from such a level evokes positive polarization from the lower vehicles, but when the promise is not carried out, the positive polarization changes into negative polarization. Then the man on the personality level does exactly the opposite of what he promised in his inspirational or uplifted moments. This eventually creates an intense inner conflict.

A related situation also creates problems. Many people make various promises to their higher self and when they do not carry them out, they try to hide from the light of the higher self and keep themselves busy with lower activities. But promises made to the higher self can never be forgotten because the higher self eventually will create those crises in your life in which you recollect yourself and meet your promises through painful experiences.

It is also true that we promise on various levels with our false I’s. Because we change our levels very often, we create conflicting promises within our nature. On each level, we see things from different view points;  we have different interests and also different relationships. All the factors combined force us to make various promises to ourselves and to others which are often conflicting. Conflicts created in these ways do not contribute to our serenity and growth.

Expectations are not promises. In expectations, you form a thought form which may obsess you gradually if you feed it with your imagination and thoughts. Generally, expectations fade away when the source of inspiration does not show the evidences of support for your expectations.

It is very beneficial to clear your mind of the thought forms of expectations because they consume a great amount of energy from your mental, emotional, and etheric nature. They create diffusion in your mind, which makes you take unreasonable actions or attitudes.

VOWS:

Vows are of a higher order. They not only have etheric, emotional, and mental forces and the energy of the Will, but they are also associated with Devas and higher beings. The violation of vows creates serious disturbances in man’s subtle bodies and his relation with subjective forces.

As we go higher, our words, promises, and vows are taken more seriously because they are connected with speech and thought.  On higher levels, speech and thought are agents of creative forces which bring into manifestation and objectification the things about which we talk and think.

In breaking your vows, you start a destructive process within the forms and relationships which you have been building with your vows. This destruction affects your higher and lower vehicles in many ways.

It is possible to break vows if they were taken under pressure or in a state of unconsciousness, or if the vows interfere in your relationships with greater principles, laws, and service. If this is the case, the vows must be analyzed, brought into the light of your present consciousness, and cancelled.

"We must start to practice living in the light of our soul and see things as they are."

-  (Leadership)