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are not so much locked away as they are covered over with years and years and layers upon layers of subsequent experiences, emotions, thoughts, and habits. The difficulty of this is that if they were to look deeply and unflinchingly at those early childhood feelings of extreme negativity, they would realize their falseness and would have to acknowledge that for all those years they were living under a false assumption. They fear that all they had invested, so much of their behavior based on those insecurities for so long were a waste of time. It would be a total invalidation of much of their life. They would do anything to avoid looking.
Spirit overcomes this through the soul. The soul evolves experientially and existentially. The soul evolves by learning from seeming mistakes, as well as gaining existential wisdom from the spirit. Once the soul is sufficiently empowered, the soul can look upon all those years of acting under a false assumption as a learning experience. The soul's spiritual point of view can look upon all those mistakes as a treasure trove from which to glean wisdom and truth.
The paradox (there are many wonderful paradoxes in an elliptical universe!) is that for the mind to become empowered sufficiently to get a spiritual point of view, it must become aware of the deepest parts of the self, and it does not want to become aware of those parts until it gets a spiritual point of view. The way out of this paradox is that all negativity will fade and disappear on its own by weight of its unreality, unless it is focused upon, and that all positive values lives on for eternity and cannot be destroyed.
Although it may take many human years, a person's soul, unless he focuses constantly on his negativity, will become more and more empowered as his negativity withers away. Eventually, he will have a strong enough soul to go back into his childhood and look unhesitatingly at what troubled him and what those deep seated emotions did to his life. He can then look further at those subsequent behaviors that caused him so much trouble, and learn from them lessons which would add to the quality and quantity of his soul. Such an experience would indeed be a transforming event and would not be an overnight happening. For it to become a reality would take many affirmative thoughts, many affirmative actions and services, much inner work through meditation and prayer, and a sincere desire for truth, beauty, and goodness. It happens all the time.
A question may then arise such as, what about those who become self-aware that they are oriented in ways that are not accepted by society? What about people who find out that deep inside they have tendencies that are totally reviled by society, like being a masochist, a pedophile or have other deviate traits? By squarely facing up to who they are unflinchingly without guilt or shame, they will realize that God still loves them whatever they are. Societal morality is relative only to that society, and those people who are considered perverted by society are not innately evil, just maladjusted. But if they realize that they have serious behavioral and psychological problems, professional help should be sought. Otherwise, by being self-aware, and by being true to spiritual morality, they can live peacefully within the confines of the societal mores so that they do not intrude upon the rights of the majority who believe differently than they do. In other words, they will have better control of themselves, as that is what spiritual self-mastery is all about.
Self-awareness can also empower the soul to heights of consciousness that are useful in dealing with many of the problems that face society. Through the act of the soul going within, the spiritual pleasure of worshipful meditation can be achieved, and it can become a pleasure that can supersede and replace the stimulative feelings induced by external means such as drugs, sex, food and power. Addictions can be locked away in a box by people who are afraid to face up to it, but it is through identifying and becoming one with the spirit within that one can become aware of and conquer such habits. Then there are people who have relatively minor addictions which they recognize and confront daily, but they are unable to effectively overcome them because of the symptomatic difficulties inherent in withdrawal. It is just too hard. And it is harder to some extent because they have not hit rock bottom. They still function well in society, and may even consider themselves successful, but they are not realizing their full potential spiritually. An effective way to deal with this is not by trying to take a certain behavior away, but by replacing it with something more pleasurable. It is hard to get excited about taking something away from one's life, it is a negative process. It is easier to get enthusiastic about adding something, for it would be a positive act.
It must first happen by the self-awareness of what constitutes genuine pleasure. There is a difference between subtractive pleasure and additive pleasure. Subtractive pleasure is when we subtract the pressure from the external (even our physical bodies) such as the pressure of hunger, the pressure of the sex urge, the pressure of substance withdrawal. Those things are relieved by eating, sex and re-using mind altering substances. Additive pleasure adds something new and invigorating such as creativity, great relationships, recreation and worshipful meditation. Sometimes I have found that the best form of pleasure is a combination of the subtractive and additive, for instance, relieving hunger through well prepared, spiritually mindful nutritious meals rather than by just stuffing our faces with fast food; sexual relationships that are based on the sharing of soul to soul rather than merely for the act of physical gratification. Even the use of substances, such as alcohol, is more pleasurable when done with mindfulness, control and to enhance social discourse rather than to just drink to get drunk. Pleasure, any pleasure, when had daily and not associated with higher values, becomes adulterated and loses its vibrancy. Pleasurable activities are the most pleasurable when it is not regular and the gratification is delayed. The animal mind wants immediate and regular gratification. The spirit, conscious of eternity, knows that pleasure is best doled out intermittently to remain pleasurable over the long run.
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