Theosophy Basics II : Section 3. Thoughts and the process of thinking.

[Guest guest]

Greetings:

 

In this section of the article, Shri Martin Euser explains thoughts and

the process of thinking.

 

Once again, let me express my sincere thanks to Shri Martin Euser for

his permission to post this essay to the Advaitin List.

 

Ram Chandran

Burke, VA

 

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Theosophy Basics II : The Psychological Key To Man: Theosophy By Martin

Euser (euser)

 

Section 3. Thoughts and the process of thinking.

 

The contemporary world with all its science and technology doesn't know

much about the faculty of thinking, thoughts, etc. Sure, scientists can

register activities of the brain. A simple question however remains:

what lies beyond these activities? What is the cause or, maybe, are the

causes, beyond idea's, thoughts, etc. Recall the experiences of

telepathy many people have had. And what about mystical experiences?

 

These last ones certainly point in the direction of the possibility of

spiritual communion with Higher, or better, Inner worlds of silence (to

most of us), worlds full of life to others.

 

The Old Wisdom-Religion (nowadays called Theosophy) clearly states that

One Life is at the foundation of all manifestations. Theosophy denies

the existence of so called dead-matter (minerals are not dead, but in a

'sleeping' state so to speak). Everything has some mode of

consciousness, is consciousness, enwrapped in some form, consisting in

its turn of minor consciousnesses. We see here once again an example of

the principle of hierarchies. Each human being is like a cell in a body,

a constituent of what the poet Emerson calls 'The Oversoul'. If cells

start to grow wild, then the whole body is afflicted. See here the

responsibility we all have for each other's well-being and for the

environment in general!

 

The conclusion must be that even thoughts are living beings. Besides

having a vibrational aspect they have life in themselves. We will

present strong arguments for this assertion shortly.

 

The stream of thoughts that pass through our minds consists of hosts of

living beings. Our faculty of thinking is so to speak the capability of

perceiving thought-forms or images. We will soon see that we do not have

to passively undergo the influences of these beings.

 

The concept of the stream of thoughts as a host of LIVING beings

provides an important key to changing our lives! By applying this

knowledge (see also subsequent sections) we can open new vistas of

perception and experience. Of course, we have to experience the

correctness of this point of view in our own thinking, before we can

apply this key.

 

Let's have a look at the characteristics of living beings. What is

required for something to be called alive?

 

1.Living beings are subject to the processes of birth and death.

2.Living beings require food of some kind. 3.Living beings have a

character of their own. 4.Living beings can procreate in some way.

5.Living beings do have some consciousness of their own.

 

Analysis of thoughts will learn, that they conform to all of these

points:

 

1.Regarding history, one often talks about the 'birth of an idea' in a

certain era. Many examples can be given. Not only such dramatic events

as the French Revolution but many other gradually unfolding episodes

like the Renaissance, the industrial revolution, the computer-era, the

information super-highway, etc., can be seen in this way. After the

birth of an idea, it will grow, evolve to some extent and finally die,

to be replaced by another idea (thought). 2.We all know that we often

have some desires, maybe to buy something or so. If we fulfill this

desire, the associated thought often quickly dies. If we can't fulfill

it, one of two things can happen: we either forget about it or this

desire becomes really strong, up to the point that we have to fulfill

this desire. We almost drive ourselves crazy until we have got this wish

fulfilled. We are constantly feeding this thought with our desire-energy

(the fourth aspect of thinking), making this thought really strong and

big. Many examples can be found of this process, showing that we can

loose control of ourselves and get entangled in some acts resulting in a

really messy situation. Oh, how do we desire that we never had done

these things.. Thoughts take form and last longer corresponding to the

degree to which they are sustained. They will die sooner when we spend

little attention to them. 3.The own character of a thought can be

understood as follows: if we recall the fact that we are sometimes

confronted with strange or incomprehensible thoughts, which we soon

forget, then we can understand this to be due to the deviance of the

character of these thoughts from our own character. These thoughts

simply cannot find a proper soil in us to root and sprout. Inversely, a

thought or idea will strike a note in our consciousness much easier if

the character of this idea conforms to the character of our personality.

Racist ideas will easier resonate in one's mind if one has an element of

or a tendency towards racism already in oneself. Art will be more

appreciated if we have a sense of beauty or harmony developed in

ourselves. 4.The procreation of thought might seem a little odd at first

sight. Yet, we all know about this. If a teacher tells us about

something, and we 'buy' it, then these thoughts find a fertile soil in

our minds, enabling them to grow, flower and come to fruition. On our

turn we can transfer these ideas to others ('sow these thought-seeds'),

where they can find a new life, etc. 5.A thought has its own

consciousness. We all know, that we can be quite 'obsessed' by thoughts

sometimes. We have great difficulty to break out of some strong

thought-influence. The thought has grown to gigantic proportions,

blocking other thoughts out of our consciousness. How to deal with such

a situation? We must concentrate with all our efforts on other thoughts,

do some action, to break out of this iron hold. A constructive approach

is given in the next section. A positive example of this own

consciousness is when we are caught by some grand, inspirational

thought, leading us into unselfish acts we normally would not do.

 

In order to investigate the nature of thoughts as living beings, it is

advised to see oneself more as a witness of thoughts than as a creator

of thoughts. Think of oneself as part of the One Life that is the

essence of all. That will make it easier to get in the state of

witnessing thoughts.

 

A good exercise to learn to recognize in what 'track' your thoughts

naturally flow, is to observe your thought-flow on the moments before

you fall asleep. Just observe as a witness (in this exercise). You can

learn to recognize the quality or character of these thoughts, and, to

recognize the several aspects of thinking. This will be a help in the

process of getting to understand yourself better. You can also do this

exercise on a quiet moment of the day. If you don't like what you see,

then you can apply the methods in the next sections for changing your

thought-pattern.

 

The process of thinking.

 

Theosophy makes a division in conscious thinking and unconscious

thinking. This has to be clarified.

 

Unconscious thinking is what we all do too often. We uncritically accept

the dogma's of science, commercial slogans, technological innovations

(are these ever being discussed worldwide or even nationwide on their

ethical implications?), political propaganda, etc., etc. It's quite easy

for strong personalities to force idea's into the minds of the people,

as long as these last ones don't know anything about the effects of

thoughts on themselves and the situation in the world. Yet, we should

know better. We all know how war propaganda can drive people crazy.

Propaganda, slogans, etc. can easily influence people when they are not

conscious of the effects of these things.

 

This ignorance about the process of thinking and the effects of thoughts

on others and ourselves has brought many disasters to mankind. We are in

the illusion that we think consciously, that we control our thoughts,

while the facts point in another direction.. Fact is that we are

drifting on the waves of thoughts projected and amplified by strong

personalities who have clear reasons to do so (for personal gain,

political power, commercial reasons, etc.). Mind, that this is all

cleverly done.. We are made to believe to have so many rights (what

about our duties?), made to believe that we need this or that latest

object of technology (do we need it really?), made to belief almost

anything. It's a scary situation.

 

How can we break out of this passive kind of thinking? By conscious

thinking.

 

The recognition of thoughts as living beings is an important step

towards conscious thinking, because it leaves no room for doubt about

the responsibility one has for one's thoughts. Thoughts are simple,

elemental beings that follow slavishly the impulse that is given to

them. They mostly express their own consciousness when the process of

thinking gets out of control... Many psychological disturbances could be

prevented if these facts were known and the knowledge of these things

would be correctly applied.

 

In order to illustrate the process of thinking, one can think of the

technique of transmitting radio or television waves. A receiver can pick

up certain frequencies and by attuning to one of the channels messages

are made visible and can be understood. Likewise, a person picks up

thought-waves that lie within his bandwidth of thought-frequencies. The

human thinking faculty can function both as a transmitter and receiver.

 

When we look at a child, we can observe that it has its own character

already at birth. Gradually it starts expressing its character during

the first years of its life. This character forms so to speak the

bandwidth within which thoughts can be received or perceived. Nurture,

education, and all kind of other factors influence the child and limit

this bandwidth further by offering a narrow perspective on life. Not

that the child doesn't resist tradition and prejudice, e.g. in puberty,

but the milieu's influences are usually too strong to resist. And so

another 'decent' citizen is born, neatly adapted to the utilitarian way

of life.

 

This explains why new, refreshing, ideas have so much trouble to enter

into the human mind. Our minds are just too crystallized in traditional

concepts and notions of life. The receiving brain-mind can only pick up

thoughts of certain frequencies and (re)transmit them. This fact is

(un)consciously misused for commercial and political ends.

 

How to change this all? First of all, the process of change should begin

with the individual himself, because he must realize in which mental

situation or state he is in. Then only he can decide to change his way

of thinking. He can tune in to other frequencies of thought, i.e. the

higher aspects of thinking we spoke of before, finer qualities of

thought. Where I write 'he' you can substitute 'she' of course.

 

Now, we won't book any success if we try to combat our faults of

character. Why not? This is because by combat we feed our thoughts,

which are living beings. So they will grow stronger instead of starve to

death. Instead of combat, we should forget about the unwanted thoughts,

let them die. For this we need recognition of these thoughts and give

them a positive impulse by simply thinking an opposite, positive

thought. By thinking and acting according to this positive thought we

outweigh, out-balance the effects of the negative thought. By persisting

in this practice we can change the quality of thoughts and also make our

thinking faculty function on other frequencies, more brotherly,

spiritual, positive, etc. After some practice we will even no longer

receive these negative thoughts (we may notice them but do not allow

them to upset us).

 

A short elaboration on this example. --

 

The above given practice of changing one's way of thinking gives me an

excellent opportunity to relate this practice to the workings of the

seven jewels of wisdom. Now, obviously, when one succeeds in replacing a

negative thought by a positive one, one has succeeded in establishing a

new psychological equilibrium, however small the change may be. In other

words, one has used the balancing force of karma in this process (second

jewel). One has succeeded in changing part of the characteristic of

one's thinking (fourth jewel is involved here) and one has made a little

progress in spiritual respect (the fifth jewel). When one, for example,

succeeds to transform a feeling of anger into one of patience and

withholding judgment (in the case that anger is arising out of a

personal motive) one has certainly made an important step in rebuilding

one's character along constructive lines. The other jewels are also

involved in this practice:

 

-hierarchies, because one acts from within the spirit on the psychic

part of one's constitution

 

-duality, because one uses psychic-spiritual energy in an opposite state

of polarization, so to speak, and is able to neutralize the negative

thought. It looks analogous to two beams of light that quench each other

because being in opposite phase when interacting. A bit of a crude

analogy, but it may hold.

 

-cycles are also involved. When one carefully observes one's stream of

thoughts one will notice the recurrence of negative thoughts [maybe in a

different situation, in a different guise] and these thoughts will

weaken over time when a constructive attitude of mind is being

maintained. They will gradually phase out after returning on a cyclical

basis.

 

The seventh jewel is involved, because one evolves a deeper

understanding of the wholeness of life and the inter-relatedness of all

beings. One becomes a better channel of expression for spiritual forces

in this world. From a collective point of view one could say that one

adds to the collective pool of knowledge that each human can tap

(unconsciously). This pool may be more or less equated with Carl Gustav

Jung's 'collective unconscious'. From a more mystical point of view we

could say that the Oversoul (common to all) is experiencing

manifestation through its vehicles (the kingdoms of nature) and as we

evolve It evolves too and vice versa. The human kingdom is positioned

between the animal kingdom and the higher kingdoms of demi-gods (the

Greeks called beings in that kingdom heroes, like the mythological

figure Hercules) , gods, etc. In Theosophy the existence of an

anthropomorphic (personal) God is denied as this concept is

self-contradictory and philosophically speaking impossible. A manifest

being can by definition have not the attributes of omnipotence,

omniscience, etc.

 

The kingdoms of nature act as channels for transmuting matter into

higher states (more refined, more spiritual). By the word 'matter' I

mean all the substances (known and unknown) pertaining to the various

kingdoms. Remember that matter is never devoid of consciousness in the

theosophical concept of nature. The inherent tendency of nature is to

gradually manifest latent potentialities of consciousness, building new

faculties of perception. This process integrates different levels of

consciousness. The idea is to work with nature, along the lines of the

natural order process, becoming aware of the fact that there is such a

thing as a natural order process!

 

So, all of the seven jewels - working principles in nature - are always

involved in nature's processes. The jewels are like different, yet

inseparable, aspects of the Life force working in and through

manifestation.

 

------ end of elaboration-----

 

By using this information about thoughts and the process of thinking, we

can make a big step towards selfless thinking, enhancing our

understanding of things and open up the road to inspirational thinking!

This is a practical, feasible, testable procedure which every sincere

person can apply to his or her own life!

 

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