teachings/Burning Questions
What is Thought?
What is the Mind and what is Thought?
Many make the mistake to think that the Mind is thought. No, it isn’t. What we call thought is a product of the Mind and for the time being, from the human brain. So the human being, for the time being, has the need of the human brain to produce thought. Why? Because: he or she is under the domain of the human brain. Definitely, the Mind is not this little handful of clay in our skull called the material brain.
I repeat – the Mind is not a handful of earth in the skull we call brain, just as a battery is not electricity, since a battery may be charged or discharged (while electricity is everywhere). So, we have to study the nature of the Mind in all of its vibrations and frequencies. It needs much study.
What is thought?
Many will say, “Don’t we know what thought is? Thinking means to know what thought is.” But I tell you that you do not know what thoughts really are, because you have not yet analyzed this question. What is the nature of thought? What do you think thought is? Thought is a concentration to gain knowledge of a condition or an object. To have the phenomenon of thought, we must have a being which we can call self-awareness, which is thinking – which is the thinker. But if we make an analysis, what is self-awareness? Is it not simply a formation of Divine Thought around a Being? This needs much study.
We have to analyze what thought is. Then we must ask ourselves from where we draw the power to form images and pictures from noetical substance through precise thoughts, which are maybe more real than material objects in the three-dimensional world. We call this process visualization.
Again what is thought? We have said that everything is Mind as Super-substance, substance and super-matter. We are not concerned now with the lowest vibration of Mind, which is called matter. Yet, everything is Mind.
Thought is a form and thinking is a way to obtain, from the boundless ocean of formless Mind in its unexpressed and already existing condition. And we give it, in a certain way – form. We “formulate” it, and we bring it as a noetical image or mental picture within our inner world, our noetical world. But we also project it as an elemental into the environment around us. Have you ever thought about this?
We said that thought is the formation of Mind, Mind in a certain form, as specific pictures or images. Until now, man has learned to create these images completely mechanically. And these images are the product of his aims, his wishes, and his desires that are found in life and in his environment.
What are we in relation to the Mind?
Are we the Mind? No, we are using the Mind! We are not the thought, we are not the emotions and we are not our bodies. So, in our course of studies we must study to control the material body. Study everything possible about the material body and the work of the Archangels. Study the etheric double. Control it. Use it. Study the emotional body, which is sometimes torturing us by uncontrolled desires and emotions. We have to control them and know them…then what? We’ll know that we are not our emotions. Our emotions are our expression. Are we our thoughts? No! Now, what is feeling? What is thought? And what is the relationship between them? We can never have a feeling without some thought with it; just as we can never have a thought without some feeling with it. Now, we have to separate these two conditions although they are made up from the same substance. We see that any thought image or elemental needs for its continuous life a cohesive power, which means it must have in itself, feeling and desire.
We make the mistake to make the Mind a slave of the emotions. We enslave the Super-substance of the Mind formulating it into elementals, a mixture of emotions and desires, and thoughts. So, we have to study how we create the elementals that are composing our personality.
What will we find? We will find that our personality is composed of those elementals (of our impressions, likings and disliking and thoughts) and that we make the terrible mistake to think that these elementals (composing the Present-Day-Personality) are – our Self. Now, by introspection, studying things, we start to find out that, “Yes, now – who am I who is thinking behind this all, not being influenced by the time-and-place/space impressions, studying the nature of my so-called desires, thoughts, becoming their master?”
What will be the gain of this study? You will find who you are, what you are. You’ll become the master of Mind-matter. You’ll become the master of your Mind-emotions. You’ll know what they are. You’ll be able to change and reshape them. Then, you’ll become the master of your Mind as reasonable thought, not allowing it to become a slave of your emotions. Then you’ll become the master of life – of your destiny.
Of course, the Researcher of Truth will see, when he proceeds, that he can finally make use of Mind in a way that an ordinary man will not know. And this way or method is powerful; thought now is power, tremendous power. We call it “Creative Thought.”