….Our thoughts are not really created within ourselves independently in the small narrow thinking machine we call our mind; in fact, they come to us from a vast mental space or ether either as mind-waves or waves of mind-force that carry a significance which takes shape in our personal mind or as thought-formations ready-made which we adopt and call ours. Our outer mind is blind to this process of Nature; but by the awakening of the inner mind we can become aware of it…..
Sri Aurobindo – Letters on Yoga – III : CWSA, Vol. 30, p. 258
A strange enthusiasm has moved its heart;
It hungers for heights, it passions for the supreme.
It hunts for the perfect word, the perfect shape,
It leaps to the summit thought, the summit light.
Sri Aurobindo – Savitri: CWSA, Vol. 33, Book Two, p. 179
“Among the elements of its own order, thought moves just as our bodies do among physical objects. Just as our hands know how to shape these objects, in the same way thought also knows how to mould these elements and cast them into a myriad appropriate forms.
Thus our intellectual gestures are no less fruitful than our physical gestures. And that is why wisdom has always taught that we must watch over our thoughts as we would over generating acts.”
The Mother – Words of the Mother – II : CWM, Vol. 14, p. 89
It seems to me that we must first of all distinguish two very different kinds, or I might say qualities, of thought: thoughts in us which are the result, the fruit, as it were, of our sensations, and thoughts which, like living beings, come to us—from where?… most often we do not know—thoughts that we perceive mentally before they express themselves in our outer being as sensations.
The Mother – Words of the Mother – II : CWM, Vol. 14, p. 22
You probably remember that, last month, we made two observations.
The first is that thought is a living, active, autonomous entity.
The second is that in order to contend victoriously with the injurious effects of the polluted mental atmosphere in which we live, we must build up within ourselves a pure, luminous and powerful intellectual synthesis.
For this purpose we must bring down into ourselves the highest thoughts within our reach that is, within the field of our mental activity, and make them our own.
But since thoughts are living beings, they have, as we do, their likes and dislikes, their attractions and repulsions.
We must therefore adopt a special attitude towards them, treat them as people, make advances and concessions to them and show them the same attentions as we would to someone we would wish to be our friend.
The Mother – Words of the Mother – II : CWM, Vol. 14, p. 79
…. the care we take to remain conscious of our highest thoughts will compel us to control our thoughts constantly, and this control is gradually obtained by the methods —analysis, reflection, meditation, etc. Those who have achieved the control of their mental being can emanate at will a certain portion of their intellectual power, send it wherever they think proper, while remaining perfectly conscious of it.
The Mother – Words of the Mother – II : CWM, Vol. 14, p. 94
So let us watch over our thoughts, let us strive to create for ourselves an atmosphere of beautiful and noble thoughts and we shall have done much to hasten the advent of terrestrial harmony.
The Mother – Words of the Mother – II : CWM, Vol. 14, p. 96
Let us be transparent so that the light within us may fully illumine the thoughts we want to observe, analyse, classify. Let us be impartial and courageous so as to rise above our own little preferences and petty personal conveniences. Let us look at the thoughts in themselves, for themselves, without bias.
And little by little, if we persevere in our work of classification, we shall see order and light take up their abode in our minds. But we should never forget that this order is but confusion compared with the order that we must realise in the future, that this light is but darkness compared with the light that we shall be able to receive after some time.
The Mother – Words of the Mother – II : CWM, Vol. 14, p. 26
There is no difficulty about explaining [how a thought rejected by one person gets picked up by another]. You are as naive and ignorant as a newborn lamb. That is the way things come, only one does not notice. Thoughts, ideas, happy inventions etc. etc. are always wandering about (in thought waves or otherwise) seeking a mind that may embody them. One mind takes, looks, rejects—another takes, looks, accepts….
Sri Aurobindo – Letters on Yoga – IV : CWSA, Vol. 31, p. 40
If thou wouldst have humanity advance, buffet all preconceived ideas. Thought thus smitten awakes and becomes creative. Otherwise it rests in a mechanical repetition and mistakes that for its right activity.
Be conscious first of thyself within, then think and act. All living thought is a world in preparation; all real act is a thought manifested. The material world exists because an Idea began to play in divine self-consciousness….
Sri Aurobindo – Essays in Philosophy and Yoga : CWSA, Vol. 13, p. 200
What is the meaning of “thought awakes and becomes creative”?
No, Sri Aurobindo says at the beginning of the sentence: “Thought thus smitten awakes…” What he says is that in order to progress one must break up old constructions, buffet, demolish all preconceived ideas. Preconceived ideas are the habitual mental constructions in which one lives, and which are fixed, which become rigid fortresses and cannot progress because they are fixed. Nothing that is fixed can progress. So the advice is to break down, that is, destroy all preconceived ideas, all fixed mental constructions….
….
One must not admit bad thoughts into oneself under the pretext that they are merely thoughts. They are tools of execution. And one should not allow them to exist in oneself if one doesn’t want them to do their work of destruction.
The Mother – Questions and Answers : CWM, Vol. 8, pp. 395-396
Mother, at times unpleasant thoughts come and disturb us. How can we get rid of them?
There are several methods. Generally—but it depends on people—generally, the easiest way is to think of something else. That is, to concentrate one’s attention upon something that has nothing to do with that thought has no connection with that thought, like reading or some work—generally something creative, some creative work….
….
The first step is to think of something else (but in this way, you know, it will be indefinitely repeated); the second is to fight; and the third is to transform. When one has reached the third step, not only is one cured but one has made a permanent progress.
The Mother – Questions and Answers : CWM, Vol. 6, pp. 22-23
To reject doubts means control of one’s thoughts—very certainly so. But the control of one’s thoughts is as necessary as the control of one’s vital desires and passions or the control of the movements of one’s body—for the Yoga, and not for the Yoga only. One cannot be a fully developed mental being even if one has not a control of the thoughts, is not their observer, judge, master….
Sri Aurobindo – Letters on Yoga – IV : CWSA, Vol. 31, p. 42
The control over the thoughts and the power of seeing the image of the Mother and Sri Aurobindo in the head are a very good beginning. The heat in the head is not fever, but the result of the action of the Force in the mental centres working to overcome the mental resistance which there always is in the human mind—heaviness sometimes comes as a result of the pressure of the Force—it passes away of itself usually when the mind receives freely the Force.
Sri Aurobindo – Letters on Yoga – IV : CWSA, Vol. 31, p. 47
Yes, one’s bad thoughts and good thoughts can have a bad or a good effect on others, though they have not always because they are not strong enough—but still that is the tendency. It is true that both kinds of thought come equally to the mind in its ordinary state; but if the mind and mental will are well developed, one can establish a control over one’s thoughts as well as over one’s acts and prevent the bad ones from having their play. But this mental control is not enough for the sadhak. He must attain to a quiet mind and in the silence of the mind receive only the Divine thought-forces or other divine Forces and be their field and instrument.
To silence the mind it is not enough to throw back each thought as it comes, that can only be a subordinate movement. One must get back from all thought and be separate from it, a silent consciousness observing the thoughts if they come, but not oneself thinking or identified with the thoughts. Thoughts must be felt as outside things altogether. It is then easier to reject thoughts or let them pass without their disturbing the quietude of the mind.
Sri Aurobindo – Letters on Yoga – IV : CWSA, Vol. 31, pp. 334-335
People have the habit of dealing lightly with thoughts that come. And the atmosphere is full of thoughts of all kinds which do not in fact belong to anybody in particular, which move perpetually from one person to another, very freely, much too freely, because there are very few people who can keep their thoughts under control…..
The Mother – Questions and Answers : CWM, Vol. 3, pp. 230-231
