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THOUGHT POWER

ITS CONTROL AND CULTURE

ANNIE BESANT

The Theosophical Publfsliing Society

LONPON AND BBNA.RBS

PfjIWPf^^

FOREWORD.

rl " V" , , I- 1 '' ' i 1 ' ' ',' ,'

bi& little book; is intended to help the student
to study his own nature, o fa i .^V'i^ ;i ^tieltectua} 1
&1 is ^licerned If he mastets tie principle^
,<^;^ ' kj^j dow0* - he will ' bpxfe '''SC'-lair/'Way,' 1 ' '16 ^

in his pwii ev<
I stature far more rapidly
$&' hie remains ignorant of the
of his gro^rtfa.
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. the', lay;' reader; \atiti may perhaps be skipped
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CONTENTS.

INTRODUCTION. . , . f *

CHAPTER I.

THE NATURE OF THOUGHT 9

CHAPTElf II.

TpE CREATOR OF ILLUSION . .. , . . *9

** CHAPTLR III.

m THOUGHT TRANSFERENCE ...... 33

CHAPTER IV.

THE BEGINNINGS OF THOUGHT .... 41

CHAPTER V. *

MEMORY * * 5*

fr 'CHAPTER VI.

THE GROWTH OF THOUGHT ..... 63

CHAPTER VII. ,

|| CONCENTRATION , 7$

^ .CHAPTER VIII.

E '"' : ' OBSTACLES TO CONCENTRATION , ... 95

^ CHAPTER IX.

| THE STRENGTHENING OF THOUGHT POWER 108

f CHAPTER X. :

S HELPING OTHERS BY THOUGHT . , . .124

CONCLUSION

THpUGHT POWER,

ITS CONTROL AND CULTURE.

INTRODUCTION.

THE value of knowledge is tested by its power
to purify and ennoble the life, and all earnest
students desire to apply the theoretical knowledge
acquired in their study of Theosophy to the
evolution of their own character and to the helping
of their fellow-men. It is for such students that
is written this little book, with the hope that a
better understanding of their own intellectual
nature may lead to a purposeful cultivation of what
is good in it and an eradication of what is evil.
The emotion which impels to righteous living is
half wasted if the clear light of the intellect does
not illuminate the path of conduct; for as the
blind man strays from the way unknowing till he
falls into the ditch, so does the Ego, blinded by

ignorance, turn aside from the road of right living
till he falls into the pit of evil action. Truly is
Avidya the privation of knowledge the first
step out of unity into separateness, and only as
it lessens does separateness diminish, until its
disappearance restores the Eternal Peace.

THE SELF AS KNOWER.

In studying the nature of man, we separate the*
Man from the vehicles which he uses, the living Self
from the garments with which he is clothed, The
Self is one, however varying may be the forms of his
manifestation, when working through and by means
of the difierent kinds of matter. It is, of course,
true that there is but One Self in the fullest sense
of the words ; that as rays flame forth from the sun,
the Selves that are the true Men are but rays of
the Supreme Self, and that each Self may whisper i
I am He," But for our present purpose, taking
a single ray, we may assert also in its separation
its own inherent unity,, even though, this be. hidden
by its forms. Consciousness is a unit, and the
divisions we make ift It are either made for pur-
poses of study, or are illusions, due to the limitation
of our perceptive power by the organs through
which it works in the lower worlds. The fact that

iMroduction.

the manifestations of the Self proceed severally from
his three aspects of knowing, willing, and energising
from which arise severally thoughts, desires, and
actions must not blind us to the other fact that
there is no division of substance ; the whole Self
knows, the whole Self wills, the whole Self
acts. *Nor are the functions wholly separated ;
when he knows, he also acts and jvills ; when he
acts, he also knows and wills; when he wills, he
lilso acts and knows. One function is predomi-
nant, and sometimes to such an extent as to wholly
veil the others ; but even in the intensest concen-
tration of knowing the most separate of the
three there is always present a latent energising
and a latent willing, discernible as present by
careful analysis,

We have called these three "the three aspects
of the Self " ; a little further explanation may help
towards understanding. When the Self is still,
then is manifested the aspect of Knowledge,
capable of taking on the likeness of any object
presented. When the Self v is concentrated, intent
on change of state, then appears the aspect of Will.
When the Self, in presence 'of any object, puts
forth' energy to contact that object, then shows
forth the aspect of Action, It will thus .be seen
that these three are not separate divisions of the

4 Thought Power.

Self, not three things joined into one or com* *

pounded, but that there is one indivisible whole,
manifesting in three ways. <r-

It, is not easy to clarify the fundamental concep-
tion of the Self further than by his mere naming.
The Self is that conscious, feeling, ever-existing
One, that in each of us knows himself as existing.
No man can ever think of himself as non-existent,
or formulate himself to himself in consciousness ^
as "I am not" As Bhagav&n Ds has put itf-
"The Self is the indispensable first basis of life.
. . . In the words of V&chaspati-Ktishra, in his
Commentary (the Bh&mati) on the Shdrtraka-
Bhdshya of Shah kartell &rya : ' No one doubts "Am
I ? " or " Am I not ? >J ' "* The Self-affirmation " I
am" comes before everything else, stands above
and beyond all argument. No proof can make it
stronger ; no disproof can weaken it Both proof
and disproof found themselves on " I am/ 1 the
unanalysable Feeling of mere Existence, of which
nothing can be predicated except increase and
diminution. " I am more " is the expression of
Pleasure; "I am less" is the expression of Pain.

When we observe this "I am," we find that
it expresses itself in three different ways:

The Sdmctofihe Emotions, p. 20,

Introduction. J

(a) The internal reflection of a Non-Self,
KNOWLEDGE, the root of thoughts; (V) the
internal concentration, WILL, the root of desires ;
(c) the going forth to the external, ENERGY, the
root of actions; "I know" or "I th%rk,"
"I will" or "I desire," "I energise" or
"I acft." These are the three affirmations
of the indivisible Self, of the % "I am." All
manifestations may be classified under one or
other of these three heads; the Self manifests in
our worlds only in these three ways ; as all colours
arise from the three primaries, so the number less
manifestations of the Self all arise from Will,
Energy, Knowledge.

The Self as Wilier, the Self as Energiser, the Self
as Knower he is the One in Eternity and also
the root of individuality in Time and Space. It is
the Self in the Thought aspect, the Self as Knower,
that we are to study.

THE NOT-SELF AS KNOWN.

The Self whose " nature is knowledge " finds
mirrored within himself a vast number of forms,
and learns by experience that he cannot know and
act and will in and through them. These forms,
he discovers, are not amenable to his control as is

6 Thought Power.

the form of which he first becomes conscious, and
which he (mistakenly, and yet necessarily) learns
to identify with himself. He knows, and they do
not think ; he wills, and they show no desire ; he
energises, and there is no responsive movement in
them. He cannot say in them, "I know," " I act," " I
will " ; and at length he recognises them a? other
selves, in mineral, vegetable, animal, human, and
super-human forms, and he generalises all these
under one comprehensive term, the Not-Self, that
in which he, as a separated Self, is njt, in which
he does not know, and act, and will. He thus
answers for a long time the question :

"What is the Not-Self?"
with

"All in which I do not know and will and act."
And although truly he will find, on successive
analyses, that his vehicles, one after another save
indeed, the finest film that makes him a Self-
are parts of the Not-Self, are objects of knowledge,
are the Known, not the Knower, for all practical
purposes his answer is correct In fact he
can never know, as divisible from himself, this
finest film that makes him a separated Self, since
its presence is necessary to that separation, and to
know it as the Not-Self would be to mer^e in the
AIL

Introduction. 7

KNOWING.

* In order that the Self may be the Knower and

the Not-Self the Known, a definite relationship

must be established between them. The Not-Self

must affect the Self, and the Self must in return

affect the Not-Self. There must be an interchange

between the two. Knowing is a relation between

^ Jthe Self and the Not-Self, and the nature of that

^relation must be the next division of our subject,

but it is well first to grasp clearly the fact that

knowing is*# relation, It implies duality, the

consciousness of a Self and the recognition of a

';' Not-Self and the presence of the two set over

!* against each other is necessary for knowledge.

I;; The Knower, the JK0wn, the Knowing these

; f are the three in one which must be understood if

{ thought-power is to be turned to its proper pur-

\ pose, the helping of the world. According to

| if Western terminology, the Mind is the Subject

I which knows ; the Object is that which is known ;

\ the Relationship between them is knowing. We

I must understand the nature of the Knower, the

Y I *'

^ nature of the Known, and the nature of the relation

' established between them, and how that relation-

, ' , ' .

* ship arises. These things understood, we shall

jfr indeed have made a step towards that Self-know-

H *

it-

g Thought Power.

ledge which is wisdom. Then, indeed, shall we he
able to aid the world around us, becoming its
helpers and saviours; for this is the true end of
wisdom, that, set on fire by love, it may lift the
world out of misery into the knowledge wherein
all pain ceases for evermore. Such is the object
of our study, for truly is it said in the books of
that nation which possesses the earliest, and still
the deepest and subtlest, psychology, that the,
object of philosophy is to jjj|t an end to pain. For
that the Knower thinks; for that knowledge is
continually sought. To put an end to pain is the
final reason for philosophy, and that is not true
wisdom which does not conduce to the finding of
PEACE.

CHAPTER I.
THE NATURE OF THOUGHT.

THE nature of thought, may be studied from two
standpoints : from the side of consciousness, which
is knowledge, or from the side of the form by
which knowledge is obtained, the susceptibility of
which to modifications makes possible the
attainment of knowledge. This possibility has led
to the two extremes in philosophy, both of which
we must avoid, because each ignores one side of
manifested life. One regards everything as con-
sciousness, ignoring the essentiality of form as
conditioning consciousness, as making it possible.
The other regards everything as form, ignoring the
fact that form can only exist by virtue of the life
ensouling it. The form and the life, the matter
and the spirit, the vehicle and the consciousness,
are inseparable in manifestation, and are the
indivisible aspects of THAT in which both inhere,
wjuch is neither consciousness nor its
9

Thought Powtr,

vehicle, but the ROOT of both, A philosophy
which tries to explain everything by the forms,
ignoring the life, will find problems it is utterly
unable to solve. A philosophy which tries to
explain everything by the life, ignoring the formn,
will find itself faced by dead walls which it cannot
surmount. The final word on this is tfiat con-
sciousness and its vehicles, life and form, spirit and
matter, are the temporary expressions of the
two aspects of the one unconditioned Existence,
which is not known save when manifested as the
Root-Spirit (called by the Hindus Pratyag-
atman), the abstract Being, the abstract Logos
whence all individual selves, and the Root-
Matter (Mtilaprakriti) whence all forms. Whenever
manifestation takes plaet this Root-Spirit gives
birth to a triple consciousness, and this Root-
Matter to a triple matter; beneath these is the
One Reality, for ever incognisable by the
, conditioned consciousness, The flower not

the root whence it grows, though all its life is
drawn from it and without it it could not be.

The Self as Knower has as his chaxacteristic
function the mirroring within himself of the Not-
Self. As a sensitive plate receives rays of light
reflected from objects, and those *ay$ cause
modifications in the material on which they fail,

The Nature of Thought. it

so that images of the objects can be obtained, so
is it with the Self in the aspect of knowledge
towards everything external. His vehicle is a
sphere whereon the Self receives from the Not-Self
the reflected rays of the One Self, causing to
appear on the surface of this sphere images which
are the Reflections of that which is not himself
The Knower does not know the things themselves
in the earlier stages of his consciousness. He
knows only the images produced in his vehicle by
the action of the Not- Self on his responsive casing,
the photographs of the external world. Hence
the mind, the vehicle of the Self as Knower, has
been compared to a mirror, in which are seen the
images of all objects placed before it We do not
know the things thems|)ves, but only the effect
produced by them in our consciousness; not the
objects, but the images of the objects, are what we
find in the mind As the mirror seems to have the
objects within it, but those apparent objects are
only images, illusions caused by the rays of light
reflected from the objects, not the objects them-
selves ; so does the mind, in its knowledge of the
otrter universe, know only the illusive images and
not the things in themselves.

These images, made in the vehicle, are
perceived as objects by the Knower, and tffis

Thought Power*

perception consists in his reproduction of them in
himself. Now, the analogy of the mirror, and the
use of the word " reflection n in the preceding
paragraph, are a little misleading, for the mental
image is a reproduction not a reflection of the
object which causes it The matter of the
mind is actually shaped into a likenessr of the
object presented to it, and this likeness, in its turn,
is reproduced by the Knower. When he thus
modifies himself into the likeness of an external-
object, he is said to that object, but
in the case we are considering that which he
knows is only the image produced by the object
in his vehicle, and not the object itself. And this
image is not a perfect reproduction of the object,
for a reason we shall see la the next chapter,
. "But," it may be said, "will that be so ever?
shall we never know the things in themselves ? M
TKs brings us to the vital distinction between
t Ae consciousness and the matter in which the
consciousness is working, and by this we may find
aa answer to that natural question of the human
* mind. When the consciousness by long evolution
las de? eloped the power to reproduce within itself
aU that exists outside it, then the envelope of
a* which it has been working falls away,
e c<2^tcM>utsues$ that is knowledge identifies

The Nature of Thought. 13

its Self with all the Selves amid which it has been
evolving, and sees as the Not-Self only the matter
connected alike with all Selves severally. That
is the " Day be with us," the union which is the
triumph of evolution, when consciousness knows
itself and others, and knows others as itself. By
samene^l of nature perfect knowledge is attained,
and the Self realises that marvellous state where
identity perishes not and memory is not lost, but
Where separation finds its ending, and knower,
knowing, and knowledge are one.

It is this wondrous nature of the Self, who is
evolving in us through knowledge at the present
time, that we have to study, in order to understand
the nature of thought, and it is necessary to see
clearly the illusory side in order that we may
utilise the illusion to transcend it. So let us now
study how Knowing the relation between the
Knower and the Known is established, and this
will lead us to see more clearly into the nature of
thought

THE CHAIN OF KNOWER, KNOWING,
AND KNOWN.

There is one word, vibration, which is becoming
more and more the keynote of Western science,

14 Thought Powtr.

as it has long been that of the science of the East.
Motion is the root of alL Life is motion ;
consciousness is motion. And that motion affect-
ing matter is vibration. The One, the All, we
think of as Changeless, either as Absolute Motion
or as Motionless, since in One relative motion
cannot be. Only when there is differentiation, or
parts, can we think of what we call motion, which
is change of place in succession of time. When
the One becomes the Many, then motion arises;
it is health, consciousness, life, wher> rhythmic,
regular, as it is disease, unconsciousness, death,
when without rhythm, irregular. For life and
death are twin sisters, alike born of motion, which
is manifestation.

Motion must needs appear when the One becomes
the Many; since, when the omnipresent appears
as separate particles, infinite motion must represent
omnipresence, or, otherwise put, must be its
reflection or image in matter. The essence of
matter is separateness, as that of spirit is unity,
and when the twain appear in the One, as cream
in milk, the reflection of the omnipresence of that
One in the multiplicity of Matter is ceaseless and
infinite motion. Absolute motion the presence
of every moving unit at every point of space at
every moment of timeis identical with rest, being

The Nature of Thought. 15

only rest looked at in another way, from the stand-
point of matter instead of from that of spirit.
From the standpoint of spirit there is always One,
from that of matter there are always Many.

This infinite motion appears as rhythmical
movements, vibrations, in the matter which
manifests it, each Jiva, or separated unit of
consciousness, being isolated by an enclosing
wall of matter from all other Jivas.* Each
Jiva further becomes embodied, or clothed, in
several garments of matter. As these garments
of matter vibrate, they communicate their
vibrations to the matter surrounding them,
such matter becoming the medium wherein
the vibrations are carried outwards ; and this
medium, in turn, communicates the impulse of
vibration to the enclosing garments of another
Jiva, and thus sets that Jiva vibrating like
the first. In this series of vibrations beginning
in one Jiva, made in the body that encircles
it, sent on by the body to the medium
around it, communicated by that to another body,

i * There is no convenient English word for "a separated unit

of consciousness " " spirit" and "soul" connoting various pecu-

f/ llarities in different schools of thought. I shall therefore venture

j. to use the name Jtva, instead of the clumsy "a separated unit

[ of consciousness,"

Thought Power.

and from that second body to the JIva encircled
by it we have the chain of vibrations whereby
one knows another. The second knows the first
because he reproduces the first in himself! and thus
experiences as he experiences. And yet with a
difference. For our second Jiva is already in
a vibratory condition, and his state of motion
after receiving the impulse from the first is not a
simple repetition of that impulse, but a combina-
tion of his own original motion with that imposed
on him from without, and hence is not a perfect
reproduction. Similarities are obtained, ever closer
and closer, but identity ever eludes us, so long as
the garments remain.

This sequence of vibratory actions is often
in nature. A flame is a centre of vibratory activity
in ether, named by us heat; these vibrations, or
heat-waves, throw the surrounding into

waves like unto themselves, and throw the

ether in a piece of iron lying near into similar
waves, and its particles vibrate under their impulse,
and so the iron becomes hot and a of

in its turn. So does a series of vibrations
from one Jtva to another, and ail are

interlinked by this network of coESciousness.

So again in physical nature we mark off
, ranges of vibrations by different pne

The Nature of Thought. 17

set light, another heat, another electricity, another
sound, and so on ; yet all are of the same nature,
all are modes of motion in ether,* though they
differ in rates of velocity and in the character of
the waves. Thoughts, Desires, and Actions, the
active jnanifestations in matter of Knowledge,
Will, and Energy, are all of the same nature, that
is, are all made up of vibrations, but differ in
their phenomena, because of the different
character of the vibrations. There is a series of
vibrations in a particular kind of matter and with
a certain character, and these we call thought-
vibrations. Another series is spoken of as desire-
vibrations, another series as action vibrations.
These names are descriptive of certain facts in
nature. There is a certain kind of ether thrown
into vibration, and its vibrations affect our eyes ;
we call the motion light. There is another far
subtler ether thrown into vibrations which are
perceived, *".*., are responded to, by the mind, and
we call that motion thought We are surrounded
by matter of different densities and we name the
motions in it as they affect ourselves, are answered
to by different organs of our gross or subtle bodies.
We name " light " certain motions affecting the

t \ Sound is also primarily an etheric vibration.

Thought Power.

eye ; we name " thought " certain motions affecting
another organ, the mind. " Seeing " occurs when
the light-ether is thrown into waves from an object
to our eye ; " thinking " occurs when the thought-
ether is thrown into waves between an object and
our mind. The one is not more noij. less-
mysterious than the other.

In dealing with the mind we shall see that
modifications in the arrangement of its materials
are caused by the impact of thought-waves^ and
that in concrete thinking we experience over again
the original impacts from without. The Knower
finds his activity in these vibrations, and all to
which they can answer, that is, all that they can
reproduce, is Knowledge. The thought is a repro-
duction within the mind of the Knower of that
which is not the Knower, is not the Self ; it is a
picture, caused by a combination of wave-motions,
an image, quite Uterally. A part of the Not-Self
vibrates, and as the Knower vibrates in answer
that part becomes the known ; the matter quivering
between them makes* knowing possible by putting
them into touch with each other. Thus is the
chain of Knower, Known, and Knowing established

CHAPTER II.

THE CREATOR OF ILLUSION.

<f HAVING become indifferent to objects of
perception, the pupil must seek out the Rftja of
the Senses, the Thought-Producer, he who awakes
illusion.

" The Mind is the great slayer of the Real
Thus is it written in one of the fragments
translated by H. P. B. from The Book cf the
Golden Precepts* that exquisite prose-poem which is
one of 'her choicest gifts to the world. And there
is no more significant title of the mind than this i
the " creator of illusion."

The mind is not the Knower, and should ever be
carefully distinguished from him, Many of the
confusions and the difficulties that perplex the
student arise because he does ' not remember the
distinction between him who knows and the mit|d
which is his instrument for obtaining knowledge,
It is as though the sculptor ware identified with

Thought Power.

"he mind is fundamentally dual and material,

ig made up of an envelope of fine

,ter, called the causal body and manas, the ^

tract mind, and of an envelope of coarser

;ter, called the mental body and manas,

concrete mind manas itself being a reflection

atomic matter of that aspect of the Self which

Cnowledge. This mind limits the Jiva, which, as

'-consciousness increases, finds himself hampered ^

it on every side. As a man, to effect a certain

rpose, might put on thick gloves, and find that

hands in them had lost much of their power

feeling, their delicacy of touch, their ability to

& up small objects, and were only capable of

isping large objects and of feeling heavy

pacts, so is it with the Knower when he puts on

5 mind. The hand is there as well as the glove,

its capacities are greatly lessened ; the Knower

there as well as the mind, but his powers arc

ach limited in their expression.

We shall confine the term mind in the following

iragraphs to the concrete mind the mental body

id manas.

The mind is the result of past thinking, and is

>nstantly being modified by present thinking ; it

a thing, precise and definite, with certain powers J

ad incapacities, strength and- weakness^, whfch^re |

The Creator of Illusion,

the outcome of activities in previous lives. It is as
we have made it ; we cannot change it save slowly,
we cannot transcend it by an effort of the will, we
cannot cast it aside, nor instantaneously remove its
imperfections. Such as it is, it is ours, a part of
the Not-Self appropriated and shaped for our own
using, and only through it can we know.

All the results of our past thinkings are present
with us as mind, and each mind has its own rate
of vibration, its own range of vibration, and is in
a state of perpetual motion, offering an ever-
changing series of pictures. Every impression
coming to us from outside is made on this already
active sphere, and the mass of existing vibrations
modifies and is modified by the new arrival. The
resultant is not, therefore, an accurate reproduction
of the new vibration, but a combination of it with
the vibrations already proceeding. To borrow
again an illustration from light. If we hold a piece
of red glass before our eyes and look at green
objects, they will appear to us to be black. The
vibrations that give us the sensation of red are cut
off by those that give us the sensation of green
and the eye is deceived into seeing the object as
black So also if we look at a blue object through
a yellow glass, shall we see it as black In every
ca$e & coloured medium will cause an i

Thought Power,

of colour different from that of the object looked
at by the naked eye. Even looking at things with
the naked eye, persons see them somewhat
differently, for the eye itself modifies the vibrations
it receives more than many people imagine. The
influence of the mind as a medium by which the
Knower views the external world is very similar
to the influence of the coloured glass on the colours
of objects seen through it. The Knower is as
unconscious of this influence of the mind, as a man
who had never seen, except through red or blue
glasses, would be unconscious of the changes made
by them in the colours of a landscape.

It is in this superficial and obvious sense that
the mind is called the "creator of illusion." It
presents us only with distorted images, a combina-
tion of itself and the external object In a far
deeper sense, indeed, is it the " creator of illusion/ 1
in that even these distorted images are but images
of appearances, not of realities; shadows of
shadows are all that it gives us. But it will suffice
us at present to consider the illusions caused by its
own nature.

Very different would be our ideas of the world,
if we could know it as it is, even in its phenomenal
aspect, instead of by means of the vibrations
modified by the mind Jk&l this is by no

The Creator of Illusion. 23

impossible, although il can only be done by those
who have made great progress in controlling the
mind. The vibrations of the mind can be stilled,
the consciousness being withdrawn from it ; an
impact from without will then shape an image
exactly corresponding to itself, the vibration* being
identical in quality and quantity, unintermixed
with vibrations belonging to the observer. Or, the
consciousness may go forth and ensoul the observed
object, and thus directly experience its vibrations.
In both cases a true knowledge of the form is
gained. The idea in the world of noumena, of
which the form expresses a phenomenal aspect,
may also be known, but only by the consciousness
working in the causal body, untrammelled by the
concrete mind or the lower vehicles.

The truth that we only know our impressions of
things, not the things except as just stated is
one which is of vital moment when it is applied
in practical life. It teaches humility and caution,
and readiness to listen to new ideas. We lose our
instinctive certainty that we are right in our
observations, and learn to analyse ourselves before
we condemn others.

An illustration may serve to make this more clear.

I meet a person whose vibratory activity
expresses itself in a way complementary to' my

24 Thought Power.

own. When we meet, we extinguish each other;
hence we do not like each other, we do not see
anything in each other, and we each wonder why
So-and-so thinks the other so clever, when we find
each other so preternaturally stupid. Now, if I
have gained a little self-knowledge, this wonder
will be checked, so far as I am concerned. r Instead
of thinking that the other is stupid, I shall ask
myself : " What is lacking in me that I cannot
answer his vibrations ? We are both vibrating, and
if I cannot realise his life and thought, it is because
I cannot reproduce his vibrations. Why should
I judge him, since I cannot even know him until
I modify myself sufficiently to be able to receive
him ? " We cannot greatly modify others, but we
can greatly modify ourselves, and we should be
continually trying to enlarge our receptive capacity.
We must become as the white light in which all
colours are present, which distorts none because it
rejects none, and has in itself the power to answer
to each. We may measure our approach to the
whiteness by our power of response to the most
diverse characters.

THE MENTAL BODY AND MANAS,
We may now turn to the composition of the
mind as an organ of consciousness in its aspect as

The Creator of Illusion. 25

Knower, and see what this composition is, how we
|p have made the mind in the past, how we can

;f change it in the present.

4 The mind on the side of life is manas, and manas

is the reflection, in the atomic matter of the third
or mental plane, of the cognitional aspect of
the Self* of the Self as Knower.

On the side of form it presents two aspects,
severally conditioning the activity of manas, the
consciousness working on the mental plane. These
aspects are due to the aggregations of the matter
of the plane drawn round the atomic vibratory
centre. This matter, from its nature and use, we
term mind-stuff, or thought-stuff. It makes one
great region of the universe, interpenetrajing astral
and physical matter, and exists in seven sub-
divisions, like the states of matter on the physical
I plane ; it is predominantly responsive to those

| vibrations which come from the aspect of the Self

| which is Knowledge, and this aspect imposes on

| it its specific -character.

I The first and higher aspect of the form-side

of mind is that called the causal body. It
is composed of matter from the fifth and
sixth subdivisions of the mental plane, corre-
sponding to the finer ethers of the physical
plane. This causal body is little developed in the

26 thought

majority at the present stage of evolution, as it
remains unaffected by the mental activities directed
to external objects, and we may, therefore, leave it
aside, at any rate for the present. It is, in fact,
the organ for abstract thought.

The second aspect is called the mental body, and
is composed of thought-stuff belonging to*the four
lower subdivisions of the mental plane correspond-
ing to the lowest ether, and the gaseous, liquid, and
solid states of matter on the physical plane. It
might indeed be termed the dense mental body.
Mental bodies show seven great fundamental types,
each of which includes forms at every stage of
development, and all evolve and grow under the
same laws. To understand and apply these laws
is to change the slow evolution by nature to the
rapid growth by the self-determining intelligence.
Hence the profound importance of their study,

THE BUILDING AND EVOLUTION OF THE
MENTAL BODY.

The method by which consciousness builds up
its vehicle is one which should be clearly grasped,
for every day and hour of life gives opportunity
for its application to high ends. Waking or
sleeping, we are ever building our mental bodies ;

The Creator of Illusion. 27

for when consciousness vibrates it affects the mind-
stuff surrounding it, and every quiver of conscious-
ness, though it be due only to a passing thought,
draws into the mental body some particles of mind-
stuff, and shakes out other particles from it. So
far as tihe vehicle the body is concerned, this
is due to the vibration ; but it should not be
forgotten that the very essence of consciousness
is to constantly identify itself with the Not-Self,
and as constantly to re-assert itself by rejecting
the Not-Self; consciousness consists of the alter-
nating assertion and negation, " I am this," (( I
am not this " ; hence its motion is and causes, in
matter, the attracting and repelling that we call a
vibration. The surrounding matter is also thrown
into waves, thus serving as a medium for affecting
other consciousnesses.

Now, the fineness or coarseness of the matter
thus appropriated depends on the quality of the
vibrations set up by the consciousness. Pure and
lofty thoughts are composed of rapid vibrations,
and can only affect the rare and subtle grades of
mind-stuff. The coarser grades remain unaffected,
being unable to vibrate at the necessary speed.
When such a thought causes the mental body to
vibrate, particles of the coarser matter are shaken
oul of tfye body, and their place is taken by
C

''I],

:': I,

28 Thought Power.

particles of the finer grades, and thus better
materials are built into the mental body. Similarly,
base and evil thoughts draw into the mental body
the coarser materials suitable for their own
expression, and these materials repel and drive out
the finer kinds.

C 1

Thus these vibrations of consciousness are ever
shaking out one kind of matter and building in
another. And it follows, as a necessary conse-
quence, that according to the kind of matter we
have built into our mental bodies in the past, will
be our power of responding to the thoughts which
now reach us from outside. If our mental bodies
are composed of fine materials, coarse and evil
thoughts will meet with no response, and hence
can inflict no injury ; whereas if they are built up
with gross materials, they will be affected by every
evil passer-by, and will remain irresponsive to and
unbenefited by the good.

When we come into touch with one whose
thoughts are lofty, his thought-vibrations, playing
on us, arouse vibrations of such matter in our
mental bodies as is capable of responding, and
these vibrations disturb and even shake out some
of that which is too coarse to vibrate at his high
rate of activity. The benefit we receive from him
is thus largely dependent on our own past thmkjng,

The Creator of Illusion, 29

and our "' understanding " of him, our responsive-
ness, is conditioned by these. We cannot think
for each other ; he can only think his own thoughts,
thus causing corresponding vibrations in the mind-
stuff around him, and these play upon us, setting
up in our mental bodies sympathetic vibrations.
These affect the consciousness. A thinker external
to ourselves can only affect our consciousness by
* arousing these vibrations in our mental bodies.

But immediate understanding does not always
follow on the production of such vibrations, caused
from outside. Sometimes the effect resembles that
of the sun and the rain and the earth on the seed
that lies buried in the ground. There is no visible
answer at first to the vibrations playing on the
seed; but within there is a tiny quiver of the
ensouling life, and that quiver will grow stronger
and stronger day by day, till the evolving life
\ bursts the seed-shell and sends forth rootlet and

growing point. So with the mind The con-
sciousness thrills faintly within itself, ere it is able
to give any external answer to the impacts upon it ;
and when we are not yet capable of understanding
a noble thinker, there is yet in us an unconscious
quivering which is the forerunner of the conscious
answer. We go away from a great presence a
littlg nearer to the rich thought-life flowing from

*' *

30 Thought Power.

it than we were ere we entered it, and germs of
thought have been quickened in us, and our minds
helped in their evolution.

Something, then, in the building and evolution
of our minds may be done from outside, but most
must result from the activities of our own
consciousness ; and if we would have mental bodies
which should be strong, well-vitalised, active, able
to grasp the loftier thoughts presented to us, then
we must steadily work at right thinking ; for we
axe ot^r own builders, and fashion our minds for
ourselves.

Many people are great readers. Now, reading
does not build the mind ; thought alone builds it,
Reading is only valuable as it furnishes materials
for thought. A man may read much, but his
mental gk>wth will be in proportion to the amount
'j4(rf thought that he expends in his reading. The
value to him of the thought which he reads depends
on the use he makes of it Unless he takes up
the thought and works on it himself, its value to
him will be small and passing. " Reading makes
a full man/' said Lord Bacon, and it is with the
mM as wi|Ji the body. Eating fills the stomach,
but as the meal is useless to the body unless It is
digested and assimilated, so also the mind may be
fiH@d by reading, but unless there is thought, there

The Creator of Illusion. 31

is no assimilation of what is read, and the mind
does not grow thereby nay, it is likely to suffer
from overloading, and to weaken rather than
strengthen under a burden of unassimilated ideas.

We should read less, and think more, if we would
have our minds grow, and our intelligence develope.
If we are in earnest in the culture of our minds,
we should daily spend an hour in the study of
some serious and weighty book, and, reading for
five minutes, we should think for ten, and so on
through the hour. The usual way is to read
quickly for the hour, and then to put away the book
till the next hour comes for reading. Hence
, people grow very slowly in thought power.

One of the most marked things in the
Theosophical movement is the mental growth
observable year by year in its members. This is
largely due to the fact that they are taught the
nature of thought ; they begin to understand a
little of its workings, and set themselves to build
their mental bodies instead of leaving them to grow
by the unassisted processes of nature. The student
eager for growth should resolve that no day shall
pass that shall not have in it at least five minutes'
reading and ten minutes' strenuous thinking on
what is read. At first he will find the effort tire-
some and laborious, and he will discover the

32 Thought Power.

weakness of his thinking power. This discovery
marks his first step, for it is much to discover that
one is unable to think hard and consecutively.
People who cannot thinly but who imagine that
they can, do not make much progress. It is better
to know one's weakness than to imagine oneself
strong when one is feeble. The realisaticfa of the
weakness the wandering of the mind, the feeling

.of heat, confusion, and fatigue which comes on in
the brain after a prolonged effort to follow out a
difficult line of thought, is on all fours with the
similar feeling in the muscles after a strong
muscular exertion. With regular and persistent-
but not excessive exercise, the thought -power will
grow as the muscle-power grows. And as this *
thought-power grows, it also comes under control,
and can be directed to definite ends. Without this

, thinking, the mental body will remain loosely
fcprnxed and unorganised; and without gaining
concentration the power of fixing the thought on
a definite point thought-power cannot be
exercised at all

if *,

& ,

CHAPTER III.

THOUGHT-TRANSFERENCE.

ALMOST everyone now-a-days is anxious to
practice thought-transference, and dreams of the
delights of communicating with an absent friend
without the assistance of telegraph or post. Many
people seem to think that they can accomplish the
task with very little effort, and are quite surprised
when they meet with total failure in their attempts.
Yet it is clear that one must be able to think ere
one can transfer thought, and some power of steady
thinking must be necessary in order to send a
thought-current through space. The feeble vacil-
lating thoughts of the majority of people cause
mere flickering vibrations in the thought-atmos-
phere, appearing and vanishing minute by minute,
giving rise to no definite form and endowed with
the lowest vitality. A thought-form must be

clearly cut and well vitalised if it is to be driven
* * 33

Thought Power.

in any definite direction, and to be strong enough,
on arriving- at its destination, to set up there a
reproduction of itself.

There are two methods of thought-transference,
one which may be distinguished as physical, the
other as psychical, one belonging to the brain as
well as the mind, the other to the mind Gnly. A
thought may be generated by the consciousness,
cause vibration in the mental body, then in the
astral body, set up waves in the etheric and then
in the dense molecules of the physical brain ; by
these brain vibrations the physical ether is affected,
and the waves pass outwards, till they reach

another brain and set up vibrations in its dense
* * 0*

and etheric parts. By that receiving brain vibra-
tions are caused in the astral and then in the mental
bodies attached to it, and the vibrations in the
mental body draw out the answering quiver in
consciousness. Such are the many stages* of the
arc traversed by a thought. But this traversing
of a u loopline " is not necessary, The conscious-
ness may, when causing vibrations in its mental
body, direct those vibrations straight to the mental
body of the receiving consciousness, thus avoiding
the round just described.
Let us see wh&t happens in the first case.

organ in the brain, the pineal

Thought- Transference.

gland, the function of which is unknown to Western
physiologists, and with which Western psycholo-
gists do not concern themselves. It is a
rudimentary organ in most people, but it is
evolving, not retrogading, and it is possible to
quicken its evolution into a condition in which it
can permrm its proper function, the function that,
in the future, it will discharge in all. It is the
organ for thought-transference, as much as the eye
is the organ of vision or the ear of hearing.

If anyone thinks very intently on a single idea,
with concentration and sustained attention, he will
become conscious of a slight quiver or creeping
feeling it has been compared to the creeping of
an ant in the pineal gland. The quiver takes
place in the ether which permeates the gland, and
causes a sligte magnetic current which gives rise
to the ^creeping feeling in the dense molecules of
the gland If the thought be strong enough to
cause the current, then the thinker knows that he
has been successful in bringing his thought to a
pointedness and a strength which render it capable
of transmission.

That vibration in the ether of the pineal gland
sets up waves in. the surrounding ether, like waves
of light, only much smaller and' more rapid. These
TOdulations pass out in all directions, setting the

36 Thought

ether in motion, and these etheric waves, in turn,
produce undulations in the ether of the pineal
gland in another brain, and from that are trans-
mitted to the astral and mental bodies in regular
succession, thus reaching the consciousness. It
this second pineal gland cannot reproduce these
undulations, then the thought will pass unnoticed,
making no impression, any more than waves of
light make an impression on the eye of a blind
person.

In the second method of thought-transference,
the thinker, having created a thought-form on his
own plane, docs not send it down to the brain, but
directs it immediately to another thinker on the,
mental plane. The power to do this deliberately
implies a far higher mental evolution than does
the physical method of thought-transference, for
the sender must be self-conscious on the mental
plane in order to exercise knowingly this activity*

But this power is being continually exercised by
everyone of us indirectly and unconsciously, since
all our thinkings cause vibrations in the 'mental
body, that must, from the nature of things, be '
propagated through the surrounding misd-stuff.
And there is no to confine the word thought*

tainsference to conscious and trans-

of | particular thought from one

to another. We are all mn,mttv ^J ; ^
other by these wavis l tlij{hi, v--^ ^
definite intent, and what in ^ j'^ /,
is largely created in this w,ty >'"' ? ' ^
along certain liiwt,, nut lv,trt-.r i5 '
thought a qwhtiun <>! ,mt ** '- ' ,

1 I t-n lit I H"" < *1 * i* * **** '^ ^

along lliose Un^ awl r.my c*th^'. *^ ^- ^ ^
sttong thought of urH \:'*\"'* ^^

world of tlimigtit* ami tH i%ii:^ "i 1 ^ ^
aftd respoiitiv^ tiufl*. Ili 4 y <'j'
vibrations, and thiw Htw^Uiru ll^ ' 1 -'- ''
otlwrw who *'* " f

tmrcHponstve to th* nriKi-il mwUil^i-^M
^answcrlttg again, give I**"* I<J

and they tHfwroe still

of |UH)|ilr.

Public opinion, <***
dominant way vw the*
majority, n

in them re^miwite
ire al*o wrtttiu

and cut

from the thr *i

the *

tad all bom into tint

40 Thought Power.

practises it will soon find its value, and will
discover that by thinking life can be made nobler
and happier, and that it is true that by wisdom we
can put an end to paia

101073

CHAPTER IV.

THE BEGINNINGS OF THOUGHT.

FEW outside the circle of students of psychology
have troubled themselves much with the question :
How does thought originate ? When we now come
into the world, we find ourselves possessed of a
large amount of thought ready made, a large store
of what are called " innate ideas." These are
conceptions which we bring with us into the world,
the condensed or summarised results of our
experiences in lives previous to the present one.
With this mental stock-in-hand we begin our
transactions in this life, and the psychologist is
never able to study by direct observation the
beginnings of thought.

He can, however, learn something from the
observation of an infant, for just as the new
physical body runs over in pre-natal life the long
physical evolution of the past, so does the new

42 Thought Power.

mental body swiftly traverse the stages of its long
development. It is true that " mental body " is not
by any means identical with " thought," and hence
that even in studying the new mental body itself,
we are not really studying the " beginnings of
thought" at all; to a still greater degree is this
true, when we consider that few people cSn study
even the mental body directly, but are confined
to the observation of the effects of the workings of
that body on its denser fellow, the physical brain
and nervous system. " Thought " is as distinct
from the mental body as from the physical; it
belongs to consciousness, to the life side, whereas
mental and physical bodies belong alike to the
form, to the matter side, and are mere transitory
vehicles or instruments. As already said, the
student mult ever keep before him " the distinction
between him who knows and the mind which is his
instrument for obtaining knowledge," and the
definition of the word " mind," already given, as
"the mental body arid manas" a compound.

We can, however, by studying the effects of
thought on these bodies, when the bodies axe new,
infer by correspondence something of the begin-
nings of thought, when a Self, in any given
universe, comes first into contact with the Not-Self,
The observations may help us, according to the

'the Beginnings of Thought.

axiom, " As above, so below." Everything here is
tjut a reflection, and by studying the reflections, we
may learn something of the objects that cause
them.

If an infant be closely observed, it will be seen
that sensations response to stimuli by feelings of
pleasure or pain, and primarily by those of pain
precede any sign* of intelligence. That is, that
vague sensations precede definite cognitions.
Before birth, the infant was sustained by the life-
forces flowing through the mother's body. On its
being launched on an independent existence, these
are cut off. Life flows away from the body and
is not now renewed ; as the life-forces lessen, want
is felt, and this want is pain. The supply of the
want gives ease, pleasure, and the infant sinks
back into unconsciousness. Presently sights and
sounds arouse sensation, but still no intellectual
sign is given. The first sign of intelligence is when
the sight or voice of the mother or nurse is
connected with the satisfaction of the ever-recurring
want, with the giving of pleasure by food; the
linking together in, or by, memory of a group of
recurring sensations with one external object, which
object is regarded as separate from, and as the
cause of, those sensations. Thought is the
cognition of a relation between many sensations
D

Thought Power.

and a one, a unity, linking them together. This is
the first expression of intelligence, the first thought
technically a " perception. 1 ' The essence of this
is the establishing of such a relation as is above
described between a unit of consciousness a Jfva
and an object, and wherever such a relation is
established there thought is present

This simple and ever-verifiable fact may serve
as a general example of the beginning of thought
in a separated Self that is, in a triple Self encased
in an envelope of matter, however fine, a Self as
distinguished from the Self; in such a separated
Self sensations precede thoughts ; the attention of
the Self is aroused by an impression made on hin
and j^ponded to by a sensation. The %xassive
f eeling^M "yraat, due to the diminution of life-energy,
does not bfr itself arouse thought ; but that want is
satisfied by the contact of the milk, causing a
definite local impression, an impression followed
by a feeling of pleasure. After this has been often
repeated, the Self reaches outwards, vaguely,
gropingly; outwards, because of the direction of
the impression, which has come from outside. The
life-energy thus flows into the mental body and
vivifies it, so that it reflects faintly at first the
object which, coming into contact with the body,
lias caused the sensatioa This modification ia the

The Beginnings of Thought.

mental body, being repeated time after time,
Stimulates the Self in his aspect of knowledge, and
he vibrates correspondentially. He has felt want,
contact, pleasure, and with the contact an image
presents itself, the eye being affected as well as
the lips, two sense-impressions blending. His own
inherent nature links these three, the want, the
contact-image, the pleasure, together, and this link
is thought. Not till he thus answers is there any
thought ; it is the Self that perceives, not any
other or lower.

This perception specialises the desire, which
ceases to be a vague craving for something, and
becomes a definite craving for a special thing
milk. But the perception needs revision* for the
Knower has associated three things together, and
one of them has to be disjoined the want It
is significant that at an early stage the sight of the
milk-giver arouses the want, the Knower calling
up the want when the image associated with it
appears ; the child who is not hungry will cry for
the breast on seeing the mother; later this
mistaken link is broken, and the milk-giver is
associated with the pleasure as cause, and seen as
the object of pleasure. Desire for the mother is
thus established, and then becomes a further
stijnulus tp thought

46 Thought Power. .

THE RELATION OF SENSATION
AND THOUGHT.

It is very clearly stated in many books on
psychology, Eastern a.xd Western, that all thought
is rooted in sensation, that until a large number of
sensations have been accumulated there oan be no
thinking. " Mind, as we know it," says H. P.
Blavatsky, " is resolvable into states of conscious-
ness, of varying duration, intensity, complexity, &c,
all, in the ultimate, resting on sensation."* Some
writers have gone farther than this, declaring that
not only are sensations the materials out of which
thoughts are constructed, but that thoughts are
produced by sensations, thus ignoring any Thinker,*"
any Knower. Others, at the opposite extreme,
look on thought as the result of the activity of the
Thinker, initiated from within instead of receiving
| its first impulse from without, sensations being

| materials on which he employs his own inherent

j| . specific capacity, but not a necessary condition of

| ; his activity.

A \ Each of the two views, that thought is the pure

product of sensations and that thought is the pure

1 product of the Knower, contains truth, but the full

troth lies between the two. While it is necessary

* Secret Doctrine^ I 31, note.

The Beginnings of Thought.

for the awakening of the Knower that sensations
should play upon him from without, and while the
t thought will be produced in consequence of
impulses from sensation, and sensations will serve as
its necessary antecedent; yet unless there were
an inherent capacity for linking things together,
unless tJie Self were knowledge in his own nature,
sensations might be presented to him continually
and never a thought would be produced. It is
only half the truth that thoughts have their
beginning in sensations; there must work on
the sensations the power of organising them, and
of establishing connecting links, relations between
them, and also between them and the external
world. The Thinker is the father, Sensation the
mother, Thought the child.

If thoughts have their beginnings in sensations,
and those sensations are caused by impacts from
without, then It is most important that when the
sensation arises, tlie nature and extent of that sensa-
tion shall be accurately observed. The first work
of the Knower is to observe ; if there were nothing
to observe he would always remain asleep ; but when
an object is presented to him, when as the Self
he is conscious of an impact, then as Knower he
observes. On the accuracy of that observation
depends the thought which he is to shape out of

Thought Power.

many of these observations put together, If he
observe inaccurately, if he establish a mistaken .^^

relation between the object that made the impact** 5 ^ |
and himself who is observing the impact, then out |

of that error in his own work will grow a number
of consequent errors that nothing can put right
save going back to the very beginning.

Let us see now how sensation and perception
work in a special case. Suppose I feel a touch on
my hand, the touch causes, is answered by, a
sensation; the recognition of the object which
caused the sensation is a thought. When I feel a
touch, I feel, and nothing more need be added as
far as that pure sensation is concerned ; but when ^
from the feeling I pass to the object that caused
tne feeling, I perceive that object and the percep-
tion is a thought. This perception means that as
Knower I recognise a relation between myself and
that object, as having caused a certain sensation
in my Self. This, however, is not all that happens.
For I also experience other sensations, from colour,
fonn^ softness, warmth, texture; these are again
passed on to me as Knower, and, aided by the
memory of similar impressions formerly received,
*X comparing past images with the image of the
object touching the hind I decide on the kind of
object that has touched it

The Beginnings of Thought.

In this perception of things that make us feel
lies the beginning of thought ; putting this into the
"^ordinary metaphysical terms the perception of a
Not-Self as the cause of certain sensations in the
Self is the beginning of cognition. Feeling alone,
if such were possible, could not give consciousness
of the ISfot-Self ; there would be only the feeling
of pleasure or pain in the Self, an inner conscious-
ness of expansion or contraction. No higher
evolution would be possible if a man could do
nothing more than feel ; only when he recognises
objects as causes of pleasure or pain does his
human education begin. In the establishing of a
conscious relation between the Self and the Not-
Self, the whole future evolution depends, and that
evolution will largely consist in these relations
becoming more and more numerous, more and
more complicated, more and more accurate on the
side of the Knower. The Knower begins his outer
unfolding when the awakened consciousness,
feeling pleasure or pain, turns its gaze on the
external world and says : " That object gave me
pleasure; that object gave me pain."

There must have been experienced a large
number of sensations before the Self answers
exterfially at all. Then a dull, confused

groping after the pleasure, due to a desire in the

5o Thought Power.

willing Self to experience a repetition of the
pleasure. And this is a good example of the fact
mentioned before, that there is no such thing
pure feeling or pure thought ; for " desire for the
repetition of a pleasure " implies that the picture
of the pleasure remains, however faintly, in the
consciousness, and this is memory, and belongs to
thought. For a long time the half-awakened Self
drifts from one thing to another, striking against
the Not-Self in haphazard fashion, without any
direction being given to these movements by
consciousness, experiencing pleasure and pain
without any perception of the cause of either.
Only when this has gone on for a long time is the
perception above-mentioned possible, and the'
relation between the Knower and the Known
begun.

CHAPTER V.

MEMORY.
THE NATURE OF MEMORY.

When a connection between a pleasure and a
certain object is established, there arises the
definite desire to again obtain that object, and so
repeat the pleasure. Or, when a connection
between a pain and a certain object is established,
there arises a definite desire to avoid that object*
and so escape the pain. On stimulation, the mental
body readily repeats the image of the object ; for,
owing to the general law that energy flows in the
direction of least resistance, the matter of the
mental body is shaped most easily into the form
already frequently taken ; this tendency to repeat
vibrations once started, when acted on by energy,
is due to' Tamas, to the inertia of matter, and is
the germ of Memory. The molecules of mattej;,,,,
having been grouped together, fall slowly apart
as other energies play on ttfcm, but retain for a
considerable time the tendency to resume their

52 Thought Power.

mutual relation; if an impulse such as grouped
them be given to them, they promptly fall again
into position. Further, when the Knower
vibrated in any particular way, that power of
vibration remains in him, and, in the case of the
pleasure-giving, or pain-giving, object, the desire
for the object, or for avoiding the object, Hets that
power free, pushes it outwards, one might say, and
thus gives the necessary stimulation to the mental
body.

The image thus produced is recognised by the
Knower, and in the one case the attachment caused
by pleasure makes him reproduce also the image
of the pleasure. In the other, the repulsion caused
by pain equally causes the image of the pain. The
object and the pleasure, or the object and the pain,
axe connected together in experience, and when the
set of vibrations that compose the image of the
object is made, the set of vibrations that make up
the pleasure or the pain is also started, and the
pleasure or the pain is retasted in tJu absence of
the object That is memory in its simplest form :
a self -initiated vibration, of the same nature as that
which caused the feeling of pleasure or pain, again
'musing that feeling. These images are less
massive, and hence to the partially-developed
Knower less vivid and living, than those caused

Memory.

pfrjpWfcfcn,

I
jf

by contact with an external object, the heavy
physical vibrations lending much energy to the
cental and desire images, but fundamentally the
vibrations are identical, and memory is the repro-
duction in mental matter by the Knower of objects
previously contacted. This reflection may be
and is repeated over and over again, in subtler
and subtler matter, without regard to any separated
Knower, and these in their totality are the
partial contents of the memory of the Logos,
the Lord of a Universe. These images of
images may be reached by any separated
Knower in proportion as he has developed within
himself the " power of vibration " above mentioned.
AS in wireless telegraphy, a series of vibrations
composing a message may be caught by any
suitable receiver i.e., any receiver capable of
reproducing them so can a latent vibratory
potency within, a Knower be made active by a
vibration similar to it in these kosmic images.
These, on the &kshic plane, form the ' ( ak&shic
records" often spoken of in Theosophical litera-
ture, and they last through the life of the system.

BAD MEMORY.

In order that we may clearly understand what
lies $t the root of " bad memory," we must examine

Thought Power.

the mental processes which go to make up what is
called memory. Although in many psychological
books memory is spoken of as a mental faculty
there is really no one faculty to which that name
should be given. The persistence of a mental
image is not due to any special faculty, but belongs
to the general qitality of the mind ; a feeble mind
is feeble in persistence as in all else, and like a
substance too fluid to retain the shape of the mould
into which it has been poured falls quickly out of
the form it has taken. Where the mental body
is little organised, is a mere loose aggregate of the
molecules of mind-stuff, a cloud-like mass without
much coherence, memory will certainly be very
weak. But this weakness is general, not special ;
it is common to the whole mind, and is due to its
low stage of evolution.

As the mental body becomes organised and the
powers of the Jlva work in it, we yet often
find what is called "a bad memory. But if we
observe this "bad memory," we shall find that
it is not faulty in all respects, that there are some
things which are well remembered, and which the
mind retains without effort. If we then examine
these remembered things, we shall find that they
are things which greatly attract the mind, that the
things that are much liked are not forgo ttea I

Memory. 5

have known a woman complain of a bad memory
with respect to matters that were being studied,
while I have observed in her a very retentive
memory with regard to the details of a dress that
she admired. Her mental body was not lacking
in a fair^amount of retentiveness, and when she
observed carefully and attentively, producing a
clear mental image, the image was fairly long-lived
Here we have the key to " bad memory." It is due
to lack of attention, to lack of accurate observation,
and therefore to confused thought. Confused
thought is the blurred impression caused by care-
less observation and lack of attention, while clear
thought is the sharply-cut impression due to
concentrated attention and careful, accurate obser-
vation. We do not remember the things to which
we pay little heed, but we remember well the
things that keenly interest us.

How, then, should a " bad memory " be treated?
First, the things should be noticed with regard to
which it is bad and with regard to which, it is good,
so as to estimate the general quality of adhesive-
ness. Then the things with regard to which it is *
bad jhould be scrutinised, in order to see if they
are worth remembering, and if they are things for
which we do not care. If we find that we care
little for tjiem, but that in our best moments we

56 Thought Power.

feel we ought to care for them, then we should
say to ourselves : " I will pay attention to them,
will observe them accurately, and will think
carefully and steadily on them." Doing this, we
shall find our memory improve. For, as said above
memory is really dependent on attentioi^ Accurate
observation, and clear thought; the element of
attraction is valuable as fixing the attention, but if *
that be not present, its place must be taken by
the will

Now, it is just here that a very definite and
widely-felt difficulty arises. How can "the will"
take the place of the attraction ? What is to move
the will itself? Attraction arouses desire, an4
desire impels the moving towards the attractive
object This is, in the case supposed, absent
How is this absence of desire to be made good by
the will? The will is the force prompting action
when that force is determined in its direction by
the deliberate Reason, and not by the influence of
external objects felt as attractive. When the
impulse to action, that which I have often called
the outgoing energy of the Self, is motived by
external objects, is drawn forth, we call the
impulse desire; when it is motived by the Pure
Reason, is sent forth, we call it will. What is
needed then, in the absence of felt attraction from

Memory.

without, is illumination from within, and the motive
for the will must be obtained by an intellectual
survey of the field, and an exercise of the judgment
as to the highest good, the goal of effort That
which the Reason selects as the thing most
conducive to the good of the Self, serves as motive
to the Vill. And when this has once been
definitely done, then in moments of lassitude, of
weakness, the recalling of the train of thought
which led to the choice, again stimulates the will.
Such a thing, deliberately chosen, may then be
rendered attractive, i.e., an object of desire, by
setting the imagination to picture^ its pleasing
qualities, the beneficial happiness-giving effects
of its possession. But as he who wills an object
wills the means, we become able to overcome the
natural shrinking from effort and unpleasant
discipline, by an exercise, thus motived, of the will.
In the case under consideration, having determined
that certain objects are eminently desirable as
conducive to prolonged happiness, we set the will
to work to carry out the activities which will lead
to their obtaining.

In cultivating the power of observation, as in
everything else, a little practice repeated daily is
much more effective than a great effort followed
by a period of inaction. We should set ..ourselves

5 8 Thought

a little daily task of observing a thing carefully,
imaging it in the mind in all its details, keeping
the mind fixed on it for a short time, as the
physical eye might be fixed on an object. On the
following day we should call up the image, repro-
ducing it as accurately as we can, and should then
compare it with the object, and obs?rve any
inaccuracies. If we gave five minutes a day to this
practice, alternately observing an object and
picturing it in the mind, and recalling the previous
day's image, and comparing our picture with the
object, we should " improve our memory " very
rapidly, and we should really be improving our
powers of observation, of attention, of imagination,
of concentration ; in fact, we should be organising
the mental body, and fitting it, far more rapidly
than nature will fit it without assistance, to
discharge its functions effectively and usefully.
No man can take up such a practice as this, and
remain unaffected by it ; and he will soon have the
satisfaction of knowing that his powers have
increased, and that they have come much more
under the control of the will.

The artificial ways of improving the memory
present things to the mind in an attractive form,
or associate with such a form the things to be
remembered If a person visualises easily, he will

Memory.

aid a bad memory by constructing a picture, and
attaching to points in that picture the things he
wants to remember; then the calling up of the
picture brings up also the things that were to be
remembered. Other people, ia whom the auditory
power i% dominant, remember by the jingle of
rhymes, and, for instance, weave a series of dates,
or other unattractive facts, into verses that " stick
in the mind." But far better than any of these
ways is the rational method detailed above, by the
use of which the mind-body becomes better
organised, more coherent as to its materials.

MEMORY AND ANTICIPATION.

Let us return to our undeveloped Knower.

When memory begins to function anticipation
quickly follows, for anticipation is only memory
thrown forwards. When memory gives the
retasting of a pleasure experienced in the past,
desire seeks to again grasp the object which gave
the pleasure, and when this retasting is thought
of as the result of finding that object in the outer
world and enjoying it, we have anticipation, The
image of the object and the image of the pleasure
are dwelt on by the Knower in relation to each
other ; if l^e adds to this contemplation the element

go Thought Power.

of time, of past and future, two names are given to
such contemplation : the contemplation plus the
idea of the past is memory, plus the idea of the
future it is anticipation.

As we study these images, we begin to
understand the full force of the aphorism of
Patafijali, that for the practice of Yoga a man
must stop the " modifications of the thinking
principle." Looked at from the standpoint of
occult science, every contact with the Not- Self
modifies the mental body. Part of the stuff of
which that body is composed is re-arranged as a
picture or image of the external object. When
relations are established between these images,^
that is thinking, as seen on the form-side,
Correspondent with this are vibrations in the
Knower himself, and these modifications within
himself are thinking as seen on the life-side. It
must not be forgotten that the establishing of
these relations is the peculiar work of the Knower,
his addition to the images, and that this addition
changes the images into thoughts. The pictures
in the mental body very much resemble in their
character the impressions made on a sensitive plate
by the etheric waves which lie beyond the light
spectrum and which act chemically on the silver
salts, re-arranging the matte on th* sensitive

Memory.

I
!

plate, so that pictures are formed on it of the
objects to which it has been exposed So on the
sensitive plate that we call the mental body, the
materials are re-arranged as a picture of the objects
that have been contacted The Knower perceives
these pictures by his own responsive vibrations,
studies them, and after a while begins to arrange
them and to modify them by the vibrations he
sends out on them from himself. By the law
already spoken of, that energy follows the line of
least resistance ; he re-forms over and over again
the same images, makes images of images ; so long
as he confines himself to this simple reproduction,
jvith the sole addition of the time-element, we
have, as said, memory and anticipation.

Concrete thinking is, after all, only a repetition
in subtler matter of every-day experiences, with
this difference, that the Knower can stop and
change their sequence, repeat them, hurry or
slacken them as he will. He can delay on any
image, brood over it, dwell on it, and can thus gain
from his leisurely re-examination of experiences
much that had escaped him as he passed through
them, bound to the unresting, unhasting wheel of
time. Within his own domain, he can make his
own time, so far as its measures are concerned, as
does the Logos for His worlds; only he cannot

62 Thought Power

wen, only so far as this system is '

CHAPTER VI.

THE GROWTH OF THOUGHT.
OBSERVATION AND ITS VALUE.

THE first requisite for competent thinking is
attentive and accurate observation. The Self as
Knower must observe the Not-Self with attention
and with accuracy, if it is to become the Known,
and thus merge in the Self.

The second requisite is receptivity and tenacity
in the mental body, the power of yielding quickly
to impressions and of retaining them when made.

In proportion to the attention and accuracy of
the Knower's observation, and the receptivity and
tenacity of his mental body, will be the rapidity of
his evolution, the speed at which his latent
potencies become active powers.

If the Knower have not accurately observed the
thought-image, or if the mental body, being
undeveloped, has been insensitive to all but the
stronger vibrations of an external object, and so
has been modified into an imperfect reproduction,

6s4 Thought Power.

the material for thought is inadequate and mis-
leading. The broad outline is at first all that is
obtained, the details being blurred or even omitted.
As we evolve our faculties, and as we build finer
stuff into the mental body, we find that we receive
from the same external object much more than we
received in our undeveloped days. Thu/ we find
much more in an object than we before found in it.
Let two men stand in a field, in presence of a
splendid sunset. Let one of these be an
undeveloped agricultural labourer, who has not
been in the habit of observing nature save with
reference to his crops, who has only looked at the
sky to see if it promises rain or sunshine, caring
nothing for its aspects save as they bear on his own*
livelihood and employment Let the second be an
artist, a painter of genius, full of the love of beauty,
and trained to see and enjoy every shade and tone
of colour. The labourer's physical, astral, and
mental bodies are all in presence of that gorgeous
sunset, and all the vibrations caused by it are
playing upon the vehicles of his consciousness;
he sees different colours in the sky, and observes
that there is much red, promising a fine day for
the morrow, good or bad for his crops, as the case
may be. This is all he gets out of it The
painter's physical' astral, and mental bodies are

The Growth of Thought. 65

all exposed to exactly the same pulsations as those
of the labourer, but how different is the result!
The fine material of his bodies reproduces a million
vibrations too rapid and subtle to move the coarse
material of the other. His image of the sunset
is consequently quite different from the image
product in the labourer. The delicate shades of
colour, hue melting into hue, translucent blue and
rose and palest green lighted with golden gleams
and flecked with royal purple all these are tasted
with a lingering joy, an ecstasy of sensuous delight ;
there are waked all fine emotions, love and admira-
tion merging into reverence and joy that such
beauty can be; ideas of the most inspiring
character arise, as the mental body modifies itself
under the vibrations playing on it on the menfetl
plane from the mental aspect of the sunset The
difference of the images is not due to an external
cause, but to an internal receptivity. It does not
lie in the outside, but in the capacity to respond
It is not in the Not-Self, but in the Self and its
sheaths. According to these differences is the
result produced ; how little flows into the one, how
much into the other !

Here we see with startling force the meaning of
the evolution of the Knower. A universe of beauty
may be around us, its waves playing on us from

Thought Power.

every side, and yet for us it may be non-existent.
Everything that is in the mind of the Logos
of our system is playing* on us and on our
bodies now. How much of it we can receive marks
the stage of our evolution. What is wanted for
growth is not a change without us, but a change
within us. Everything is already given u^ but we
have to develop the capacity to receive.

It will be gathered from what has just been
said that one element in clear thinking is accurate
observation. We have to begin this work on the
physical plane, where our bodies come into contact
with the Not-Self. We climb upwards^ and all
evolution begins on the lower plane and passes on
into the higher ; on the lower we first touch the '
Eternal world, and thence the vibrations pass
upwards or inwards calling out the inner
powers.

Accurate observation, then, is a faculty to be
definitely cultivated. Most people go through the
world with their eyes half closed, and we can each
test this for ourselves by questioning ourselves on
what we have observed while passing along a
street We can ask : " what have I observed while
walking down this street ? " Many persons will
have observed next to nothing, no clear images
have been formed Others will have observed a

The Growth of Thought. 67

few things ; some will have observed many. It is
related by Houdin that he trained his child
in observing the contents of the shops he passed,
walking along the streets of London, until he could
give the whole contents of a shop-front which he
had passed by without stopping, having thrown
over it cfinere glance. The normal child and the
savage are observant, and according to the extent
of their capacity for observation is the measure of
their intelligence. The habit of clear, quick
observation lies in the average man at the root of
clear thinking. Those who think most confusedly
are generally those who observe least accurately;
except where intelligence is highly developed and
is turned inwards habitually, ^and the bodies have
not been trained in the way spoken of below. *
But the answer to the above question may be :
"I was thinking of something else, and therefore
did not observe." And the answer is a good one,
if the answerer was thinking of something more
important than the training of the mental body
and of the power of attention by careful observa-
tion. Such a one may have done well in his lack
of observation ; but if the answerer has only been
dreaming, drifting about aimlessly, then he has
wasted his time much more than if he had turned
his energy outwards.

Thought Power.

A man deeply engaged in thought will be
unobservant of passing objects, turned inwards and
not outwards, and will not attend to what is going
on before him. It may not be worth his while, in
this life, to train his bodies to make quasi-
independent observations, for the highly developed
and the partially developed need diff erenf training.

But how many of the unobservant people are
really " deeply engaged in thought " ? In most
people's minds all that is going on is an idle looking
at any thought-image that happens to present
itself, a turning over of the contents of the mind
in an aimless fashion, as an idle woman turns over
the contents of her wardrobes or her jewel-box.
This is not thinking, for thinking means, as we
have seen, the establishing of relations, the adding
of something not previously present. In thinking,
the attention of the Knower is deliberately directed
to the thought-images, and he exerts himself
actively upon them.

The development, then, of the habit of
observation is part of the training of the mind, and
those who practice it will find that the mind
becomes clearer, increases in power, and becomes
more easily manageable, so that they can direct
it on any given object much better than they had
been able previously to do. Now, this power of

The Growth of Thought.

observation, once definitely established, works
automatically, the mental and other bodies
registering images which are available if wanted
later, without calling at the time on the attention
of their owner. It is, then, no longer necessary
that the attention of the person should be directed
to objects presented to the sense-organs in order
that an impression of those objects may be made
and preserved. A very trivial but significant case
of this kind happened in my own experience.
While I was travelling in America, a question arose
one day about the number on the engine of a
train by which we had been travelling. The
plumber was instantly presented to me by my mind,
but this was not, in any sense, a case of clair-
voyance. For clairvoyant perception it would have*
been necessary to have hunted up the train and
looked for the number. Without any conscious
action on my part, the sense-organs, senses, and mind
had observed and registered the number as the
train came into the station, and when the number
was wanted the mental image of the incoming
train, with the number on the front of the engine,
at once came up. This faculty, once established,
is a useful one, for it means that whip things that
have been passing around you have not attracted
your attention at the time, you can none the less

70 Thought Power.

recall them by looking at the record which the
mental, astral, and physical bodies have made of
them on their own account.

This automatic activity of the mental body,
outside the conscious activity of the Jlva, goes on,
however, more extensively in all of us than might
be supposed; for it has been found that when a
person is hypnotised he will report a number of
small events which had passed him by without
arousing his attention. These impressions reach
the mental body through the brain, and are
impressed on the latter as well as on the former.
Many impressions thus reach the mental body that
are not sufficiently deep to enter into consciousnes|
not because consciousness cannot cognise them,
but because it is not normally awake enough to
notice any but the deeper impressions. In the
hypnotic trance, in delirium, in physical dreams,
when the Jfva is away, the brain yields up these
impressions, which are usually overpowered by the
far stronger impressions received by and made by
the Jiva himself; but if the mind is trained to
observe and record, then the Jtva can recover from
it, at will, the impressions thus made.

Thus, if tgp people walked down a street, one
trained in observation, and the other not, both
would receive a number of impressions, and neither"

The Growth of Thought. 71

might be conscious of the receipt of these at the
time ; but afterwards, the trained observer would
be able to recover these impressions, while the
other would not. As this power lies at the root
of clear thinking, those who desire to culture and
control thought-power will do well to cultivate the
habit of observation, and to sacrifice the mere
pleasure of drifting idly along whithersoever the
stream of fancy may carry them.

THE EVOLUTION OF MENTAL FACULTIES.
As images accumulate, the work of the Knower
becomes more complicated, and his activity upon
^hem draws out one power after another, inherent
in his divine nature. He no longer accepts the
external world only in its simple relation to
himself, as containing objects that are causes of
pleasure or pain to himself; but he arranges side
by side the images representing them, studies them
in their various aspects, shifts them about, and
reconsiders them. He begins also to arrange his
own observations. He observes, when one image
brings up another, the order of their succession.
When a second has followed a first many times, he
begins to look for the second wbuen the first
appears, and thus links the two together. This is
his first attempt at reasoning, and here again ^e

Thought Power.

have the calling out of an inherent faculty. He
argues that because A and B have always appeared
successively, therefore when A appears B will
appear. This forecast being continually verified,
he comes to link them together as " cause " and
" effect," and many of his early errors are due to a
too hasty establishment of this relation. Further,
setting images side by side, he observes their
unlikenesses and likenesses, and develops a power
of comparison. He chooses one or another as
pleasure-giving, and moves the body in search of
them in the external world, developing judgment
by these selections and their consequences. He
evolves a sense of proportion in relation to the s
likenesses and unlikenesses, and groups objects
together by their prominent likenesses, separating
them from others by their prominent unlikenesses ;
here also he makes many errors, corrected by later
observations, being easily misled at first by surface

Thus observation, discrimination, reason, com-
parison, judgment, are evolved one after another,
and these faculties grow with exercise, and thus
the aspect of the Self as Knower is developed by
the activity of thoughts, by the action and re-action
continually repeated between the Self and the
Not-Self.

The Growth of Thought.

To quicken the evolution of these faculties, we
must deliberately and consciously exercise them,
using the circumstances of daily life as oppor-
tunities for developing them. Just as we saw that
the power of observation might be trained in
everyday^life, so can we accustom ourselves to see
the points of likeness and unlikeness in the objects
round us, we can draw conclusions and test them
by events, we can compare, and judge, and all this
consciously and of set purpose. Thought-power
grows rapidly under this deliberate exercise, and
becomes a thing that is consciously wielded, felt
as a definite possession.

THE TRAINING OF THE MIND.

To train the mind in any one direction is to
train it altogether to some extent, for any definite
kind of training organises the mind-stuff of which
the meatal body is composed, and also calls out
some of the powers of the Knower. The increased
capacity can be directed to any end, and is avail-
able for all purposes. A trained mind can be
applied to a new subject, and will grapple with it
and master it in a way impossible to the untrained,
and this is the use of education.

But it should always be remembered that the
training of^the mind does not consist in cramming

Thought Power.

it with facts, but in drawing out its powers. The
mind does not grow by being gorged with ottef
people's thoughts, but by exercising its own
faculties. It is said of the great Teachers who
stand at the head of human evolution that They
know everything which exists within the solar
system. This does not mean that every fact
therein is always within Their consciousness, but
that They have so developed the aspect of know-
ledge in Themselves that whenever They turn
Their attention in any direction They know the
object to which it is turned. This is a much greater
thing tha^n the storage in the mind of any number
of facts, as it is a greater thing to see any object,
on which the eye is turned than to be blind and
to know it only by the description given of it by
others. The evolution of the mind is measured
not by the images it contains, but by the develop-
ment of the nature which is knowledge, the power
to tepr^uce within itself anything that is presented
to it This will be as useful in any other universe
as in this, and once gained is ours to use wherever
we may bfr-

ASSOCIATION WITH SUPERIORS.

Now, this work of training the mind may be very
much helped forward by coming into touch with

The Growth of Thought.

those who are more highly evolved than ourselves.
A thinker who is stronger than we are can
materially aid us, for he sends out vibrations of a
higher order than we are able to create. A piece
of iron lying on the ground cannot start heat-
vibrations on its own account ; but if it happens to
be placect near a fire, it can answer to the heat-
vibrations of the fire, and thus become hot. When
we come near a strong thinker, his vibrations play
on our mental bodies and set up in them corres-
ponding vibrations, so that we vibrate sympathetic-
ally with him. For the time being we feel that our
mental power is increased and that we are able to
grasp conceptions that normally elude us. But
fyhen we are again alone, we find that these very
conceptions have become blurred and confused

People will listen to a lecture, and follow it
intelligently, for the time being understanding the
teaching it conveys. They go away satisfied,
feeling that they have made a substantial jjain in
knowledge. On the following day, willing to
share with a friend what had been gained, they
find to their mortification that they cannot
reproduce the conceptions which seemed to be so
clear and luminous. Often they will exclaim
impatiently : " I am sure I know it ; it is there, if
I could only get hold of it" This feeling arises

76 Thought Power.

from the memory of the vibrations which both
mental body and Jiva have experienced ; there is
the consciousness of having realised the concep-
tions, the memory of the forms taken, and the feeling
that, having produced them, reproduction should
be easy. But on the previous day it was the
masterful vibrations of the stronger thfhker that
shaped the forms taken by the mental body ; they
were moulded from without, not from within. The
sense of inability experienced on the attempt to
reproduce them means that this shaping must be
done for them a few times, before they will have
sufficient strength to reproduce those forms by
self-initiated vibrations. The Knower must have
vibrated in these higher ways several times, ere h%
can reproduce the vibrations at will. By virtue of
his own inherent nature he can evolve the power
within himself to reproduce them, when he has been
made to answer several times by impact from
witho|| The power in both Knowers is the same,
but one has evolved it, while in the other it is
latent It is brought out of latency by the contact
with a similar power already in activity, and thus
the stronger quickens the evolution of the weaker.
Herein lies one of the values of associating with
persons more advanced than ourselves. We profit
by their contact, and grow under their stimulating

The Growth of Thought.

influence. A true Teacher will thus aid his
disciples far more by keeping them near him than
by any spoken words.

For this influence direct personal contact affords
the most effective channel. But failing this, or in
association with it, much may also be gained from
books, if \he books be wisely chosen. In reading
the work of a really great writer, we should try for
the time to put ourselves into a negative or
receptive condition, so as to receive as many of his
thought-vibrations as possible. When we have
read the words, we should dwell on them, ponder
over them, try to sense the thought they partially
express, draw out of them all their hidden
relationships. Our attention must be concentrated,
so as to pierce the mind of the writer through the
veil of his words. Such reading serves as an
education, and helps forward our mental evolution.
Less strenuous reading may serve as a pleasant
pastime, may store our minds with valuable facts,
and so subserve our usefulness. But such reading
as is described means a stimulus to our evolution,
and should not be neglected by those who seek to
grow in orde^ to serve.

CHAPTER VII. ^
CONCENTRATION.

FEW things more tax the powers of the student
who is beginning to train his mind than does
concentration. In the early stages of the activity
of the mind, progress depends on its swift move-
ments, on its alertness, on its readiness to receive
impacts from sensation after sensation, turning itg
attention quickly from one to another. Versatility
is, at that stage, a most valuable quality, and the
constant turning outwards of the attention is
essential to progress. While the mind is collecting
materials for thought, extreme mobility is an
advanfege, and for many, many lives the mind
grows through this mobility, and increases it by
exercise. The stoppage of this habit of running
outwards in every direction, the imposition of fixed
attention on a single point this change naturally
comes with a jar and a shock, and the mind plunges
wildly, like an unbroken horse when it first feels
the bit

Concentration. 79

We have seen that the mental body is shaped
into images of the objects towards which attention
is directed. Patafijali speaks of stopping the
modifications of the thinking principle, i.e., of
stopping these ever-changing reproductions of the
outer wo^d. To stop the ever-changing modifica-
tions of the mental body, and to keep it shaped to
one steady image, is concentration so far as the
form is concerned ; to direct the attention steadily
to this form so as to reproduce it perfectly within
itself is concentration so far as the Knower is
concerned.

In concentration, the consciousness is held to a
Dingle image; the whole attention of the Knower
is fixed on a single point, without wavering or
swerving. The mind which runs continually from
one thing to another, attracted by external objects
and shaping itself to each in swift succession is
checked, held in, and forced by the will to remain
in one form, shaped to one image, disregarding all
the impressions thrown upon it.

Now, when the mind is thus kept shaped to one
image, and the Knower steadily contemplates it,
he obtains a far fuller knowledge of the object than
he could obtain by means of any verbal description
of it Our idea of a picture, of a landscape, is
far itior complete when we have seen it, than

Thought

when we have only read of it, or heard it described.
And if we concentrate on such a description the
picture is shaped in the mental body, and we gain
a fuller knowledge of it than is gained by mere
reading of the words. Words are symbols of
things, and concentration on the rough putline of
a thing produced by a word descriptive of it fills
in more and more detail, as the consciousness comes
more closely into touch with the thing described.

It must be remembered that concentration is not
a state of passivity, but, on the contrary, one of
intense and regulated activity. It resembles, in
the mental world, the gathering up of the muscles
for a spring in the physical world, or their stiffening*
to meet a prolonged strain. In fact, this tension
always shows itself in a corresponding physical
tension with beginners, and physical fatigue follows
the exercise of concentration fatigue of the
muscles, not only of the nervous system. As fixing
the eye steadily on an object enables us to observe
its details, unnoticed in a hasty glance, so does
concentration enable us to observe the details of
an idea. And as we increase the intensity of the
concentration, we take in more in the time, as a
runner passes more objects in a minute than does
a walker. The walker will expend exactly the
same amount of muscular energy in passing twenty

Concentration.

objects as will the runner, but the swifter pouring
out of energy corresponds to the shorter time of
passage.

At the beginning of concentration two difficulties
have to be overcome. First, this disregard of the
impressions continually being thrown on the mind.
The mental body must be prevented from answering
these contacts, and the tendency to respond to
these outside impressions must be resisted ; but
this necessitates the partial direction of the
attention to the resistance itself, and when the
tendency to respond has been overcome the
resistance itself must pass; perfect balance is
needed, neither resistance nor non-resistance, but
a steady quietitude so strong that waves from
outside will not produce any result, not even the
secondary result of the consciousness of something
to be resisted.

Secondly, the mind itself must hold as sole
image, for the time, the object of concentration;
it must not only refuse to modify itself in response
to impacts from without, but must also cease its
own inner activity, wherewith it is constantly
re-arranging its contents, thinking over them,
establishing new relations, discovering hidden
likenesses and unlikenesses. It has now to confine
Its attention to a single object, to fix itself on that

Thought Power.

It does not, of course, cease its activity, but sends
it all along a single channel. Water flowing over
a surface wide in comparison with the amount of
water will have little motor power. The same
water sent along a narrow channel, with the same
initial impulse, will carry away an obstacle^ Hence
the value of the " one-pointedness " so continually
insisted on by the teachers of meditation. Without
adding to the strength of the mind, the effective
strength of it is immensely increased. Steam
allowed to expand in the free air does not movie
a midge out of its path ; but along a piga, the same
steam would drive a piston. This imposition of
inner stillness is even more difficult than the,
ignoring of outside impacts, being concerned v^tti
its own deeper and fuller life. To turn the back
on the outside world is more easy than to quiet the
inner, for this inner world is more identified with
the Self, and, in fact, to most people at the present
stage of evolution, represents the " I." The very
attempt, however, thus to still the mind soon brings
about a step forwardnn the evolution of conscious-
ness, for we quickly feel that the Ruler and the
ruled cannot be one, and instinctively identify
ourselves with the Ruler, "/quiet my mind," is
tie expression of the consciousness, and the mind
if felt as belonging to, as a possession o| the " L"

, 1 1

s'
?

>T IS
'f

I
ii

Concentration.

This distinction grows up unconsciously, and the
student finds himself becoming conscious of a
duality, of something which is controlling, and
something which is controlled. The lower concrete
mind is separated off, and the "I" is felt as of
greater power, clearer vision, and there is evolved
a feeling that this " I " is not dependent on either
body or mind. This is the first realisation,
i.e., feelingy in consciousness of the true immortal
nature, already intellectually seen as existing, such
vision having, in fact, prompted the very concentra-
tion which fe thus rewarded. As the practice goes
on, the horizon widens out, but as though inwards,
not outwards, inwards and inwards continually,
illimitably. There unfolds a power of knowing
Truth at sight, which only shows itself when the
mind, with its slow processes of reasoning, is
transcended. [The reader must never forget that
"the mind" is used throughout as meaning "the
lower mind," the mental body, plus manas.] For
the " I " is the expression of the Self whose nature
is knowledge, and whenever he comes into contact
with a truth, he finds its vibrations regular, and
therefore capable of producing a coherent image
in himself, whereas the false causes a distorted
image, out of proportion, by its very reflexion
announcing its nature. As the mind assumes a

84 Thought Power.

more and more subordinate position, these powers
of the Ego assert their own predominance, and
intuition analogous to the direct vision of the
physical plane takes the place of reasoning, which
may perhaps be compared to the physical plane
sense of touch. In fact, the analogy is closer than
at the first glance may appear. For intuition
develops out of reasoning in the same unbroken
manner, and without change of essential nature, as
the eye develops out of touch. There is certainly
a great change of " manner," but this should not
blind us to the orderly and sequential evolution
The intuition of the unintelligent is impulse, bo&ft,
of desire, and is lower, not higher, than teagooJbg.^
When the mind is well trained in concentrating
on an object, and can maintain its one-pointeSness
as this state is called for some little time, the
next stage is to drop the object, and to maintain
the mind in this attitude of fixed attention
withmt the attention being directed to anything.
In this state the mental body shows no image ; its
own material is there, iield steady and firm,
receiving no impressions, in a condition of perfect
cato, like a waveless lake. This is not a state
which can last for more than a very brief period,
Kke the "critical state" of the chemist, the point
of contact between two recognised and defined

Concentration. 85

sub-states of matter. Otherwise put, the con-
sciousness, as the mental body is stilled, escapes
from it, and passes into and out of the " laya
centre," the neutral points of contact between "the
mental body and the causal body; the passage
is accompanied by a momentary swoon, or loss of
consciousness the inevitable result of the disap-
pearance of objects of consciousness followed by
consciousness in the higher. The dropping out of
objects of consciousness belonging to the lower
worlds is thus followed by the appearance of
objects of consciousness in the higher. Then can
the Ego shape that mental body according to his
*0wxi. lofty thoughts and permeate it with his own
vibrations. He can mould it after the high visions
of the planes beyond his own, that he has caught
a glimpse of in his own highest moments, and can
thus convey downwards and outwards ideas to
which the mental body would otherwise be unable
to respond. These are the inspirations of genius,
that flash down into the mind with dazzling light,
and illuminate a world. The very man who gives
them to the world can scarce tell in his ordinary
mental state how they have reached him ; only he
knows that in some strange way

... ... the power within me pealing

Lives on my lip and beckons with my hand.

Thought Power.

CONSCIOUSNESS is WHEREVER THERE is AN
OBJECT TO WHICH IT RESPONDS.

In the world of form, a form occupies a definite
place, and cannot be said to be if the expression
may be pardoned in a place where |t is not.
That is, occupying a certain place, it is closer to or
more distant from other forms also occupying
certain places in relation to its own. If it would
change from one place to another, it must cross
over the intervening space ; the transit m^y be
swift or slow, rapid as the lightning flash, sluggish
as the tortoise, but it must be made, and it occupies
some time, whether the time be brief or long.

Now, with regard to consciousness, space has no
such existence. Consciousness changes its state,
not its place, and embraces more or less, knows or
does not know of that which is not itself, just in
proportion as it can or cannot answer to the
vibrations of the not-selves. Its horizon enlarges
with its receptivity, i.e., with its power of response,
with its power to reproduce vibrations. In this
there is no question of travelling, of crossing over
intermediate intervals. Space belongs to forms,
which affect each other most when near each other,
and whose power over each other diminishes as
their distance from each other increases.

AH successful students in concentration re-

-*n

Concentration*

discover for themselves this non-existence of
space for consciousness. An Adept can acquire
knowledge of any object within His limit by
concentrating upon it, and distance in no way
affects such concentration. He becomes conscious
of an object, say on another planet, not because
his astral vision acts telescopically, but because in
the inner region the whole universe exists as a
point ; such a man reaches the Heart of Life, and
sees all things therein.

It Is written in the Upanishads that within the
heart there is a small chamber, and therein is the
"inner ether," which is co-extensive with space;
this is* the Atm, the Self, immortal, beyond
grief:

Within this abide the sky and the world; within this
abide fire and air, the sun and the moon, the lightning
and the stars, all that is and all that is not in This
[the universe].*

This " inner ether of the heart " is an ancient
mystic term descriptive of the subtle nature of the
Self, which is truly one and all-pervading, sl> that
anyone who is conscious in the Self is conscious
at all points of the universe. Science says that the
movement of a body here affects the farthest star,
because all bodies are plunged in, interpenetrated

* Chhdndogyopanishat VIII. i 3."

a i t

Thought Power.

by, ether, a continuous medium which transmits
vibrations without friction, -therefore without loss
of energy, therefore to any distance. This is on
the form side of Nature. How natural, then, that
consciousness, the life side of Nature, should be
similarly all-pervading and continuous.

We feel ourselves to be " here " becausS we are
receiving impressions from the objects around us.
So when consciousness vibrates in response to
" distant " objects as fully as to " near " objects, we
feel ourselves to be with them. If consciousness
responds to an event taking place in Marl as fully
as to an event taking place in our own room, there
is no difference in its knowledge of each, and it
feels itself as " here " in eacu case equally. There
is no question of place, but a question of evolution
of capacity. The Knower is wherever his con-
sciousness can answer, and increase in his power
to respond means inclusion within his consciousness
of all to which he responds, of all that is within
his range of vibration.

Here again physical analogy is helpful The eye
sees all which can send into it light- vibrations, and
nothing else. It can answer only within a certain
range of vibrations ; all beyond that range, above
or below it, is to it darkness. The old Hermetic
axiom: "As above so below/ 1 is a clue in the

Sff

Concen tration.

labyrinth which surrounds us, and by a study of
the reflection below we can often learn something
of the object above which casts that reflection.

One difference between this power of being
conscious at any place and " going to " the higher
planes is that in the first case the Jlva, whether
encased *in its lower vehicles or not, feels himself
at once in presence of the " distant " objects,
and in the second, clothed in the mental and astral
bodies, or in the mental only, travels swiftly from
point to point and is conscious of translation. A
far more important difference is that in the second
case the Jiva may find himself in the midst of a
crowd of objects which he does not in the least
understand, a new and " strange world which
bewilders and confuses him ; while in the first case
he understands all he sees, and knows in every
case the life as well as the form. Thus studied,
the light of the One Self shines through all, and a
serene knowledge is enjoyed which can never be
gained by spending numberless ages amid the
wilderness of forms.

Concentration is the means whereby the Jtva
escapes from the bondage of forms and enters the
Peace. "For him without concentration there is
no peace," quoth the Teacher,* for peace hath her

* Bhagawad Gtt^ it 66,

90 Thought Power.

nest on a rock that towers above the tossing waves
of form.

How TO CONCENTRATE.

Having understood the theory of concentration,
tlie student should begin its practice. *

If he be of a devotional temperament, his work
will be much simplified, for then he can take the
object of his devotion as the object of contempla-
tion, and the heart being powerfully attracted to
that object, the mind will readily dwell on it,
presenting the beloved image without effort and
excluding others with equal ease. For the mind
is continually impelled by desire, and serves con-*
stantly as the minister of pleasure. That which
gives pleasure is ever being sought by the mind,
and it ever seeks to present images that give
pleasure and to exclude those that give pain.
Hence it will dwell on a beloved image, being
steadied in that contemplation by the pleasure
in it, and if forcibly dragged away
it will return to it again and again, A
\ can then very readily reach a considerable
ree of cotJtcfe&tration ; he will think of the
object of his devotion, .creating by the imagination,
a$ clearly as he can, a picture, an image of that

: i- * *-. ''
*?../#.-.' 'k.;Al ? .

Concentration. 91

object, and he will then keep his mind fixed on
that image, on the thought of the Beloved. Thus
a Christian would think of the Christ, of the Virgin-
Mother, of his Patron Saint, of his Guardian
Angel; a Hindu would think of Maheshvara, of
Vishnu, ^f Uma, of Shri Krishna; a Buddhist
would think of the Buddha, of the Bodhisattva ; a
Parsi of Ahura-mazda, of Mithra; and so on.
Each and all of these objects appeal to the
devotion of the worshipper, and the attraction
exercised by them over the heart binds the mind
to the happiness-giving object In this way the
mind becomes concentrated with the least exertion,
4he least loss of effort.

Where the temperament is not devotional, the
element of attraction can still be utilised as a help,
but in this case it will bind to an Idea not to a
Person. The earliest attempts at concentration
should always be made with this help. With the
non-devotional the attractive image will take the
form of some profound idea, some high problem;
such should form the object of concentration, tod
on that the mind should be steadily bent Hwii^
the binding power of attraction is intelleclttal
interest, the deep desire for knowledge, one of the
profoundest loves of man.

Another very fruitful form of concentration, for
G

92 Thought Power,

one who is not attracted to a personality as aa
object of devotion, is to chose a virtue and con-
centrate upon that. A very real kind of devotion
may be aroused by such an object, for it appeals
to the heart through the love of intellectual and
moral beauty. The virtue should be irpaged by
the mind in the completest possible way, and when
a general view of its effects has been obtained, the
mind should be steadied on its essential nature. A
great subsidiary advantage of this kind of concen-
tration is that as the mind shapes itself to the virtue
and repeats its vibrations, the virtue will gradually
become part of the nature, and will be firmly
established in the character. This shaping of th^
mind is really aft act of self-creation, for the mind
after a while falls readily into the forms to which
it has been constrained by concentration, and these
forms become the organs of its habitual expression.
True is it, as written of old :

Man is the creation of thought ; what he thinks upon
in this life, that, hereafter, he becomes.*

When the mind loses hold of its object, whether
devotional or intellectual as it will do, time after
time it must be brought back, and again directed
to the object Often at first it will wander away

, III. xiv.

Concentration.

without the wandering being noticed, and the
student suddenly awakes to the fact * that he is
thinking about something quite other than the
proper object of thought This will happen again
and again, and he must patiently bring it back
a wearisome and tiring process, but there is no
other way by which concentration can be gained.

It is a useful and instructive mental exercise,
when the mind has thus slipped away without
notice, to take it back again by the road along
which it travelled in its strayings. This process
increases the control of the rider over his runaway
horse, and thus diminishes its inclination to escape.
% Consecutive thinking, though a step towards
concentration, is not identical with it, for in con-
secutive thinking the mind passes from one to
another of a sequence of images, and is not fixed
on one alone. But as it is far easier than
concentration, the beginner may use it to lead up
to the more difficult task. It is often helpful for
a devotee to select a scene from the life of the
object of his devotion, and to picture the scene
vividly in its details, with local surroundings of
landscape and colour. Thus the mind is gradually
steadied on one line, and it can be led to and
finally fixed on the central figure of the scene, the
object of devotion. As the scene is reproduced in

i
i,

Thought Power.

the mind, it takes on a feeling of reality, and it is
quite possible in this way to get into magnetic
touch with the record of that scene on a higher
plane the permanent photograph of it in the
kosmic ether and thus to obtain very much more
knowledge of it than is supplied by any description
of it that may have been given. Thus also may
the devotee come into magnetic touch with the
object of devotion and enter by this direct touch
into far more intimate relations with him than are
otherwise possible. For consciousness is not under
the physical space-limitations, but is wheresoever
it is conscious a statement that has already been
explained.

Concentration itself, however, it must be
remembered, is not this sequential thinking, and
the mind must finally be fastened to the one object
and remain fixed thereunto, not reasoning on it,
but, as it were, sucking out, absorbing, its content

m CHAPTER VIIL

OBSTACLES TO CONCENTRATION.
WANDERING MINDS.

The universal complaint which comes from those
who are beginning to practise concentration is that
the very attempt to concentrate results in a greater
restlessness of the mind. To some extent this is
true, for the law of action and reaction works here
as everywhere, and the pressure put on the mind
causes a corresponding reaction. But while
admitting this, we find, on closer study, that tne
increased restlessness is largely illusory. The
feeling of such increased restlessness is chiefly
due to the opposition suddenly set up between the
Ego, willing steadiness, and the mind in its normal
condition of mobility. The Ego has, for a long
series of lives, been carried about by the mind in
all its swift movements, as a man is ever being
carried through space by the whirling earth. He
is not conscious of movement ; he does not know

96 Thought Power.

that the world is moving, so thoroughly is he part
of it, moving as it moves. If he were able to
separate himself from the earth and stop his own
movement without being shivered into pieces, he
would only then be conscious that the earth was
moving at a high rate of speed. So long as a man
is yielding to every movement of the mine!; he does
not realise its continual activity and restlessness ;

but when he steadies himself, when he ceases to <*$

t'^ -J
move, then he feels the ceaseless motion of the W|

mind he has hitherto obeyed,

If the beginner knows these facts, he will not
be discouraged at the very commencement of his
efforts by meeting with this universal experience, ;|;

but will, taking it for granted, go quietly on with \&

his task. And, after all, he is but repeating the ||

experience voiced by Arjuna five thousand years f

ago :

'This Yoga which Thou hast declared to be by
equanimity, O slayer of Madhu, I see n6 stable
foundation for it, owing to restlessness ; for the mind
is verily restless, O Krishna ! it is impetuous, strong,
and difficult to bend ; I deem it as hard to curb as the
wind.

And still is true the answer, the answer pointing

out the only way to success : t

% ' '

Without doubt, O mighty-armed, the mind is hard to

Obstacles to Concentration.

curb and restless ; but it may be curbed by constant
practice and by indifference.*

The mind thus steadied will not be so easily
thrown off its balance by the wandering thoughts
from other minds, ever seeking to effect a lodg-
ment, the vagrant crowd which continually encircles
us. The mind used to concentration retains
always a certain positiveness, and is not readily
shaped by unlicensed intruders.

All people who are training their minds should
maintain an attitude of steady watchfulness with
regard to the thoughts that " come into the mind,"
and should exercise towards them a constant
selection. The refusal to harbour evil thoughts,
their prompt ejection if they effect an entry, the
immediate replacement of an evil thought by a
good one of the opposite character this practice
will so tune the mind that after a time it will act
automatically, repelling the evil of its own accord.
Harmonious, rhymthical vibrations repel the inhar-
monious and irregular; they fly off from the
rhythmically vibrating surface as a stone that
- strikes against a whirling wheel. Living, as we all
do, in a continual current of thoughts, good and
evil, we need to cultivate the selective action of the

* Bkagavaa-GM, vi. 35, 36.

9 8

Thought Power.

mind, so that the good may be automatically drawn
in, the evil automatically repelled.

The mind is like a magnet, attracting and
repelling, and the nature of its attractions and
repulsions can be determined by ourselves. If we
watch the thoughts which come into our minds,
we shall find that they are of the same*kind as
those which we habitually encourage. The mind
attracts the thoughts which are congruous with its
normal activities. If we, then, for a time, deliber-
ately practise selection, the mind will soon do this
selection for itself on the lines laid down for it,
and* so evil thoughts will not penetrate into the
mind, while the good will ever find an open door.

Most people are only too receptive, but the*
receptivity is due to feebleness, not to deliberate
self-surrender to the higher influences. It is,
therefore, well to learn how we may render our-
selves normally positive, and how we may become
negative when we decide that it is desirable that we
should be so.

The habit of concentration will by itself tend to
strengthen the mind, so that it will readily exercise
control and selection with regard to the thoughts
that come to it from outside, and it has already
been stated how it can be trained automatically to
repel the bad But it . may be well to add to

Obstacles to Concentration. 99

what has been said, that when an evil thought
enters the mind, it is better not to fight with it
directly, but to utilise the fact that the mind can
only think of one thing at a time ; let the mind be
at once turned to a good thought, and the evil one
will be necessarily expelled. In fighting against
anything the very force we send out causes a
corresponding reaction, and thus increases our
trouble ; whereas the turning of the mental eye to
an image in a 4 different direction causes the other
image to drop silently from the field of vision.
Many a man wastes years in combating impure
thoughts, when quiet occupation of the mind with
pure ones would leave no room for his assailants ;
* further, as the mind thus draws to itself matter
which does not respond to the evil, he is gradually
becoming positive, unreceptive, to that kind of
thought.

This is the secret of right receptivity ; the mind
responds according to its constitution ; it answers
to all that is of like nature with itself ; we make it
positive towards evil, negative towards good, by
habitual good thinking, thus building into its very
fabric materials that are receptive, of good, unrecep-
tive of evil We must think of that which we desire
to receive, and refuse to think of that which we
desire not to receive. Such a mind, in the thought-

10O

Thought Power.

ocean which surrounds it, draws to itself the good
thoughts, repels the evil, and thus ever grows purer
and stronger amid the very same thought conditions
which render another fouler and weaker.

The method of replacing one thought by

another is one that may be utilised to great

advantage in many ways. If an unkind thought

about another person enter the mind, it should at

once be replaced by a thought of some virtue he

possesses, of some good action he has done. If

the mind is harassed by anxiety, turn it to the

thought of the purpose that runs through life, the

Good Law which " mightily and sweetly ordereth

all things." If a particular kind of undesirable

thought persistently obtrude itself then it is wise

to provide a special weapon ; some verse or phrase

that embodies the opposite idea should be chosen,

and whenever the objectionable thought presents

itself, this phrase should be repeated and dwelt

upon. In a week or two the thought will cease to

trouble.

It is a good plan constantly to furnish the mind
with some high thought, some word of cheer, some
inspiration to noble living. Ere we go forth into
life's turmoil day by day, we should give the mind
this shield of good thought. A few words are
enough, taken from some Scripture of the race, and

Obstacles to Concentration.

this, fixed in the mind by a few recitations in the
early morning, will recur to the mind again and
again during the day, and will be found repeating
itself in the mind, whenever the mind is disengaged.

DANGERS OF CONCENTRATION.

There are certain dangers connected with the
practice of concentration as to which the beginner
should be warned, for many eager students, in their
wish to go far go too fast, and so hinder themselves
instead of helping.

The body is apt to suffer owing to the ignorance
and inattention of the student
, When a man concentrates his mind, his body
puts itself into a. state of tension, and this is not
noticed by him, is involuntary so far as he is con-
cerned. This following of the mind by the body
may be noticed in very many trivial things ; an
effort to remember causes a wrinkling of the fore-
head, the eyes are fixed, and the eyebrows drawn
down ; tense attention is accompanied by fixity of
the eyes, anxiety by an eager, wistful gaze. For
ages, effort of the mind has been followed by effort
of the body, the mind being directed entirely
towards the supply of bodily needs by bodily
exertions, and thus an association has beeo set up,
which works automatically.

1 02

Thought Power.

When concentration is commenced, the body,
according to its went, follows the mind, and the
muscles become rigid and the nerves tense ; hence
great physical fatigue, muscular and nervous
exhaustion, acute headache, are very apt to follow
in the wake of concentration, and thus people are
ld to give it up, believing that these ill effects are
inevitable.

As a matter of fact they can be avoided by a
simple precaution. The beginner should now and
again break off his concentration sufficiently to
notice the state of his body, and if he finds it
strained, tense, or rigid, he should at once relax it ;
when this has been done several times, the links^
of association will be broken, and the body will
remain pliant and resting while the mind is con-
centrated. Patanjali said that in meditation the
posture adopted should be " easy and pleasant " ;
the body cannot help the mind by its tension, and
it injures itself.

Perhaps a personal anecdote may be pardoned
as an illustration. One day, while under H. P.
Blavatsky's training, I was desired by her to make an
effort of the will ; I did do so with much intensity,
and with the result of much swelling in the blood-
vessels of the head. "My dear," she said drily,
" you do not will with your blood-vessels."

Obstacles to Concentration.

103

Another physical danger arises from the effect
produced by concentration on- the nerve-cells of
the brain. As the power of concentration increases,
as the toind is stilled, and the Ego begins to work
through the mind, he makes a new demand on the
brain nerve-cells. These cells are, of course,
ultimately constituted of atoms, and the walls of
these atoms consist of whorls of spirillae, through
which run currents of life-energy. Of these spirillae
there are seven sets, four only of which are in use ;
the remaining three are as yet unused practically
rudimentary organs. As the higher energies pour
down, seeking a channel in the atoms, the set of *
spirillae which later in evolution will serve as
their channel is forced into activity. If this be
done very slowly and carefully, no harm results,
but over-pressure means injury to the .delicate
structure of the spirillae, These minute, delicate
tubes, when unused, have their sides in contact,
like tubes of soft india-rubber ; if the sides are
violently forced apart, rupture is apt to result The
feeling of dulness and heaviness all over the brain
is the danger-signal ; if this be disregarded acute
pain will follow, and obstinate inflammation may
ensue. Concentration should therefore be prac-
tised very sparingly at first, and should never be
carried to the point of brain-fatigue. A few

I *

104 Thought Power.

minutes at a time is enough for a beginning, the
time being lengthened gradually as the practice
goes on.

But, however short the time which is given to
it, it should be given regularly ; if a day's practice
be missed the previous condition of tjjie atom
reasserts itself, and the work has to be re-com-
menced. Steady and regular, but not prolonged,
practice ensures the best results and avoids danger.
In some schools of what is called Hatha Yoga
the students are recommended to assist concentra-
tion by fixing the eyes on a black spot on a white
wall, and to maintain this fixity of gaze until trance
supervenes. Now, there are two reasons why this^
should not be done. First, the practice, after a
while, injures the physical sight, and the eyes lose
their power of adjustment. Secondly, it brings
about a form of brain paralysis. This begins with
the fatigue of the retinal cells, as the waves of light
beat on them, and the spot disappears from view,
the place on the retina where its image is formed
becoming insensitive, the result of prolonged
response. This fatigue spreads inwards, until
finally a kind of paralysis supervenes, and the
person passes into a hypnotic trance. In fact,
excessive stimulation of a sense-organ is, in the
West, a recognised means for producing hypnosis

Obstacles to Concentration.

105

the revolving mirror, the electric light, &c., being
used with this object.

But brain paralysis not only stops all thinking
on the physical plane, but renders the brain insen-
sitive to non-physical vibrations, so that the Ego
cannot impress it ; it does not set him free, but
merely deprives him of his instrument. A man
may remain for weeks in a trance thus induced,
but when he awakes he is no wiser than at the
beginning of the trance. He has not gained
knowledge ; he has merely wasted time. Such
methods do not gain spiritual power, but merely
bring about physical disability.

MEDITATION.

Meditation may be said to have been already
explained, for it is only the sustained attitude of
the concentrated mind in face of an object of
devotion, of a problem that needs illumination to
be intelligible, of anything whereof the life is to
be realised and absorbed, rather than the form.

Meditation cannot be effectively performed until
concentration is, at least partially, mastered. For
concentration is not an end, but a means to ari end ;
it fashions the mind into an instrument which can
be used at the will of the owner. When a con-

pentrated mind is steadily directed to any object,

Thought Power.

with the view of piercing the veil, and reaching the
life, and drawing that life into union with the life
to which the mind belongs -then meditation is per-
formed. Concentration might be regarded as the
shaping of the organ ; meditation as its exercise.
The mind has been made one-pointed ; i^ is then
directed to and dwells steadily on any object of
which knowledge is desired.

Anyone who determines to lead a spiritual life
must daily devote some time to meditation. As
SOOH may the physical life be sustained without
food as the spiritual without meditation. Those
who cannot spare half an hour a day during which
the world may be shut out and the mind may^
receive from the spiritual planes a current of life,
cannot lead the spiritual life.

Only to the mind concentrated, steady, shut out
from the world, can the Divine reveal itself. God
shows Himself in His universe in endless forms ;
but within the human heart He shows Himself in
His Life and Nature, revealing Himself to that
which is a fragment of Himself. In that silence,
peace and strength and force flow into the soul,
and the man of meditation is ever the most efficient
man of the world.

Lord Rosebery, speaking of Cromwell, described
him as "a practical mystic," and declared that a

Obstacles to Concentration.

practical mystic is the greatest force in the world.
It is true. The concentrated intelligence, the power
of withdrawing outside the turmoil, mean immensely
increased energy in work, mean steadiness, self-
control, serenity ; the man of meditation is the man
who wastes no time, scatters no energy, misses no
opportunity. Such a man governs events, because
within him is the power whereof events are only
. the outer expression ; he shares the divine life, and
therefore shares the divine power.

1?::

CHAPTER IX.

THE STRENGTHENING OF THOUGHT POWER.

WE may now proceed to turn our study of Thought
Power to practical account, for study that does not
lead to practice is barren. The old declaration still
holds good : " The end of philosophy is to put am
end to pain." We are to learn to develop and
then to use our developed thought-power to help
those around us, the living and the so-called dead,
to quicken human evolution, and to hasten also
our own progress.

Thought power can only be increased by steady
and persistent exercise 5 ; as literally and as truly as
muscular development depends on the exercise of
the muscles we already possess, so does mental
development depend on the exercise of the mind
already ours.

It is a law of life that growth results from
exercise. The life, our Self, is ever seeking

108 '

The Strengthening of Thought Power. 109

J increased expression outwardly by means of the

form in which it is contained. As it is called out
by exercise, its pressure on the form causes the
form to expand, and fresh matter is laid down in
the form, and part of the expansion is thus
rendere^ permanent When the muscle is stretched
by exercise more fife flows into it, the cells multiply,
and the muscle thus grows. When the mental
body vibrates under the action of thought, fresh
matter is drawn in from the mental atmosphere,
and is built into the body, which thus increases in
size as well as in complexity of structure. A
mental body continually exercised grows, whether
the thought carried on in it be good or evil. The
amount of the thought determines the growth of
the body, the quality of the thought determines
the kind of matter employed in that growth.

Now the cells of the grey matter of the physical
brain multiply as the brain is exercised in
thinking. Post-mortem examinations have shown
that the brain of the thinker is not only larger and
heavier than the brain of the ploughman, but also
that it has a very much larger number of con-
volutions. These afford a much increased surface
for the grey nervous matter, which is the immediate
physical instrument of thought

Thus both the mental body and the physical

brain grow by exercise, and those who would
improve and enlarge them must have recourse to
regular daily thinking, with the deliberately chosen
object of improving their mental capacities. Need-
less to add that the inherent powers of the Knower
are also evolved more rapidly by this ^xercise,
and ever play upon the vehicles with increasing
force.

In order that it may have its full effect this

practice should be methodical. Let a man choose

an able book on some subject which is attractive

to him, a book written by a competent author,

containing fresh strong thought. A sentence, or a

few sentences, should be read slowly, and then the^

reader should think closely and intently over what

he has read. It is a good rule to think twice as

long as one reads, for the object of the reading is

not simply to acquire new ideas, but to strengthen

the thinking faculties. Half an hour should be

given to this practice if possible, but the student

may begin with a quarter of an hour, as he will find

the close attention a little exhausting at first

Any person who takes up this practice and
follows it regularly for a few months will at the
end of that time be conscious of a distinct growth
of mental strength, and he will find himself able
to deal with the ordinary problems of life far more

. ft

The Strengthening of Thought Power, in

effectively than heretofore. Nature is a just pay
mistress, giving to each exactly the wages he has
earned, but not an unearned farthing. Those who
would have the wages of increased faculty must
earn them by hard thinking.

The work is twofold, as has been already pointed
out On the one side the powers of consciousness
are drawn out; on the other the forms through
which it is expressed are developed ; and the first
of these must never be forgotten. Many people
recognise the value of definite thinking as affecting
the brain, but forget that the source of all thought
is the unborn, undying Self, and that they are only
drawing out what they already possess. Within
them is all power, and they have only to utilise it,
for the divine Self is the root of the life of each,
and the aspect of the Self which is knowledge
lives in everyone, and is ever seeking opportunity
for his own fuller expression. The power is within
each, uncreate, eternal ; the form is moulded and
changed, but the life is the man's Self, illimitable
in his powers. That power within each is the same
power as shaped the universe; it is divine, not
human, a portion of the life of the Logos, and
inseparate from Him.

If this were realised, and if the student remem-
bered that it is not the scantiness of the power but

112

Thought Power.

the inadequacy of the instrument that makes the
difficulty, he would often work with more courage
and hope, and therefore with more efficiency. Let
him feel that his essential nature is knowledge, and
that it lies with him. how far that essential nature
shall find expression in this incarnation. Expres r
sion is, indeed, limited by the thinkings of the past,
but can be now increased and made more efficient
by the same power which in that past shaped the
present. Forms are plastic and can be re-moulded,
slowly, it is true, by the vibrations of the life.

Above all, let the student remember that for
steady growth, regularity of practice is essential
When a day's practice is omitted, three or four
days' work are necessary to counter-balance the 1
slipping back, at least during the earlier stages of
growth. When the habit of steady thought is
acquired, then the regularity of practice is less
important But until this habit is definitely
established, regularity is of the utmost moment, for
the old habit of loose drifting re-asserts itself, and
the matter of the mental body falls back into its old
shapes, and has to be again shaken out of them
on the resumption of the practice. Better five
minutes of work done regularly, than half an hour
on some days and none on others.

IN,

The Strengthening of Thought Power. 113

WORRY ITS MEANING AND ERADICATION.

It has been said truly enough that people age
more by worry than by work. Work, unless exces-
sive, does not injure the thought-apparatus, but, on
the contrary, strengthens it. But the mental
process Renown as " worry " definitely injures it, and
after a time produces a nervous exhaustion and
irritability which render steady mental work
impossible.

What is " worry " ? It is the process of repeating
the same train of thought over and over again, with
small alterations, coming to no result, and not even
aiming at the reaching of a result It is the con-
tinued reproduction of thought-forms, initiated by
the mental body and the brain, not by the
consciousness, and imposed by them on the
consciousness. As over-tired muscles cannot keep
still, but move restlessly even against the will, so
do the tired mental body and brain repeat over
and over again the very vibrations that have
wearied them, and the Thinker vainly tries to still
them and thus obtain rest. Once more automatism
is seen, the tendency to move in the direction in
which movement has already been made. The
Thinker has dwelt on a painful subject, and has
endeavoured to reach a definite and useful con-
clusion. He has failed and ceases to think, bttt

114

Thought Poiver.

remains unsatisfied, wishing to find a solution, and
dominated by the fear of the anticipated trouble.
This fear keeps him in an anxious and restless
condition, causing an irregular outflow of energy.
Then the mental body and brain, under the
impulse of this energy and of the wish, but
undirected by the Thinker, continue to mtWe and
throw up the images already shaped and rejected
These are, as it were, forced on his attention, and
the sequence recurs again and again. As weariness
increases irritability is set up, and reacts again on
the wearied forms, and so action and reaction con-
tinue in a vicious circle. The Thinker is, in worry,
the slave of his servant-bodies, and is suffering
under their tyranny. *

Now, this very automatism of the mental body
and brain, this tendency to repeat vibrations already
produced, may be used to correct the useless
repetition of thoughts that cause pain. When a
thought-current has made for itself a channel a
thought-formnew thought currents tend to flow
along the same track, that being the line of least
resistance. A thought that causes pain readily
thus recurs by the fascination of fear, as a thought
that gives pleasure recurs by the fascination of love.
The object of fear, the picture of what will happen
when anticipation becomes reality, makes thus &

j^r

The Strengthening of Thought Power, 115

mind-channel, a mould for thought, and a brain-
track also. The tendency of the mental body and
the brain, released from immediate work, is to
repeat the form, and to let unemployed energy flow
into the channel already made.

Perhaps the best way to get rid of a " worry-
channel " is to dig another, of an exactly opposite
character. Such a channel is, as we have already
seen, made by definite, persistent, regular thought
Let, then, a person, who is suffering from worry,
give three or four minutes in the morning, on first
rising, to some noble and encouraging thought :
"The Self is Peace ; that Self am I. The Self is
Strength ; that Self am I." Let him think how, in
iiis innermost nature, he is one with the Supreme
Father ; how in that nature he is undying, unchang-
ing, fearless, free, serene, strong ; how he is clothed
in perishable vestures that feel the sting of pain, the
gnawing of anxiety; how he mistakenly regards
these as himself. As he thus broods, the Peace
will enfold him, and he will feel it is his own, his
natural atmosphere.

As he does this, day by day, the thought will
dig its own channel in mental body and in brain,
and ere long, when the mind is loosed from labour,
the thought of the Self that is Peace and Strength
will present itself unbidden, and fplcj its wings

ir6

Thought Power.

around the mind in the very turmoil of the world.
Mental energy will flow naturally into this channel,
and worry will be of the past

Another way is to train the mind to .rest on the
Good Law, thus establishing a habit of content.
Here the man dwells on the thought ^that all
circumstances work within the Law, and that naught
happens by chance. Only that which the Law
brings to us can reach us, by whatever hand it may
outwardly come. Nothing can injure us that is not
our due, brought to us by our own previous willing
and acting ; none can wrong us, save as an instru-
ment of the Law, collecting a debt due from us.
Even if an anticipation of pain or trouble come to
the mind, it will do well to face it calmly, accept
it, agree to it. Most of the sting disappears when
we acquiesce in the finding of the Law, whatever
it may be. And we may do this the more easily
if we remember that the Law works ever to free
us, by exacting the debts that keep us in prison,
and though it bring us pain, the pain is but the
way to happiness. All pain, come it how it may,
works for our ultimate bliss, and is but breaking
the bonds which keep us tied to the whirling wheel
of births and cjeaths.

When these thoughts have become habitual, the
mind ceases to worry, for the claws of worry can
find no hold on that strong panoply of *p

The Strengthening of Thought Power. 117

THINKING AND CEASING TO THINK.

Much gain of strength may be made by learning
both to think and to cease thinking at will. While
we are thinking we should throw our whole mind
into thej;hought, and think our best But when
the work of thought is over, it should be dropped
completely ', and not allowed to drift on vaguely,
touching the mind and leaving it, like a boat
knocking itself against a rock. A man does not
keep a machine running when it is not turning out
work, needlessly wearing the machinery. But the
priceless machinery of the mind is allowed to turn
and turn aimlessly, wearing itself out without useful
result To learn to cease thinking, to let the mind
rest, is an acquisition of the greatest value. As
the tired limbs luxuriate when stretched in repose,
so may the tired mind find comfort in complete
rest. Constant thinking means constant vibration ;
constant vibration means constant waste. Exhaus-
tion and premature decay result from this useless
expenditure of energy, and a man may preserve
both mental body and brain longer by learning to
cease thinking, when thought is not being directed
to useful result.

It is true that " ceasing to think " is by no means
an easy achievement Perhaps it is even more

Thought Power.

difficult than thinking. It must be practised for
very brief periods until the habit is established, for
it means at first an expenditure of force in holding
the mind still Let the student, when he has been
thinking steadily, drop the thought, and as any
thought appears in the mind turn the attention
away from it. Persistently turn away from each
intruder ; if need be, imagine a void, as a step to
quiescence, and try to be conscious only of stillness
and darkness. Practice on these lines will become
more and more intelligible if persisted in, and a
sense of quiet and peace will encourage the student
to persist.

Nor should it be forgotten that the cessation of
thought, busied in outward activities, is a necessarf
preliminary to work on the higher planes. When
the brain has learned to be quiescent, when it no
longer restlessly throws up the broken images of
past activities, then the possibility opens of the
withdrawal of the consciousness from its physical
vesture, and of its free activity in its own world.
Those who hope to take this forward step within
the present life must learn to cease thinking, for
only when " the modifications of the thinking
principle" are checked on the lower plane caa
freedom on the higher be obtained

Another way of giving the rest to the mental

The Strengthening of Thought Power. 119

body and the brain a far easier way than the
cessation of thinking is by change of thought. A
man who thinks strenuously and persistently along
one line should have a second line of thought, as
different as possible from the first, to which he can
turn his^nind for refreshment. The extraordinary
freshness and youthfulness of thought which
characterised William Ewart Gladstone in his old
age was largely the result of the subsidiary intel-
lectual activities of his life. His strongest and
most persistent thought went to polices, but his
studies in theology and in Greek filled many a
leisure hour. Truly he was but an indifferent
theologian, and what he was as a Greek scholar
I am not competent to say ; but though the world
cannot be said to be much the richer for his
theological pronouncements, his own brain was
kept fresh and receptive by these and his Grecian
studies. Charles Darwin, on the other hand,
lamented in his old age that he had allowed those
of his faculties to atrophy by disuse, that would
have been concerned with subjects outside his own
specialised work. Literature and art for him had
no attraction, and he keenly felt the limitations he
had imposed on himself by his over-absorption in
one line of study. A man needs change of exercise
in thought as well as in body, else it may suffer

I2O

Thought Power.

from mental cramp as do some from writer's
cramp.

Especially, perhaps, is it important for men
engaged in absorbing worldly pursuits, that they
should take up a subject which engages faculties
of the mind not evolved in business Activities,
related to art, science, or literature, in whicr^ they
may find mental recreation and polish. Above all,
the young should adopt some such pursuit, ere yet
their fresh and active brains grow jaded and weary,
and in age^they will then find within themselves
resources which will enrich and brighten their
declining days. The form will preserve its elas-
ticity for a much longer period of time when it is
thus given rest by change of occupation.

THE SECRET OF PEACE OF MIND.

Much of that which we have already studied tells
us something of the way in which peace of mind
may be ensured. But its fundamental necessity is
the clear recognition and realisation of our place
in the universe.

We are part of one great Life, which knows no
failure, no loss of effort or strength, which " mightily
and sweetly ordering all things " bears the worlds
onwards to their goal. The notion that our little

The Strengthening of Thought Power. 121

life is a separate independent unit, fighting for its
own hand against countless separate independent
units, is a delusion of the most tormenting kind.
So long as we thus see the world and life, peace
broods far off on an inaccessible pinnacle. When
we feel and know tjiat all selves are one, then
peace or mind is ours without any fear of loss.

All our troubles arise from thinking of ourselves
as separated units, and then revolving on our own
mental axes, thinking only of our separate interests,
our separate aims, our separate joys and sorrows.
Some do this as regards the lower things of life,
and they are the most dissatisfied of all, ever rest-
lessly snatching at the general stock of material
goods, and piling up useless treasures. Others
seek ever their own separate progress in the higher
life, good earnest people, but ever discontented
and anxious. They are ever contemplating and
analysing themselves : " Am I getting on ? do I
know more than I did last year ? " and so on, .
fretting for continual assurances of progress, their
thoughts centred on their own inner gain.

Peace is not to be found in the continual
seeking for the gratification of the separated self,
even though the gratification be of the higher kind.
It is found in renouncing the separated self, in
resting on the Self that is One, the Self that is

122

Thought Power.

, f

manifesting at every stage of evolution, and in our
stage as much as in every other, and is content
in all.

Desire for spiritual progress is of great value so
long as the lower desires entangle and fetter the
aspirant; he gains strength to free himsejf from
them by the passionate longing for spiritual
growth ; but it does not, it cannot, give happiness,
which is only found when the separate self is cast
away and the great Self is recognised as that for
the sake of* which we are living in the world
Even in ordinary life the unselfish people are the
happiest those who work to make others happy,
and who forget themselves. The dissatisfied people
are those who are ever seeking happiness for
themselves.

We are the Self, and therefore the joys and the
sorrows of others are ours as much as theirs, and
in proportion as we feel this, and learn to live so
that the whole world shares the life that flows
through us, do our minds learn the Secret of Peace.
" He attaineth Peace, into whom all desires flow as
rivers flow into the ocean, which is filled with water
but remaineth unmoved not he who desireth
desire/'* The more we desire, the more the

ii. 7.

The Strengthening of Thought Power. 123

craving for happiness which is unhappinbss
must grow. The Secret of Peace is the knowledge
of the Self, and the thought " That Self am I " will
help towards the gaining of a peace of mind that
nothing can disturb.

CHAPTER X.

HELPING OTHERS BY THOUGHT.

MOST valuable of all the gains made by the
worker for thought-power, is the increased ability
to help those around him, those weaker ones who*
have not yet learned to utilise their own powers.
With his own mind and heart at peace, he is fitted
to help others.

A mere kind thought is helpful. in its measure^
but the student will wish to do far more than drop
a mere crumb to the starving.

Let us take first the case of a man who is under
the sway of an evil habit, such as drink, and whom
a student wishes to help. He should first ascer-
tain, if possible, at what hours the patient's mind
is likely to be unemployed such as his hour for
going to bed. If the man should be asleep, it
would be all the better. At such a time, he should
sit down alone, and picture the image of his patient
as vividly as he can, seated in front of him
picture him clearly and in detail, so that he may

124

Helping Other* by Thought. 125

see the image as he would see the man. (This
very clear picturing is not essential, although the
process is thereby rendered more effective.) Then
he should fix his attention on this image, and
address to it, with all the concentration of which
he is capable, the thoughts, one by one and slowly,
which he wishes to impress on his patient's mind.'
He should present them as clear mental images,
just as he would do if laying arguments before him
in words. In the case taken, he might place before
him vivid pictures of the disease and misery
entailed by the drink-habit, the nervous breakdown,
the inevitable end. If the patient is asleep, he will
*>e drawn to the person thus thinking of him, and
will animate the image of himself that has been
formed. Success depends on the concentration
and the steadiness of the thought directed to the
patient, and just in proportion to the development
of the thought-power will be its effect.

Care must be taken in such a case hot to try
to control, in any way, the patient's will ; the effort
should be wholly directed towards placing before
his mind the ideas which, appealing to his intelli-
gence and emotions, may stimulate him to come to
a right judgment and to make an effort to carry it
out in action. If an attempt is made to impose
on him a particular line of conduct, and the attempt

126

Thought Power.

succeed, even then little has been gained. The
mental tendency towards vicious self-indulgence
will not be changed by opposing an obstacle in
the way of indulging in a particular form of it;
checked in one direction it will find another, and
a new vice will supplant the old. A man forcibly
constrained to temperance by the domination of
his will is no more cured of the vice than if he were
locked up in prison. Apart from this, no man
should try to impose his will on another, even in
order to make him do right Growth is not helped
by such external coercion; the intelligence must
be convinced, the emotions aroused and purified,
else no real gain is made,

If the student wishes to give any other kind of
thought-help, he should proceed in the same way,
picturing his friend, and clearly presenting the ideas
he wishes to convey. A strong wish for his good,
sent to him as a general protective agency, will
remain about him as a thought-form for a time
proportionate to the strength of the thought, and
will guard him against evil, acting as a barrier
against hostile thoughts, and even warding off
physical dangers. A thought of peace and con-
solation, similarly sent, will soothe and calm the
mind, spreading around its object an atmosphere
of calm.

*-**

Helping Others by Thought.

127

The aid which is often rendered to another by
prayer is largely of the character described above,
the frequent effectiveness of prayer over ordinary
good wishes being due to the greater concentration
and intensity thrown by the pious believer into his
prayer, Similar concentration and intensity would
bring *about similar results without the use of
prayer.

There is, of course, another way in which prayer
is sometimes effective-, it calls the attention of
some superhuman, or evolved human, intelligence
to the person for whom it is offered, and direct aid
may then be rendered to him by a power
surpassing that of the offerer of the prayer. .

Perhaps it is as well here to interject the remark
that the half-instructed Theosophist should not
take alarm, and refrain from giving to a friend any
thought-assistance of which he is capable, by the
fear lest he should be " interfering with karma."
Let him leave karma to take care of itself, and
have no more fear of interfering with it than of
interfering with the law of gravitation. If he can
help his friend, let him do so fearlessly, confident
in tHe fact that, if he can do so, that help is within
his friend's karma, and that he is himself the happy
agent of the Law.

Thought Power.

HELPING THE SO-CALLED DEAD.

All that we can do for the living by thought we
can do even more easily for those who have gone
in front of us through death's ga|eway, for in their
case there is no heavy physical matter to be set
vibrating ere the thought can reach the taking
consciousness.

After death is passed through the tendency of
the man is to turn his attention inwards, and to
live in the mind rather than in an external world.
The thought-currents that used to rush outwards,
seeking the external world through the sense-
organs, now find themselves blocked by an empti-
ness, caused by the disappearance of their instru-
ments. It is as though a man, rushing towards
an accustomed bridge over a ravine, suddenly
found himself stopped by the bridgeless gulf, the
bridge having vanished.

The re-arrangement of the astral body that
quickly follows on the loss of the physical body
further tends to shut in the mental energies, to
prevent their outer expression. The astral matter,
if not disturbed by any action of those left behind
on. earth, forms an enclosing shell instead of a
plastic instrument, and the higher and purer the
earth-life that has ended, the more complete is the

Helping Others by Thought.

129

barrier against impressions from, without, or emer-
gence from within. But the person thus checked
as to his outward-going energies is all the more
receptive of influences from the mental world, and
he can therefore bfe helped, cheered, and counselled
far mo^p effectively than when he was on earth.

In the world into which those freed from the
physical body have gone, a loving thought is as
palpable to the senses as is here a loving word or
tender caress. Everyone who passes over should,
therefore, be followed by thoughts of love and
peace, by aspirations for his swift passage onwards
through the valleys of death to the bright land
beyond. Only too many remain in the inter-
mediate state longer than they otherwise would,
because it is their bad karma not to have friends
who know how to help them from this side of
death. And if people on earth knew how much
of comfort and of happiness is experienced by the
wayfarers to the heavenly worlds from these truly
angelic messengers, these thoughts of love and
cheer, if they knew the force they had to strengthen
and console, none would be left lonely by those
who remain behind The beloved "dead" have
surely a claim on our love and care, and even apart
from this how great is the consolation to the heart,
bereaved of the presence that gave sunshine to life,

130

Thought Power.

to be able still to serve the loved one, and surround
him on his way by the guardian angels of thought.
The occultists who founded the great religions
were not unmindful of this service due from
those left on earth to those %vho had passed
onwards. The Hindu has his Shr&dc(Jja, by
which he helps on their way the souls
that have passed into the next world, quicken-
ing their passage into Svarga. The Christian
Churches have Masses and Prayers for the " dead."
" Grant him, O Lord, eternal peace, and let light
perpetual shine on him," prays the Christian for
his friend in the other world. Only the Protestant
section of Christians have lost this gracious custom,
with so much else that pertains to the higher life
of the Christian man. May knowledge soon restore
to them the useful and helpful practice of which
ignorance has robbed them!

THOUGHT-WORK OUT OF THE BODY.

We need not confine our thought activities to
the hours which we spend in the physical body, for
very much effective work may be done by thought
when our bodies are lying peacefully asleep.

The process of " going to sleep " is simply the
withdrawal of the consciousness, clad in its sttbtle

Helping Others by Thought. 131

bodies, from the physical body, which is left
wrapped in sleep, while the man himself passes into
the astral world Freed from the physical body,
he is much more powerful as regards the effects
he can produce by his thought, but for the most
part h^does not send it outwards, but uses it within
himself on subjects that interest him in his waking
life. His thought-energies run into accustomed
moulds, and work on the problems that his waking
consciousness is busy in solving.

The proverb that "the night brings counsel/*
the advice when an important decision is to be
made " to sleep on it before deciding," are vague
intuitions of this fact of mental activity during .the
hours of slumber. Without any deliberate attempt
to utilise the freed intelligence, men gather and
harvest the fruit of its labour.

Those, however, who seek to steer their evolution
instead of allowing it to drift, should consciously
avail themselves of the greater powers they can
exercise when unimpeded by the weight of the
body. The way to do this is simple. Any
problem needing solution should be quietly held
in the mind when going to sleep ; it must not be
debated on, argued over, or sleep will be prevented,
but, as it were, simply stated and left This is
sufficient to give the required direction to thought,

132

Thought Power.

and the Thinker will take it up and deal with it
when freed from the physical body. The solution
will generally be in the mind on waking, i.e., the
Thinker will have impressed it on the brain and
it is a good plan to keep paper and pencil by the
bed to note down the solution immediately on
waking, as a thought thus obtained is very readily
erased by the thronging stimuli from the physical
world, and is not easily recovered. Many a diffi-
culty in life may be seen clearly in this way, and a
tangled path rendered open. And many a mental
problem may also find it solution, when submitted
to the intelligence unweighted by the dense brain.
Much in the same way may a student help during
the hours of sleep any friend in this world or in the
next He must picture his friend in his mind, and
determine to find and help him. That mental
image will draw him and his friend together, and
they will communicate with each other in the astral
world But in any case in which any emotion is
aroused by the thought of the friend as in the
case of one who has passecl on the student must
seek to calm it ere going to sleep. For emotion
causes a swirl in the astral body, and if that body
be in a state of strong agitation, it isolates the
consciousness, and makes it impossible for mental
vibrations to pass outwards.

Helping Others by Thought

*33

In some cases of such communication in the
astral world, a " dream " may remain in the waking
memory, while in others no trace may appear.
The dream is the record often confused and
mixed with alien vibrations of the meeting out
of the body, and should be so regarded. But if
no trace appear in the brain, it does not matter,
since the activities of the freed intelligence are not
hindered by the ignorance of the brain that does
not share them. A man's usefulness in the astral
world is not governed by the memories imprinted
on the brain by the returning consciousness, and
these memories may be entirely absent, while most
beneficent work Is occupying the hours of the
^body's sleep.

Another form of thought-work that is little
remembered, and that can be done either in or out
of the physical body, is the helping of good causes,
of public movements beneficial to mankind. To
think of these in a definite way is to start currents
of aid from the inner planes of being, and we may
especially consider this in relation to

THE POWER OF COMBINED THOUGHT.

The increased force that may be obtained by
the union of several people to help a common

134

Thought Power.

object is recognised not only by occultists, but by
all who know anything of the deeper science of
the mind. It is the custom, in some parts at least
of Christendom, to preface the sending of a mission
to evangelise some special district by definite and
sustained thinking. A small band of m Roman
Catholics, for instance, will meet together for some
weeks or months before a mission is sent out, and
will prepare the ground where it is to work by
imaging the place, thinking of themselves as pre-
sent there, and then intently meditating on some
definite dogma of the Church. In this way a
thought-atmosphere is created in that district most
favourable to the spread of Roman Catholic
teachings, and receptive brains are prepared to
wish to receive instruction in them. The thought-
work will be aided by the added intensity given to
it by fervent prayer, another form of thought-work,
fired by religious fervour.

The contemplative orders of the Roman Catholic
Church do a large amount of good and useful work
by thought, as do the recluses of the Hindu and
Buddhist faiths. Wherever a good and pure intelli-
gence sets itself to work to aid the world by
diffusing through it noble and lofty thoughts, there
definite service is done to man, and the lonely
thinker becomes one of the lifters of the world.

Helping Others by Thought.

135

A group of like-minded thinkers, such as a group
of Theosophists, may do much to spread theo-
sophical ideas in their own neighbourhood by agree-
ing to give a fixed ten minutes a day to thinking
on a theosophical teaching. It is not necessary
that their bodies should be gathered in one place
provided that their minds are together. Suppose
such a group decided to think about reincarnation
daily for ten minutes at a fixed time for three -or
six months. Powerful thought-forms would then
throng the selected district, and the idea of rein-
carnation would come into a considerable number
of minds. Enquiries would be made, books on
^ the subject would be sought for, and a lecture on
the subject, after such a preparation, would attract
an eager and interested audience. Progress, out
of all proportion to the physical agencies employed,
is made where earnest men and women combine
in this mental propaganda.

AFTERWORD.

Thus we may learn to utilise these great forces
that lie within us all, and to utilise them to the
best possible effect. As we use them they will
grow, until, with surprise and delight, we shall find
how great a power of service we possess.

Let it be remembered that we are continually
using these powers, unconsciously, spasmodically, ,
feebly, affecting ever for good or ill all who
surround our path in life. It is here sought to
induce the reader to use these same forces con-
sciously, steadily, and strongly. We cannot help
thinking to some extent, however weak may be the
thought-currents we generate. We must affect
those around us, whether we will or not; the only
question we have to decide is whether we will do
it beneficially or mischievously, feebly or strongly,
driftingly or of set purpose. We cannot help the
thoughts of others touching our minds ; we can
only choose which we will receive, which reject
We must affect and be affected ; but we may affect

136

Afterword.

137

others *for their benefit or their injury, we may
be affected by the good or by the evil Here lies
our choice, a choice momentous for ourselves and
for the world :

Choose well : for your choice
Is brief and yet endless.

PEACE TO ALL BEINGS.

INDEX.

, .

Absentmindedness ... ... . ... ...

Accurate Observation, Importance of... ... ... 66

Action an Aspect of the Self ... ... ^

Akishic Records ... ._ j*

Anticipation and Memory ... 59

Artificial Aids to Memory ... ... ... ... eg

Association with Developed Thinkers 28

with Superiors 74

Astral Body, Re-arrangement of 128

Automatism of Brain Action 113

Avidya the Privation of Knowledge 2

Bad Memory 53

,, , 3 How to Treat ... 55

Key to 55

Beginning of Reasoning 7,1

Beginnings of Thought 41

Bfaigawad G$td Quoted 89, 96, 122

Boofcs, Value of ... ... 77

Fatigue to ^

paralysis I04

Structure * lo

Index.

139

Catholic Missions, Method of 134

Causal Body, Nature of 25

Ceasing to Think 117

Change of Thought 119

,, ,, Exercise Needed ... ... ... ... 119

Ckhdndogyopanishat Quoted ... ... ... 87, 92

Combating Evil Thought 99

Combined Thought ... ., 133

,, Value of in Theosophy 135

Complementary Personalities 24

Concentration 78

Effect of on Nerve Cells ... ... 103

,, Dangers of 101

to Body ioi

Difficulties of 81, 92

Obstacles to 95

Produces Physical Fatigue ... ... 80

Not Passivity 80

Not Consecutive Thinking 93

J3 Value of Devotion in 90

Value of an Ideal in 91

* ' Virtue as an Object of 92

Concrete Thinking ... 18

,, 6l

Consecutive Thinking not Concentration 93

Consciousness, a Unit 2

Independent of Place 86

at a Distance 88

of an Adept 87

Unfolds Inwards ... ... ... 83

Conclusion " J 3^

Contemplative Orders ... ... . ... 134

Cromwell as a Practical Mystic ... ... *o6

Cure of Worry - JI 6

Cultivation of WU1 - 57

140

Index.

: 'Mi\

& l

Dangers of Concentration 1O1

Darwin, Charles, Referred to - "9

"Day be with us" ... T 3

Definition of Memory ... * 6

Desire Replaced by Reason ** 5^

Dreams I 33

Drink Habit, How to Cure **4

Ego, Influenced by the Lower Mind ... 95

Evolution of Knower 65

of Mind 74

Exercise of Thought Needed 108

Gladstone, W. E., Referred to ... ... ... v.. 119

<c Going to Sleep" 130

Good Wishes, Value of ... 126

Great Teachers ... ... ... ... 74

HathaYoga ... ... ... ... ... 104

Helping Others by Thought .,. . 124

.the Dead ... ... .., ..* ,.. i2S

Houdin ^Anecdote of ... , 67

How to Concentrate ... 90

Human Education, Beginning of .., * 49

Hypnosis, Produced by Fatigue . 104

Hypnotism ... ... ... ... ... ,., ... 70

, To be Avoided ... ..< 125

.:>&;,

Index.

141

Influence of Thought
Innate Ideas

Inner Ether of the Heart
Inspiration ...

i, Development of"

Jiva, Definition of a

PAGE.

136

4 I

8 7
85
8 4

Karma, Interfering with ...
Knower, Evolution of the'*

Knowing, and Known
Knowing, Definition of
Knowledge Aspect of the Self *.'.'.

I2 7

*3
7
3

of Mind Growth
Life and Form
Life as Motion

Manas

and Mental Body...*
Matter of the Mental Plane

Meditation ... ...

Concentration Necessary for

Need for in Spiritual Life.

Memory, Artificial Aids to ... J
and Anticipation

109

9
14

20
20

27
I0 5
I0 5

106

58
.59

142

Index.

PAGB.

Memory, Bad ... ... .. ..... <~ ... 53

Key to ... .. .......... 55

,, How to Treat ........ , ... 55

n Definition of ............... 60

,, Nature of ... .. .......... 51

of the Logos ... .. .......... 53

,, Not Special Faculty ......... >.. 54

,, Weak, Cause of ........ . ... 54

Mental Body ..... ........ .. ... 20

,, ,, and Manas ... ... ,, ... 24

as a Sensitive IMate ......... 61

3 , Building and Evolution of ..... . 26

of Infant ............... 43

,, Nature of ...... ......... 26

,, Seven Types of ............ 26

Bodies, Differences in ...... . ..... 64

,, Cramp ......... . ........ 120

,, Development Two-fold ... . ........ xn

Faculties, Evolution of ...... ...... 71 *

a, Growth from Within ............ 30

,, Growth, Law of ............... 109

Images ..... . ......... 61, 71

Method, Need of in Mental Training ....... ., no

Mind as a Mirror ... ........... . .,, xi

Critical State of .......... .. ... 84

Definition of ...... . .,.

j, Distinct from Knower ... ... ...

Dual and Material ........

Duality of ... ... ...

Evolution of ... ... ... ...

Law of Growth of ..... , ...... ... 109

,, Like a Magnet ,., .. ......... . 98

>5 Modification of ............... 20

the cc Creator of Illusion " ... ... ... a

Minds > Wandering, a Universal Experienee ...... 96

83
19
20
83

M^laprakriti ... ., ... ... .. , f . ,,. 10

Index. 143

!> N

L PAGE.

National Ways of Thinking ............ 37

Not-Self, Definition of the ....... ..... 6

'' *

Observation, Accurate, Importance of ...... 47, 66

: and Its Value ............ 63

\ Habit of ............... 68

'f j, Personal Illustration ......... 69

[ Power of ............... 57

< . " One and the Many " ............... 14

Patanjali, Quoted ......... . ..... 60, 102

Referred to ............... 79

Perception ..................... 44

* Personal Anecdote .................. i 2

Philosophy, The Object of ... ...... 8, 108

Pineal Gland .. ................ 34

1 Power of Observation ....... . ..... '.. 57

Pratyagatrnan .................. 10

Prayer ..................... 127

Prayers for the Dead ...... ......... 130

Public Opinion, Formation of ...... . ..... 37

Quieting the Mind .................. 82

Reading, Effect of ... ............... 30

Reasoning, Beginning of ... ... ... ... ... 71

Receptivity ...... .. ,.. . ....... 98

144

Index.

PAGE.

Reflection, Meaning of 12

Regularity in Thought Required 112

Science of Emotions Referred to 4

Secret Doctrine, Quoted 46

Secret of Peace of Mind ^ 120

Self, The, as Knower 2, 10

,, Three Aspects of the ... 3

The 115, 122

,, The Separated 44

The Divine in

Sensation and Perception 48

and Thought 46

,, Two Views of 46

Separated Interests, an Error 121

Sleep, Value of v 131

Visiting Others During " 132

,, Solutions in 132

Spirillae of Atoms 103

Strengthening of Thought Power 108

Subject and Object 7

Superiors, Association with ... ... ... ... 74

Supreme Self, The.. ; 2

Tamas m 51

Theosophical Movement, Effect on the Mind 31

Thinker, Limited by the Past .... 112

' inWorry 114

Work of in Sleep ... 132

Thinking and Ceasing to Think 117

Thought, Beginnings of 41

.^.Belongs to Consciousness ... 42

M Relation 'of Sensation to ... ... ,. 46

Index.

145

Thought, Permanent Factor in ... -
Thoughts-Need for Selective Action ...

Fighting Evil ...

Thought-forms

Thought-transference **'
6 Two Methods of...
practical Effect of
" " Unconscious
Thoug^t-vibrations, Combination of ...
Thought-work, out of the Body

PAGE.

39
97
99

33
33
34
38
36
21
130

Value of a Set Thought ... . -
Devotion in Concentration ...
an Ideal in

Vibrations Between Jivas..
Etheric
Heat ... "I

of Consciousness, Effects ot

of Mental Body
Thought
Voice of the Silence, Quoted

Wandering ^u^ 3

Weak Memory

Will, an Aspect of the Self ...

Cultivation of the ...
Wnrrv Defined - "* .
Its Meaning and Eradication...

. too

. 90

- 9 1
. 78
. 92

-. i5

.. 16
.. 28

.. 27

17, 21

... 19

113

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