The Need for Understanding the Power of Thought Formation

What is thought formation? For many people, the constant stream of haphazard ideas, thoughts, reflections and perceptions represents thought. Their minds are constantly bombarded by thoughts of all types without a consistent flow or theme. They jump from one subject to another without even a transitional link. They have not discovered the true power of thought, when it is organised, focused and directed.

There are times and moments when an individual concentrates his attention on a specific subject of interest, that one can observe a systematic development of thought focused on that subject, and building from one idea to another until a pattern or picture emerges, which we may call a thought-formation.

The thought-forms so created are usually general in nature and go out into the mental atmosphere, vibrate there and, if there is another individual receptive to that vibrational pattern, it gets picked up and potentially further enhanced and rebroadcast.

There are thought-forms that are tied to a specific individual and are tightly focused around that person’s own interests, needs, wants and plans. In that case, while a thought-form is created, it does not achieve full and free independence, but also continues to act within the mental space of the individual who created it. Thus, the individual finds that the thought-pattern returns and continues to fix the attention of that individual time and again until the underlying issue is fully resolved or implemented, as the case may be. Sometimes the formations so developed take over the mind of the person and they develop a mono-mania of sorts that does not let go of them.

The Mother observes: “Human thought is very creative in the mental world. All the time when you are thinking, you are creating forms and you send them out in the atmosphere and they go and do their work. Constantly you are surrounded by a heap of small formations.”

“Naturally, there are people who can’t even think clearly. So they form nothing at all except faint eddies. But people who think clearly are surrounded by a heap of little forms which, sometimes, go out to do some work in others; and when one thinks of them again, they return.”

“And we have seen instances of people who are troubled by their own formations, which return constantly as though to take possession of them, and which they can’t get rid of because they don’t know how to undo the formations they have made. There are more cases of this kind than one would think. When they have made a particularly strong formation — for themselves, you see, relatively — this formation is always tied up with the one who makes it and returns to knock at the brain to receive forces and ends up by truly acting as a necessity. It is a whole world to know; one truly lives in ignorance, one has powers one doesn’t know about, so naturally one uses them very badly. One uses them somewhat unconsciously and very badly.”

Sri Aurobindo and the Mother, Powers Within, Chapter II Power of Thought, pg. 14