Understanding the challenges of thought forms

I am currently reading The Science of Meditation by H. Saraydarian.  While there are 350 pages of great information, I'd like to focus for a time on thought forms.  Now, I understand that those of you who are not inclined to believe in things that you cannot see, touch, smell, hear, and taste may not find this particular blog entry in harmony with your way of thinking.  That’s fine. Go do something else with your time now.

If you are open minded and still with me, HI!!!  Thought forms.  There seems to be a suggestion among deeply spiritual thinkers and metaphysicists that Thoughts are Things.  I’ve heard about this enough times, and from enough directions that I am curious and need to know more.  What does that mean? I’m skeptical, because how can something be a thing if it’s… not a thing?  Not tangible?  Only exists for one person?  It doesn’t make sense in my cultural background.  Fortunately it does make sense to Hindus, and the language barrier is manageable. 

So they say it possible to create an object by thinking.  It doesn’t happen every time, and some people are unable to do it because of their level of Spiritual development. Hmm. A thought form is like a cloud or a bubble that has a shape, a color, density, velocity, and other characteristics.  It is implied that it may be possible to observe or measure, but I have yet to find a thought form scientist beyond the depth of information in this book.  Thought forms can combine with other thought forms, or other thoughts.  They can die.  They can pop or dissipate.  They can get really big and control the thinking of mobs of people.  It is said they have an electrical charge and that there are a great many in existence. Groups of thought forms, or “Clouds of Knowable Things” serve as storehouses of ideas, and can provide great wisdom and beauty to those that know how to access them.  Great thinkers contribute to them through visualizations, the creation of new knowledge, and working with the right spirit guides.  These storehouses are accessed telepathically.  Thought forms are understood telepathically, which seems to inhibit their study by a Western scientific approach, even though telepathy has been scientifically studied with well documented results for over hundred years and is proven to exist.

Lower strata thought forms have great destructive power.  They feed on greed, hatred, jealousy, and feelings of separateness.  The information contained within are easily available, and considered dangerous.  They can control or possess people, or magnify problems with thinking distortions.  Targets can be one or more people up to a very large group of people led to falsely define collective reality.  They can direct your focus. These thought forms are especially dangerous to people who allow their thinking to polarize, known to me as "black and white thinking" (no shades of grey) or "us vs. them mentality."  Any thinking distortions are weak points.

There is advice about how to overcome the effects of negative thought forms and of course it involves meditating on specific beneficial themes. Serendipitously, the day I selected a theme for myself I to study, I listened to a powerful sermon by a spiritual leader that I felt was in conflict with my present lesson.  This, to me, was validation because I was immediately tested.   I found it interesting when the book pointed out that highly powerful esoteric and occult knowledge was carefully guarded by ancient brotherhoods and religious sects until inductees had passed an intense battery of personality tests.  The reason being that great damage can be caused by knowledge falling into the wrong hands. Any weakness in a teacher is magnified through all that person's students.  Thus the value of spiritual lessons is measured by the number of lessons successfully completed rather than the specific content of the lesson. I tend to have faith that guides guard occult knowledge and skills based on a soul's level of development, but the chapter on evil scared me a bit in some of the beginning knowledge that has become available to individuals with malicious intent.  It is a major power struggle in the physical plane these days.

The process of creating thought forms is not available to all people, but the author gives clues that in advanced meditation, light can come together in the mental plane to take on a physical form. These happen around basic structures created by normal thinking, with the assistance of the Solar Angel, our great Teachers, or with our own minds if we are highly evolved. Regular thoughts provide blueprints for thought forms that may be built to meet the needs of individual personalities.  Sometimes thought forms are built on these blueprints that do not resemble the original thoughts at all, but rather combine with a very different thought energy to form a crystallized structure.  This frequently happens when lower emotions, desires, and selfish aims cause the original thoughts to degenerate.  Proper meditation time the quality of the substance used to create forms, and allows them to enjoy more beautiful harmonies and correspondences. Noticing distorted thought forms that have crystallized on your own blue prints may be a clue to carefully consider the seeds of your original thoughts and the true motivation behind the thoughts.

It is completely necessary to observe our own thoughts, and be very discriminating about the thoughts we allow into our mental sphere.  It becomes possible to determine the sources for thoughts.  We must guard our minds because of the potential for harm, especially while in meditation.   “As a man thinks in his heart, so is he.” It is possible to destroy unwanted thought forms that act as hindrances.  

In my own life, this all makes a lot of sense to me in the context of quitting smoking, or learning remaining calm in very stressful or infuriating circumstances.  “That is why a disciple is a man who can destroy those thought forms that prevent the inflow of more light, or free action, free radiation of light, love, and power.”  The book goes on to discuss specifically how occult meditation can carry on the destruction of a few types of unwanted thought forms. 

Thought forms are attached to their creator by etheric threads that may be made of various substances with various characteristics and link to various energy centers in the body and its energy field. It is possible, through meditation, to trace these threads back and understand their source. Some people believe that it these etheric threads are significantly attached to natural earth processes, explaining primitive beliefs about human thought problems causing natural disasters like earthquakes or volcanic eruptions.  This author insists it is true that our thinking cannot be separated from nature, and that the only true path to the science of species survival is through meditation.  People must learn to discriminate thoughts sourced from the lower mental planes from those coming from various sources, from those originating from one’s own soul, from his Ashram, and from his Master.  (My own spiritual cultural tradition speaks of guides, God, formerly alive people, and maybe aliens?) Once the source has been determined, they can be reshaped according to need. These are considered beginning level thinking activities because dharma (duty) is to serve the will of the Solar Angel.  

“The man reaches the highest state of thinking at the Fourth Initiation. After that thinking is the manipulation of atmic and buddhic energies through straight knowledge or intuitive perception in order to create in line with the divine Purpose and formulate it into the Plan to further the goal of evolution upon higher and higher planes. And this is what we learn to do in meditation [ibid].”

Thought forms are crystallized, materialized forms sourcing from a thinker. In any thought form, it possible to find part of the original thought, which is called the life principle of the thought form. The thought form exists because of this originating principle.  When the life principle is withdrawn, the thought form is a corpse in the mental sea until it breaks down over time, until it dissapates.   

Metaphysicists encourage us to look to outer space and the behavior of planets and stars to help visually understand the behaviors of thought forms.   Mediation can be dangerous for people that carelessly create thought forms without trying to find the seed of the thought, symbol, or idea, especially when it is repeated many times over time.  Late night TV commercials for pharmaceuticals endlessly repeating worry me here. This pattern can cause very real obstacles on our spiritual paths, forming a hard shell of energy around us, preventing the healthy flow of energy that allows us to live our best possible lives. 

To “slay the slayer” is to prevent ourselves from forming crystals in our minds, allowing dead thought forms to live within us, or to allow ourselves to coexist with many illusions.  A free thinker does not exist with dead thought forms, prejudice, superstitions, dogmas, or doctrine.  [S]he is able to shape and reshape thoughts and communication methods as needed with ease.  This is science.

Meditation is a flight toward infinity, cultivating an open mind. There are many possible missteps when beginning to understand the astral world.  Our minds have associate many, many false truths. It is worth the effort to learn to meditate well, for the rewards are great.

Wrong meditation:

• Obsession or fanaticism solidifies a false path, preventing evolution and it also kills creativity. 
• Meditation on surface level without searching for the seed thought.
• Using the seed thought to verify things already known, or twisting information to prove something.
• Focusing on a seed thought with the intent of serving selfish motives, or for attacking or controlling others.
• Seeking justification of your own line of thinking, doctrine, or dogma. (Not scientific.  We seek truth or reality, not create it.)

I hope this helps.  The book is 350 pages long, so there is plenty more to consider.  I was also very fascinated by the chapter on evil, and the detailed description of characteristics of various levels of spiritual development. For example, individuals studying the emotional body often experiences great challenges with their physical body in life, and those studying the mental body have the great challenges in life with their emotions!  Interesting stuff.