THE HIDDEN SIDE OF THINGS/PART 19

 

CHAPTER XIX

 

BY WHAT WE THINK

 

THE REALM OF THOUGHT

 

A STUDENT of occultism trains himself in the art of thinking, and consequently his thought is much more powerful than that of the untrained man, and is likely to influence a wider circle and to produce a much greater effect. This happens quite outside of his own consciousness, without his making any effort in the matter. But precisely because he has learnt the mighty power of thought it becomes his duty to use it for the helping of others. In order to do this effectively he must understand exactly how it acts.

 

One of the most striking characteristics of the unseen world which lies all about us is the ready response of the finer type of matter of which it is constructed to the influences of human thought and emotion. It is difficult for those who have not studied the subject to grasp the absolute reality of these forces-- to understand that their action is in every respect as definite upon the finer type of matter as is that of steam or electricity upon physical matter.

 

Every one knows that a man who has at his disposal a large amount of steam-power or electrical power can do useful work and produce definite results; but few people know that every man has at his disposal a certain amount of this other and higher power, and that with that he can produce results just as definite and just as real.

 

As matters stand at present in the physical world, only a few men can have at their disposal any large amount of its forces, and so only a few can become rich by their means; but it is a prominent feature of the vivid interest of the unseen side of life that every human being, rich or poor, old or young, has already at his disposal no inconsiderable proportion of its forces, and therefore the riches of these higher worlds, which are obtained by the right use of these powers, are within the reach of all.

 

Here, then, is a power possessed by all, but intelligently used as yet by few; it is surely well worth our while to take up the matter, to enquire into it and try to comprehend it. Indeed, there is even more reason for so doing than has yet been mentioned, for the truth is that to some extent we are all already unconsciously making use of this power, and because of our ignorance we are employing it wrongly, and doing harm with it instead of good. The possession of power always means responsibility, so in order to avoid doing harm unintentionally, and in order to utilise thoroughly these magnificent possibilities, it will clearly be well for us to learn all that we can on this subject.

 

THE EFFECTS OF THOUGHT

 

What then is thought, and how does it show itself? It is in the mental body that it first manifests itself to the sight of the clairvoyant, and it appears as a vibration of its matter-- a vibration which is found to produce various effects, all of them quite in line with what scientific experience in the physical world would lead us to expect.

 

There is the effect produced upon the mental body itself, and we find that to be of the nature of setting up a habit. There are many different types of matter in the mental body, and each of them appears to have its own special rate of undulation, to which it seems most accustomed, so that it readily responds to it and tends to return to it as soon as possible when it has been forced away from it by some strong rush of thought or feeling. A sufficiently strong thought may for the moment set all the particles of one division of the mental body swinging at the same rate; and every time that that happens it is a little easier for it to happen again. A habit of moving at that rate is being set up in these particles of the mental body, so that the man will readily repeat that particular thought.

 

There is the effect produced upon the other vehicles of the man, which are above and below the mental body in degree of density. We know that physical disturbances in one type of matter are readily communicated to another type-- that, for example, an earthquake (which is a movement in solid matter) will produce a mighty wave in the sea (which is liquid matter), and again from the other side that the disturbance of the air (which is gaseous matter) by a storm will immediately produce ripples, and shortly great waves in the ocean beneath it.

 

In just the same way a disturbance in a man' s astral body (which we commonly call an emotion) will set up vibrations in the mental body, and cause thoughts which correspond to the emotion. Conversely, the waves in the mental body affect the astral body, if they be of a type which can affect it, which means that certain types of thought readily provoke emotion. Just as the wave in mental matter acts upon the astral substance, which is denser than it is, so also does it inevitably act upon the matter of the casual body, which is finer than it; and thus the habitual thought of the man builds up qualities in the ego himself.

 

So far we have been dealing with the effect of the man' s thought upon himself; and we see that in the first place it tends to repeat itself, and that in the second it acts not only upon his emotions, but also permanently upon the man himself. Now let us turn to the effects which it produces outside of himself-- that is, upon the sea of mental matter which surrounds us all just as does the atmosphere.

 

Every thought produces a radiating undulation, which may be either simple or complex according to the nature of the thought which gives it birth. These vibrations may under certain conditions be confined to the mental world, but more frequently they produce an effect in worlds above and below. If the thought be purely intellectual and impersonal-- if, for example, the thinker is considering a philosophical system, or attempting to solve a problem in algebra or geometry-- the thought-wave will affect merely the mental matter. If the thought be of a spiritual nature, if it be tinged with love or aspiration or with deep unselfish feeling, it will rise upwards into the realm of the higher mental, and may even borrow some of the splendour and glory of the intuitional level-- a combination which renders it exceedingly powerful. If on the other hand the thought is tinged with something of self or of personal desire, its oscillations at once draw downwards and expend most of their force in the astral world.

 

All these thought-waves act upon their respective levels just as does a wave of light or sound here on the physical. They radiate out in all directions, becoming less powerful in proportion to their distance from their source. The radiation not only affects the sea of mental matter which surrounds us, but also acts upon other mental bodies moving within that sea. We are all familiar with the experiment in which a note struck on a piano or a string sounded on a violin will set the corresponding note sounding upon another instrument of the same kind which has been tuned exactly to the same pitch. Just as the vibration set up in one instrument is conveyed through the air and acts upon the other instrument, so is the thought-vibration set up in one mental body conveyed by the surrounding mental matter and reproduced in another mental body-- which, stated from another point of view, means that thought is infectious. We will return to this consideration later.

 

Every thought produces not only a wave but a form-- a definite, separate object which is endowed with force and vitality of a certain kind, and in many cases behaves not at all unlike a temporary living creature. This form, like the wave, may be in the mental realm only; but much more frequently it descends to the astral level and produces its principal effect in the world of emotions. The study of these thought-forms is of exceeding interest; a detailed account of many of them, with coloured illustrations of their appearance, will be found in the book Thought-Forms. At the moment we are concerned less with their appearance than with their effects and with the way in which they can be utilised.

 

Let us consider separately the action of these two manifestations of thought-power. The wave may be simple or it may be complex, according to the character of the thought; but its strength is poured out chiefly upon some one of the four levels of mental matter-- the four subdivisions which constitute the lower part of the mental world. Most of the thoughts of the ordinary man centre round himself, his desires and his emotions, and they therefore produce waves in the lowest subdivision of the mental matter; indeed, the part of the mental body built of that kind of matter is the only one which is as yet fully evolved and active in the great majority of mankind.

 

In this respect the condition of the mental body is quite different from that of the astral vehicle. In the ordinary cultured man of our race the astral body is as fully developed as the physical, and the man is perfectly capable of using it as a vehicle of consciousness. He is not yet much in the habit of so using it, and is consequently shy about it and distrustful of his powers; but the astral powers are there, and it is only a question of becoming accustomed to their use. When he finds himself functioning in the astral world, either during sleep or after death, he is fully capable of sight and hearing, and can move about whithersoever he will.

 

In the heaven-world, however, he finds himself under very different conditions, for the mental body is as yet by no means fully developed, that being the part of its evolution upon which the human race is at the present moment engaged. The mental body can be employed as a vehicle only by those who have been specially trained in its use under teachers belonging to the Great Brotherhood of Initiates; in the average man its powers are only partially unfolded, and it cannot be employed as a separate vehicle of consciousness. In the majority of men the higher portions of the mental body are as yet quite dormant, even when the lower portions are in vigorous activity. This necessarily implies that while the whole mental atmosphere is surging with thought-waves belonging to the lowest subdivision, there is as yet comparatively little activity on the higher sub-divisions-- a fact which we shall need to have clearly in mind when we come to consider presently the practical possibility of the use of thought-power. It has also an important bearing upon the distance to which a thought-wave may penetrate.

 

To help us to understand this we may take an analogy from the action of the voice of a public speaker. He can make himself heard to a certain distance-- a distance which depends upon the power of his voice. In the case of a thought-form that power corresponds to the strength of the vibrations. But the distance to which a speaker can be understood is quite another matter, and depends often more upon the clearness of his enunciation than the strength of his voice. That clearness of enunciation is represented in the case of a thought-form by definiteness, clearness of outline.

 

Many a man who is not trained in the art of public speaking might send forth a shout which would penetrate to a considerable distance, but would be quite unintelligible. Just in the same way a man who feels strongly, but is not trained in the art of thinking, may send forth a powerful thought-form which conveys strongly enough the feeling which inspires it-- a feeling of joy, of terror or of surprise; and yet it may be so vaguely outlined as to impart no idea of the nature or the cause of the emotion. Evidently, therefore, dearness of thought is at least as necessary as strength of thought.

 

Again, the speaker' s voice may be clear and strong, and his words may be perfectly audible at the place where an auditor is standing; yet the words convey no meaning to that auditor if he is so preoccupied with some other matter that he is not paying attention. This also has its exact correspondence in the world of thought. One may send out a clear, strong thought, and even aim it definitely at another person, but if that man' s mind is entirely preoccupied with his own affairs, the thought-form can produce no impression upon his mental body. Often men in a wild panic do not even hear the advice or orders shouted to them; under the same influence they are equally impervious to thought-forms.

 

The majority of mankind do not know how to think at all, and even those who are a little more advanced than that, rarely think definitely and strongly, except during the moments in which they are actually engaged in some piece of business which demands their whole attention. Consequently, large numbers of minds are always lying fallow all about us, ready to receive whatever seed we may sow in them.

 

THE THOUGHT-WAVE

 

The action of the thought-vibration is eminently adaptable. It may exactly reproduce itself, if it finds a mental body which readily responds to it in every particular; but when this is not the case, it may nevertheless produce a marked effect along lines broadly similar to its own. Suppose, for example, that a Catholic kneels in devotion before an image of the Blessed Virgin. He sends rippling out from him in all directions strong, devotional thought-waves; if they strike upon the mental of astral body of another Catholic, they arouse in him a thought and feeling identical with the original; but if they strike upon a Christian of some other sect, to whom the image of the Blessed Virgin is unfamiliar, they still awaken in him the sentiment of devotion, but that will follow along its accustomed channel, and be directed towards the Christ.

 

If they touch a Muhammadan they arouse in him devotion to Allah, while in the case of a Hindu the object may be Krishna, and in the case of a Parsi Ahuramazda. They excite devotion of some sort wherever there is a possibility of response to that idea. If this thought-wave touches the mental body of a materialist, to whom the very idea of devotion in any form is unknown, even there it produces an elevating effect; it cannot at once create a type of undulation to which the man is wholly unaccustomed, but its tendency is to stir a higher part of his mental body into some sort of activity, and the effect, though less permanent than in the case of the sympathetic recipient, cannot fail to be good.

 

The action of an evil or impure thought is governed by the same laws. A man who is so foolish as to allow himself to think of another with hatred or envy, radiates a thought-wave tending to provoke similar passions in others, and though his feeling of hatred is for some one quite unknown to these others, and so it is impossible that they should share his feeling, yet the wave will stir in them an emotion of the same nature towards a totally different person.

 

THE THOUGHT-FORM

 

The work of the thought-form is more limited, but much more precise than that of the wave. It cannot reach so many persons-- indeed, it cannot act upon a person at all unless he has in him something which is harmonious with the vibrant energy which ensouls it. The powers and possibilities of these thought-forms will perhaps be clearer to us if we attempt to classify them. Let us consider first the thought which is definitely directed towards another person.

 

When a man sends forth from himself a thought of affection or of gratitude (or unfortunately it may be sometimes of envy or jealousy) towards some one else such a thought produces radiating waves precisely as would any other, and therefore tends to reproduce its general character in the minds of those within the sphere of its influence. But the thought-form which it creates is imbued with definite intention, and as soon as it breaks away from the mental and astral bodies of the thinker, it goes straight towards the person to whom it is directed and fastens itself upon him.

 

If he happens at the moment to be thinking of nothing in particular, and is consequently in a passive condition, it at once penetrates his mental and astral bodies and is lost in them, just as a comet might fall into the sun. It tends to arouse in them vibrations similar to its own-- which means that the man will begin to think upon that particular subject, whatever it may be. If he is in a condition of mental activity, and any part of that activity is of the same nature as the arriving thought-form, it enters his mental body through that part of it which is expressing the sympathetic thought, and adds its strength to that thought. If the recipient' s mind is so preoccupied that the thought-form cannot find entrance, it will hover about him until he is sufficiently disengaged to give it an opportunity to gain its object.

 

In the case of a thought which is not directed to some other person, but is connected chiefly with the thinker himself (as indeed are the majority of men' s thoughts) the wave spreads in all directions as usual, but the thought-form floats in the immediate neighbourhood of its creator, and its tendency is constantly to react upon him. As long as his mind is fully occupied with business, or with a thought of some other type, the floating form waits, biding its time; but when his train of thought is exhausted, or his mind for a moment lies fallow, it has an opportunity to react upon him, and it immediately begins to repeat itself-- to stir up in him a repetition of the thought to which he has previously yielded himself. Many a man is surrounded by a shell of such thought-forms, and he frequently feels their pressure upon him-- a constant suggestion from without of certain thoughts; and if the thought be evil he may believe himself to be tempted by the devil, whereas the truth is that he is his own tempter and that the evil thoughts are entirely his own creation.

 

There is the class of thought which is neither centred round the thinker nor specially aimed at any person. The thought-form generated in this case does not hang about the thinker, nor has it any special attraction towards another man, so it remains idly floating at the place where it was called into existence. Each man, as he moves through life, is thus producing three classes of thought-forms:

 

Those which shoot straight out away from him, aiming at a definite objective.

 

Those which hover round him and follow him wherever he goes.

 

Those which he leaves behind him as a sort of trail which marks his route.

 

The whole atmosphere is filled with thoughts of this third type, vague and indeterminate; as we walk along we are picking our way through vast masses of them, and if our minds are not already definitely occupied, these vague, wandering fragments of other people' s thoughts often seriously affect us. They sweep through the mind which is lying idle, and probably most of them do not arouse in it any especial interest; but now and then comes one which attracts attention, and the mind fastens upon it, entertains it for a moment or two, and dismisses it a little stronger than it was on arrival.

 

Naturally this mixture of thoughts from many sources has no definite coherence; though any one of them may start a line of associate ideas, and so set the mind thinking on its own account. If a man pulls himself up suddenly as he walks along the street, and asks himself:

 

“What am I thinking about, and why? how did I reach this particular point in my train of thought?” and if he tries to follow back the line of his thoughts for the last ten minutes, he will probably be quite surprised to discover how many idle and useless fancies have passed through his mind in that space of time. Not one-fourth of them are his own thoughts; they are simply fragments which he has picked up as he passed along. In most cases they are quite useless, and their general tendency is more likely to be evil than good.

 

WHAT WE CAN DO BY THOUGHT

 

Now that we understand to some extent the action of thought, let us see what use it is possible to make of this knowledge, and what practical considerations emerge from it. Knowing these things, what can we do to forward our own evolution, and what can we do to help others? Obviously, a scientific consideration of the way in which thought works, exhibits it as a matter of far greater importance, not only for our own evolution but also for that of others, than is ordinarily supposed.

 

When we look at this question of thought with regard to its effects upon others, we find ourselves brought back again from this different point of view to every one of the considerations which we have already emphasised when speaking of the reaction of this force upon ourselves. This is natural, for what tends to our progress must tend also to that of others. So we must touch these subjects again, though but in passing.

 

Since every thought or emotion produces a permanent effect by strengthening or weakening a tendency, and since furthermore every thought-wave and thought-form must not only react upon the thinker, but also influence many other people, the greatest care must be exercised as to the thought or emotion which a man permits within himself. The ordinary man rarely thinks of attempting to check an emotion; when he feels it surging within him he yields himself to it and considers it merely natural. One who studies scientifically the action of these forces realises that it is his interest as well as his duty to check every such upwelling, and consider, before he allows it to sway him, whether it is or is not prejudicial to his evolution and to that of his neighbours.

 

Instead of allowing his emotions to run away with him he must have them absolutely under control; and since the stage of evolution at which we have arrived is the development of the mental body, he must take this matter seriously in hand and see what can be done to assist that development. Instead of allowing the mind to indulge in its vagaries he should endeavour to assert control over it, recognising that the mind is not the man, but is an instrument which the man must learn to use. It must not be left to lie fallow; it must not be allowed to remain idle, so that any passing thought-form can drift in upon it and impress it. The first step towards control of the mind is to keep it usefully occupied-- to have (as has already been said) some definite, good and useful set of thoughts as a background to the mind' s operation-- something upon which it shall always fall back when there is no immediate need for its activity in connection with duty to be done.

Another necessary point in its training is that it shall be taught to do thoroughly that which it has to do-- in other words, that the power of concentration shall be acquired. This is no light task, as any unpractised person will find who endeavours to keep his mind absolutely upon one point even for five minutes. He will find that there is an active tendency to wander-- that all kinds of other thoughts thrust themselves in; the first effort to fix the mind on one subject for five minutes is likely to resolve itself into spending five minutes in bringing the mind back again and again from various side-issues which it has followed.

 

Fortunately, though concentration itself is no easy thing, there are plenty of opportunities for attempting it, and its acquisition is of great use in our daily life. We should learn then, whatever we are doing, to focus our attention upon it and to do it with all our might and as well as it can be done; if we write a letter, let that letter be well and accurately written, and let no carelessness in detail delay it or mar its effect; if we are reading a book, even though it be only a novel, let us read it with attention, trying to grasp the author' s meaning, and to gain from it all that there is to be gained. The endeavour to be constantly learning something, to let no day pass without some definite exercise of the mind, is a most salutary one; for it is only by exercise that strength comes, and disuse means always weakness and eventual atrophy.

 

It is also of great importance that we should learn to husband our energy. Each man possesses only a certain amount of energy, and he is responsible for its utilisation to the best advantage. The ordinary man wastes his force in the most foolish manner. He is always frittering it away without a shadow of necessity or justification. Sometimes he is full of eager desire for something which is quite unnecessary; or he is full of worry about some fancied evil which he imagines may be impending. At another time he is deeply depressed, but does not know exactly why; but whatever he alleges as the ostensible cause, the fact remains that he is more or less in a condition of excitement and agitation, because he will not take things philosophically, and lay to heart the wise old maxim that, as regards what comes upon us from the outer world, “nothing matters much, and most things don' t matter at all.” The thoughts and emotions of an average crowd are like the inhabitants of a disturbed ant-hill, all rushing wildly and aimlessly about in different directions, but causing a vast amount of disorder and tumult; which is precisely why the occultist invariably avoids a crowd, unless duty takes him into it. It is especially necessary for the student of occultism to learn to avoid this dissipation of his energies.

 

One way in which the average man wastes a great deal of force is by unnecessary argument. It appears to be impossible for him to hold any opinion, whether it be religious or political, or relating to some matter in ordinary life, without becoming a prey to an overmastering desire to force this opinion upon every one else, He seems quite incapable of grasping the rudimentary fact that what another man chooses to believe is no business of his, and that he is not commissioned by the authorities in charge of the world to go round and secure uniformity in thought and practice.

 

The wise man realises that truth is a many-sided thing, not commonly held in its entirely by any one man, or by any one set of men; he knows that there is room for diversity of opinion upon almost any conceivable subject, and that therefore a man whose point of view is opposite to his own may nevertheless have something of reason and truth in his belief. He knows that most of the subjects over which men argue are not in the least worth the trouble of discussion, and that those who speak most loudly and most confidently about them are usually those who know least. The student of occultism will therefore decline to waste his time in argument; if he is asked for information he is willing to give it, but not to waste his time and strength in unprofitable wrangling.

 

Another painfully common method of wasting strength is that worry of which I have already written as so serious an obstacle in the path of peace. Many men are constantly forecasting evil for themselves and for those whom they love-- troubling themselves with the fear of death and of what comes after it, with the fear of financial ruin or loss of social position. A vast amount of strength is frittered away along these unprofitable and unpleasant lines; but all such foolishness is swept aside for the man who realises that the world is governed by a law of absolute justice, that progress towards the highest is the Divine Will for him, that he cannot escape from that progress, that whatever comes in his way and whatever happens to him is meant to help him along that line, and that he himself is the only person who can delay that advance. He no longer troubles and fears about himself and about others; he simply goes on and does the duty that comes nearest in the best way that he can, confident that if he does that, all will be well for him. He knows that worry never yet helped any one, nor has it ever been of the slightest use, but that it has been responsible for an immense amount of evil and waste of force; and the wise man declines to spend his strength in ill-directed emotion.

 

So we see that if it is necessary for his own evolution that man should keep mind and emotion under control, and not foolishly waste his force, it is still more necessary from another point of view, because it is only by such care that he can enable himself to be of use to his fellow men, that he can avoid doing harm to them and can learn how to do good. If, for example, he lets himself feel angry, he naturally produces a grave effect upon himself, because he sets up an evil habit and makes it more difficult to resist the evil impulse next time it assails him. But he also acts seriously upon others around him, for inevitably the vibrations which radiate from him must affect them also.

 

If he is making an effort to control his irritability, so perhaps are they, and his action will help or hinder them, even though he is not in the least thinking of them. Every time that he allows himself to send out a wave of anger, that tends to arouse a similar vibration in the mind or astral body of another-- to arouse it if it has not previously existed and to intensify it if it is already present; and thus he makes his brother' s work of self-development harder for him, and places a heavier burden upon his shoulders. On the other hand, if he controls and represses the wave of anger, he radiates instead, calming and soothing influences which are distinctly helpful to all those near him who are engaged in the same struggle.

 

Few people realise their responsibilities in this matter. It is bad enough surely that any evil thought of ours should communicate itself to the minds of any persons within range of us who may happen to be idle and unoccupied. But the truth is much worse than that. In every man there lie germs or possibilities of evil which have come over from a previous life, but have not as yet been called into activity in this incarnation. If we send out an evil or impure thought, it may easily happen that it arouses into activity one of these germs, and so through our lack of self-control there comes into that man' s life an evil of which otherwise he might have got rid. We revive in him the dormant tendency which was in the act of dying out, and thereby we delay him in his upward progress.

 

So long as that germ is dormant the quality is dying out, but when it is aroused again it may increase to any extent. It is like breaking a hole through a dyke and letting out the water. In fact, a man who sends out an evil thought cannot tell for what amount of evil he may make himself responsible; for a man who becomes wicked, in consequence of that thought, may in turn affect other people, and those yet others in turn; so it is actually true that because of one evil thought generations yet to come may suffer. Happily all this is true of good thoughts as well as of evil, and the man who understands this fact uses wisely the power which it gives him, and may have an influence for good which is beyond all calculation.

 

THE RESPONSIBILITY OF THOUGHT

 

Possessing this tremendous power, we must be careful how we exercise it. We must remember to think of a person as we wish him to be, for the image that we thus make of him will naturally act powerfully upon him, and tend to draw him gradually into harmony with itself. Let us fix our thoughts upon the good qualities of our friends, because in thinking of any quality we tend to strengthen its vibrations, and therefore to intensify it.

 

From this consideration it follows that the habit of gossip and scandal, in which many people thoughtlessly indulge themselves; is in reality heinous wickedness, in condemning which no expression can be too strong. When people are guilty of the impertinence of discussing others, it is not usually upon the good qualities that they most insist. We have therefore a number of people fixing their thought upon some alleged evil in another, and calling to that evil the attention of others who might perhaps not have observed it; and in this way, if that bad quality really exists in the person whom they are so improperly criticising, they distinctly increase it by strengthening the undulation which is its expression. If, as is usually the case, the depravity exists only in their own prurient imagination, and is not present in the person about whom they are gossiping, then they are doing the utmost in their power to create that evil quality in that person, and if there be any latent germ of it existing in their victim, their nefarious effect is only too likely to be successful.

 

We may think helpfully of those whom we love; we may hold before them in thought a high ideal of themselves, and wish strongly that they may presently be enabled to attain it; but if we know of certain defects or vices in a man' s character, we should never under any circumstances let our thoughts dwell upon them and intensify them; our plan should be to formulate a strong thought of the contrary virtues, and then send out waves of that thought to the man who needs our help. The ordinary method is for one to say to another.

 

“O my dear, what a terrible thing it is that Mrs. So-and-So is so ill-tempered! Why, do you know, only yesterday she did this and that, and I have heard that she constantly, etc., etc. Isn' t it a terrible thing?”

 

And this is repeated by each person to her thirty or forty dearest friends, and in a few hours several hundred people are pouring converging streams of thought, all about anger and irritability, upon the unfortunate victim. Is it any wonder that she presently justifies their expectations, and gives them yet another example of ill-tempered over which they can gloat?

 

A person wishing to help in such a case will be especially careful to avoid thinking about anger at all, but instead will think with force:

 

“I wish Mrs. So-and-So were calm and serene; she has the possibility of such self-control within her; let me try frequently to send her strong, calm, soothing thought-waves, such as will help her to realise the Divine possibility within her.”

 

In the one case the thought is of anger; in the other it is of serenity; in both alike it will inevitably find its goal, and tend to reproduce itself in the mental and astral bodies of the recipient of the thought. By all means let us think frequently and lovingly of our friends, but let us think of their good points only, and try, by concentrating our attention upon those, to strengthen them and to help our friends by their means.

 

A man often says that he cannot control his thoughts or his passions-- that he has often tried to do so, but has consistently failed, and has therefore come to the conclusion that such effort is useless. This idea is wholly unscientific. If an evil quality or habit possesses a certain amount of strength within us, it is because in previous lives we have allowed that strength to accumulate-- because we have not resisted it in the beginning when it could easily have been repressed, but have permitted it to gather the momentum which makes it difficult now to deal with it.

 

We have, in fact, made it easy for ourselves to move along a certain line, and correspondingly difficult to move along another line-- difficult, but not impossible. The amount of momentum or energy accumulated is necessarily a finite amount; even if we have devoted several lives entirely to storing up such energy (an unlikely supposition), still the time so occupied has been a limited time, and the results are necessarily finite.

 

If we have now realised the mistake we made, and are setting ourselves to control that habit and to neutralise that impetus, we shall find it necessary to put forth exactly as much strength in the opposite direction as we originally spent in setting up that momentum. Naturally we cannot instantly produce sufficient force entirely to counteract the work of many years, but every effort which we make will reduce the amount of force stored up. We ourselves as living souls can go on generating force indefinitely; we have an infinite store of strength on which to draw, and therefore it is absolutely certain that if we persevere we must eventually succeed. However often we may fail, each time something is withdrawn from that finite store of force, and it will be exhausted before we shall, so that our eventual success is simply a matter of mechanics.

 

The knowledge of the use of these thought-currents makes it possible for us always to give assistance when we know of some case of sorrow or suffering. It often happens that we are unable to do anything for the sufferer physically; our bodily presence may not be helpful to him; his physical brain may be closed to our suggestions by prejudice or by religious bigotry. But his astral and mental bodies are far more easily impressible than the physical, and it is always open to us to approach these by a wave of helpful thought or of affection and soothing feeling.

 

The law of cause and effect holds good just as certainly in finer matter as in denser, and consequently the energy which we pour forth must reach its goal and must produce it effect. There can be no question that the image or the idea which we wish to put before the man for his comfort or his help will reach him; whether it will present itself clearly to his mind when it arrives depends, first upon the definiteness of outline which we have been able to give to it, and secondly upon his mental condition at the time. He may be so fully occupied with thoughts of his own trials and sufferings that there is little room for our idea to insert itself; but in that case our thought-form simply bides its time, and when at last his attention is diverted, or exhaustion forces him to suspend the activity of his own train of thought, ours will at once slip in and do its errand of mercy. There are so many cases where the best will in the world can do nothing physically; but there is no conceivable case in which either in the mental or the astral world some relief cannot be given by steady, concentrated, loving thought.

 

The phenomena of mind-cure show how powerful thought may be even in the physical world, and since it acts so much more easily in astral and mental matter we may realise vividly how tremendous the power really is, if we will but exercise it. We should watch for every opportunity of being thus helpful; there is little doubt that plenty of cases will offer themselves. As we walk along the street, as we ride in a tram-car or railway train, we often see some one who is obviously suffering from depression or sadness; there is our opportunity, and we may immediately take advantage of it by trying to arouse and to help him.

 

Let us try to send him strongly the feeling that, in spite of his personal sorrows and troubles, the sun still shines above all, and there is still much for which to be thankful, much that is good and beautiful in the world. Sometimes we may see the instant effect of our effort-- we may actually watch the man brighten up under the influence of the thought which we have sent to him. We cannot always expect such immediate physical result; but if we understand the laws of nature we shall in every case be equally sure that some result is being produced.

 

It is often difficult for the man who is unaccustomed to these studies to believe that he is really affecting those at whom his thought is aimed; but experience in a great number of cases has shown us that anyone who makes a practice of such efforts will in time find evidence of his success accumulating until it is no longer possible for him to doubt. The man should make it part of his life thus to try to help all whom he knows and loves, whether they be living or what is commonly called dead; for naturally the possession or the absence of the physical body makes no difference whatever to the action of forces which are levelled at the mental and astral bodies. By steady, regular practice of this sort great good will be done, for we gain strength by practice, and so, while we are developing our own powers and insuring our progress, the world will be helped by our kindly efforts.

 

Thus whatever is truly for our own interest is also for the interest of the world, and what is not good for the world can never in reality be for our interest either. For all true gain is gained for all. To many a man this may appear a strange statement, because we are accustomed to think that what one man gains another loses; yet it enshrines a great truth. Elsewhere I have shown that if one party to a transaction is unfairly treated, and therefore loses, there is no true gain for the other.

 

A straightforward, honest piece of business means gain for both parties. A tradesman, let us suppose, buys his goods wholesale, and then, taking care to say of them only what is strictly true, disposes of them by retail at a reasonable profit. Here all parties gain, for the wholesale merchant and the tradesman make their living, while the purchasers are willing to pay the retail price in order to have the convenience of buying in small quantities. Each person gains what he wishes; no one loses; all are satisfied.

 

This is merely a superficial example from the physical world; it is in the higher realms of thought that we may see most clearly how beautifully this rule works. Suppose that a man gains knowledge. He may impart his gain to a hundred others, yet he himself will have lost nothing. Not only so, but even others, to whom he does not impart it, will gain indirectly from his possession of it. Because he has this added knowledge, he is by so much a wiser and more useful man; his words should be the more weighty, his actions the more sagacious, and so others around him should be the better for his learning.

 

We may go deeper still. Since the man knows more, not only his words and action but his thoughts will be wiser than before. His thought-forms will be better, the waves flowing from his mental body higher and richer; and these must inevitably produce their result upon the mental bodies of others around him. Like all other waves in nature they tend to reproduce themselves, to provoke a similar rate of undulation in anything with which they come into contact. The same natural law, by the action of which in the physical world you are able to boil the water for your tea or to toast your bread at the fire, makes it absolutely certain that the good effects of additional wisdom will influence others, even though the possessor speaks never a word.

 

That is why in all religions so much importance is attached to the company of the good, the wise, the pure. Human qualities are infectious, and it is of the greatest moment that we should be careful to which of them we subject ourselves.

 

Take another instance. Suppose that you gain the valuable power of self-control. Perhaps you were formerly a passionate man, and now you have learnt to check that outpouring of force, and to hold it in subjection. Let us see how that affects others about you. In the physical world it is unquestionably pleasanter for them, but them, but let us consider the effect on their finer vehicles.

 

When in earlier days you allowed yourself to get into a rage, great waves of strong wrath poured out from you in all directions. No one who has seen the illustration of such an outrush as that which appears in Man Visible and Invisible , will need to be told what disastrous effects such waves must have produced upon the astral bodies of those who were so unfortunate as to be near you. Perhaps one of those men was himself struggling the same evil habit. If so, the emanations of your fury stirred up similar activity in his astral body, and so you strengthened that evil, you made your brother' s task harder, and his burden heavier to bear than it otherwise would have been. And once more I must insist that you have no right to do that.

 

But now that you have gained self-control, all this is most happily changed. Still you radiate vibrations, for that is Nature' s law, but now they are no longer the lurid flashes of anger, but the calm, measured sweep of the strong waves of love and peace. And these also impinge upon the astral body of your fellow man, and tend to reproduce themselves in him; and if he is fighting a battle against passion, their stately rhythm helps him and steadies him. Your force is being exerted on his side instead of against him, and so you lighten his burden, you aid him on his upward path. Is it not true then that in your gain he has gained also?

 

Men are so inextricably linked together, humanity is so truly a unity amidst all its marvellous diversity, that no one can advance or recede without helping or hindering the progress of others. Wherefore it behoves us to take heed that we are among the helpers and not among the hinderers, and that no living being, whether man or animal, shall ever be the worse for any thought or word or deed of ours.

 

CHAPTER XX