THE ORIGIN OF THOUGHTS
Psychologists say that the origin of thought originates in the subconscious mind. Through various layers of the subconscious mind, it comes to the conscious mind, where the conscious mind recognises the current the thought produces. Through multiple processes with different combinations of certain kinds of chemistry, the conscious mind receives those currents and translates them into thought form, and then we think that we are feeling.
I would say that the origin of thought is not necessarily from the subconscious mind, although specific thoughts of a lower level can come from the subconscious mind. Yet, behind the subconscious mind, there is a mind that we could call a memory box. Every thought that we think is never new whatsoever. We have thought those thoughts before. However, the combination of two thoughts could be regarded as new, and synthesising those two thoughts could produce a third thought if we go beyond the levels of the subconscious mind and come to the area where there is a subtle conjunction between the superconscious and the subconscious, where the subconscious just ends as the day would end, fading away into the night imperceptibly. At that level, we can cognise things, or thoughts could arise from that level, which we can term the finest relative level.
At this finest relative level, we are not only in communion with our mind, but our mind has expanded to the universal mind. So, no distinction would remain between the limitations of the mind as we know it and the universal mind because our mind has become one with the universal mind. Once we have dove within and contacted or been one with the universal mind, and a thought arises from that level, at the finest end of the subconscious mind, then we are capable of the most significant amount of creativity, as we call it. Because then we would have at our fingertips, so to say, all the knowledge that has ever existed.
Existed not only on this planet but all the knowledge that has existed throughout existence itself, and that is what we mean by direct perception. You would find people trained, or people that have trained themselves, in such a manner that they could cognise things directly. As a typical example, you might find a genius in mathematics. A problem could be asked of that person, which generally would require a computer for several days to answer. Yet, this person with the ability of direct conception would come to the answer immediately.
CONTACTING THE FINEST LEVEL OF THE MIND OPERATES UNDER A VERY NATURAL LAW
All of these things function under natural law, and all laws we do not understand are considered supernatural. A hundred years ago, when we would tell someone that you could take a two-hundred-ton machinery to fly through the air, they would say we were mad. Nowadays, we have hundreds and hundreds of planes flying over our heads every day. If you told a person a hundred or so years ago that you could speak from San Francisco to New York, three thousand miles, and have a person-to-person conversation, they would regard that as supernatural, which would be unbelievable.
Contacting the finest level of the mind operates under a very natural law. We call it supernatural because we do not understand the law that serves it. But there are people, very few perhaps, that could have the direct conception of all knowledge that could ever be.
Knowledge can only be known to ourselves when formulated in thought form. When we say thought form, we add a form to thought. The next time you think or try to think, see that you are thinking in pictures or words. You are thinking in pictures or words because the word forms a picture. So, in this case, we could say there is no difference between words and pictures. Or we could say that they are two aspects of the same thing. In direct cognition, the picture presented to us in thought form never works linearly. By linear fashion, I mean proceeding chronologically from a, b, c, d to z. In direct conception or cognition, the entire picture is conceived. I think it was Mozart who said, “I might be wrong with the name,” that he could conceive the whole composition entirely within a moment and its parts simultaneously. The entirety and its parts simultaneously.
This comes from the subtlest level of the mind. There is a Sanskrit term for it, “Ritam bhara pragya.” That term is applied to that area of the mind where direct cognition occurs. When you find an artist, poet, or composer composing great works, everlasting works, then be sure to know that he has contacted intense levels of his mind, and the deeper the level, the greater the composition of whatever it is, music or poetry or painting. And the immortality of such work is in the fact that when you read the poem or listen to a talk by a person who has direct cognition, you not only understand the words, but it immediately touches the deeper level of yourself. This can be seen in the form of painting. It could be heard through words, hearing, and, of course, through sight; one reads and then hears those words in one’s mind.
CREATIVITY HAS VARYING DEGREES
To develop maximum creativity in daily life, which I always bring to every question I answer, we must meditate.
When we meditate, we reach the deeper levels of the mind. In my experience, we have artists, such as Rhodesia’s most well-known artist, J. Trevor Wood; in his famous paintings, the ideas, conceptions, and colours have come to him in the meditation process.
Creativity also has varying degrees. Like for example, one poet is a more excellent poet than another poet. Both of them go to the deeper levels of the mind. They are doing a form of meditation without knowing it. The poem that is not of such high quality, but yet good, would come from a level that is not as deep as a sonnet by Shakespeare. Therein lies the immortality of one’s creativity, and that creativity is backed by one’s thinking power, and thinking power could have two forms. One form is cultivated, where one develops one’s thinking power through conscious exercise. The greater power would be that even without expanding the middle sections, we would have a hotline directly to that area where direct conception, recognition, or cognition takes place.
When that cognition takes place at the finest level of the mind, it has to be translated. It has to be brought forth to the conscious mind. When a subtle conception that is experienced has to be translated at a grosser level, then naturally, something of it is lost in all translation or interpretation. Like in poetry, a lot of it is lost if a poem is composed in Sanskrit and if we have to translate it into English. For example, I loved Rabindranath Tagore’s poetry, which most of you might have heard about – a great Indian poet. He won the Nobel Prize for literature in 1913. I first read the English version, and I loved it so much that I primarily studied the Bengali language to read it in its original so that I could get the full impact of it. But that is by the by.
So, to get back to our subject. When that fine cognition comes and has to be translated to its grosser level so that you can read it or hear it, a lot is lost. The subtlety of it is lost. That is why, in the works of the sages or scriptures, every scripture or every uttering of a great seer or a sage is subject to many interpretations because those very subtle cognitions can never be translated into words.
Language is limited. Language is so limited that it can only express a particular bit of what the seer has cognised. That is why when we read a passage from the Bible or the Bhagavad Gita or any of the holy scriptures, we have to read it and reread it. By doing that, by giving it some thought with our conscious mind, we can allow it to sink deeper into our subconscious mind and then take that very thought still further to the level where that sage has picked it up, and then we would know what is meant. All of you would have this experience, say you read the Gita twenty years ago, and you might have understood something about it. If you read the Gita today with more significant experience in life, you will find a new meaning to it. The same passages, but you find new meaning because your perception and awareness have been expanded.
A SPONTANEOUS ACTION IS ALWAYS VERY CREATIVE
The purpose of meditation and spiritual practices is to lead us to the area where one reaches that direct perception, where the mind can be tuned with all that is contained in universal thought in this vast storehouse where everything is there. An idea or a word that we utter is never destroyed. It is forever floating around in the universe. When a poet writes a poem, we say he is inspired. He is inspired because he has brought his mind to that acceptable level where those thoughts are picked up. Therefore, there is nothing new under the sun. It is cultivating the mind, and we have the necessary methods whereby our awareness can expand, and our perception can have more profound depth. When we have this depth, then our powers of creativity will be enhanced. Then, everything we do would be a creative, spontaneous action.
When we talk of creativity, we will find that a spontaneous action without premeditation or pre-deliberation is always very creative. When an actual artist paints, they leave a lot of her thinking mind behind, and she just flows. She just does the required stroke. Lately, I have been talking a lot instead of writing. Still, I have written a lot of poetry, and some of my poetry, to say it myself, has been very well recognised, and several medals were awarded to me from very, very high sources for my poetry. I lie down, relaxing, getting my mind at a deep rest, and I start flowing, writing a poem. When I reread it the following day, I said, “Did I write this?” I ask that question to myself because I cannot, with my conscious mind, recognise what I have written. So where did it come from? It came from somewhere beyond the conscious mind. So true creativity is beyond that little area, that less than ten per cent conscious mind we use daily, and we think it is thinking. When a man says, “I think,” then that thought must be creative.
WHEN I SPEAK TO YOU, I DO NOT SPEAK FROM THE MIND
Most of the time, we just go through a process of association of ideas or thoughts whirling around in our minds, repeating itself as a gramophone record stuck in a groove. The same sound always: Auntie Matilda is coming tomorrow; what will I prepare for her? What am I going to prepare for her? What am I going to prepare for her? And you think, think, and think, and no answer comes. What will she like? What will she like? What will she like? What will she like? That is how the mind goes on and on, and just at that moment when you forget Auntie Matilda and what you are going to prepare for her and what she likes, when you just forget that for a moment when your mind is diverted, immediately a thought flashes that I am going to make a blueberry pie. All of you have experienced this in one form or the other. So, it is not an association of ideas or whirling thoughts that brings about creativity.
By constant practice, by being regular in one’s meditation, the mind is set into a pattern where every thought becomes spontaneous and becomes creative. At this very moment, I am demonstrating creativity to you. That is why I never prepare a talk. That would be very easy. Make half a dozen notes, memorise them, and then speak on them from point to end, and here you have a lecture; I would say, “Namaste. Good-bye.” Off I go. That is not creativity. Therefore, I always encourage you to come to a hall with a blank mind, and there is not much there, so I ask you to ask a question. Then I get lost in the question, and I keep on talking, talking, talking, talking, and most of the time, I am not aware of what I am talking about.
This is true because I do not speak from my mind when I speak to you. The mind is dimly aware of what I have said. Only a few days later, when I had a chance to listen to the tape, I said, “Ah, did I say that? Did I say that? Why did I say that?” That is how it works. That is the basis of thought. That is the origin of thought.
THOUGHT HAS QUANTITY AND THOUGHT HAS QUALITY
Thought has quantity because thought also matters, which we call the mind, which is nothing but a collection of thought and thought impressions. There is no substance with diameter and circumference, length and breadth, or all that we call mind. The mind is a collection of thoughts and impressions.
There is no difference between mind and body. The mind is only a subtler and finer extension of the body. If it was a different entity, why does the mind not keep on thinking when the body is dead? The thinking processes stop there in the mind. Thinking processes stop in the mind because there is no conscious recognition of what is happening in the subtle body. So, therefore, we call it that the mind is also dead. And this is one of the criteria scientists use to prove clinical death.
Let us get back to our point that the mind is but a subtle extension of the body, and the body is composed of matter; its extension is also composed of matter, but subtle matter. Wherever there is matter, there is quantity. Scientists, as yet, cannot measure the amount because the extent of the mind is as vast as the universe. At the finest relative level we have spoken of, the conjunction occurs between the individual mind and the universal mind. So, when they start measuring the mind, they can only find specific waveforms: alpha, beta, theta, delta and gamma. So therefore, the instruments that we have are limited and can only measure certain portions of the mind, but a tiny portion, not the entirety of the mind. And because they cannot measure the entirety of the mind, they have no way of measuring its quantity.
The quality depends entirely upon how creative, productive, uplifting, fulfilling, or energising the thought is. There is quality. So, we have quantity and quality in the thought processes.
If you are happy, I am so glad.
… Gururaj Ananda Yogi: Satsang US 1977 – 23
