Using Thought Power

The Mother, Sri Aurobindo Ashram

To want unwaveringly the welfare of another both in the head and heart is the best help
one can give.
- Sri Aurobindo
We can help others from a distance through a proper use of our thought-power.
I have already told you several times that if one thinks clearly and powerfully, one makes a mental
formation, and that every mental formation is an entity independent of its fashioner, having its own life
and tending to realise itself in the mental world - I dont mean that you see your formation with your
physical eyes, but it exists in the mental world, it has its own particular independent existence. If you have
made a formation with a definite aim, its whole life will tend to the realisation of this aim. Therefore, if
you want to help someone at a distance, you have only to formulate very clearly, very precisely and
strongly the kind of help you want to give and the result you wish to obtain. That will have its effect. I
cannot say that it will be all-powerful, for the mental world is full of innumerable formations of this kind
and naturally they clash and contradict one another; hence the strongest and the most persistent will have
the best of it.
Now, what is it that gives strength and persistence to mental formations? - It is emotion and will. If you
know how to add to your mental formation an emotion, affection, tenderness, love, and an intensity of
will, a dynamism, it will have a much greater chance of success. That is the first method. It is within the
scope of all those who know how to think, and even more of those who know how to love. But as I said, the
power is limited and there is great competition in that world.
Therefore, even if one has no knowledge at all but has trust in the divine Grace, if one has the faith that
there is something in the world like the divine Grace, and that this something can answer a prayer, an
aspiration, an invocation, then, after making ones mental formation, if one offers it to the Grace and puts
ones trust in it, asks it to intervene and has the faith that it will intervene, then indeed one has a chance of
success.
Try, and you will surely see the result.
* * *
Note that this power of formation has a great advantage, if one knows how to use it. You can make good
formations and if you make them properly, they will act in the same way as the others. You can do a lot of
good to people just by sitting quietly in your room, perhaps even more good than by undergoing a lot of
trouble externally. If you know how to think correctly, with force and intelligence and kindness, if you love
someone and wish him well very sincerely, deeply, with all your heart, that does him much good, much
more certainly than you think. I have said this often; for example, to those who are here, who learn that
someone in their family is very ill and feel that childish impulse of wanting to rush immediately to the
spot to attend to the sick person. I tell you, unless it is an exceptional case and there is nobody to attend
on the sick person (and at times even in such a case), if you know how to keep the right attitude and
concentrate with affection and good will upon the sick person, if you know how to pray for him and make
helpful formations, you will do him much more good than if you go to nurse him, feed him, help him wash
himself, indeed all that everybody can do. Anybody can nurse a person. But not everybody can make good
formations and send out forces that act for healing.
15 Tips to Think Straight

Here are 15 tips which will encourage you to develop and put to good use your capacity to think
straight.
1. Do Your Own Thinking.
If you simply swallow what you see, hear and read without analysing it, you are not living up as an
intelligent person. On the other hand, if you weigh, examine and sift the evidence, you will be more likely
to find the truth and share it with others.
2. Think Before You Act.
Spur-of-the moment actions are usually based on muddled or superficial thinking. Even a moments
reflection may have far-reaching consequences.
3. Think Objectively.
Develop the facility to think beyond a narrow, selfish point of view. If you overcome the human tendency
to hear only what you want to hear, and to be fearful of the facts, you will be more apt to welcome the
whole truth, not try to dodge or distort it.
4. Think Ahead.
Cultivate the habit of looking beyond the present. It is important to think ahead. Weigh the consequences
for time and eternity of what you think, say and do today.
5. Think Hopefully.
A hopeful person sees an opportunity in every calamity while a cynic sees a calamity in every opportunity.
Accustom yourself to think hopefully under the most disheartening circumstances.
6. Think Things Through.
Take a few moments to think things through and you are more likely to uphold the truth than to miss or
distort it.
7. Think Charitably.
A genuine love for others is the best preparation for clear, unbiased thinking. The hostile, envious, or
bitter person seldom thinks straight about matters human or divine.
8. Check and Double Check.
Make a reasonable investigation of facts before arriving at a decision.
9. Beware of Your Prejudices.
Make it a matter of conscience to get all the essential facts before you reach your final conclusion.
10. Take an Honest Look at Your Own Faults.
Magnifying others shortcomings while minimising ones own prepares the way to lopsided thinking and
can even lead to serious breaches of the moral law, such as cheating, fraud or double dealing which are
usually committed in the heart many times long before they are expressed in action.
11. Get beyond Wishful Thinking.
You will add vigour and clarity to your thinking if you discipline yourself to carry your good intentions
into action. It is easy to delude oneself by confusing wishful thinking with actual accomplishment.
12. Dont Overlook the Obvious.
When a large truck became wedged in an underpass all efforts to extricate it were unavailing. A small boy
who had been watching the proceedings finally said to the driver: want to know how to get it loose? Just
let some air out of the tyres.
13. Think with Determination.
Pursue worthwhile ideas in a way that will get the most out of them. If you strive to make worthwhile
ideas your own, you will be in a much stronger position to pass them on to others.
14. Look out for Details.
Be sure that you have a full knowledge of what you are expected to do and you will avoid the mistake of
the workmen who were discovered by an executive tearing down the wall and the door of his office. The
executive demanded what they were doing there. They told him that they got orders. Looking quickly at
the written instructions, the executive observed: The order is O.K. The room number is correct... but
youre in the wrong building!
15. Dig for the Deeper Meaning.
Get beneath the surface of what you hear or read. Take for example, the words of Jesus Christ; As you
wish men to do to you, so also do you to them. Before much progress will be made in restoring peace to
the world, it is very necessary that millions of persons like you think through what it means to Do unto
others as though you were the others.
(Condensed from Christopher Notes) July 2011
Transformation of the Mind
M.P. Pandit

Our human mind is a very limited and conditioned instrument of knowledge. For transforming the mind
into a perfect and flawless instrument of knowledge it has to open itself to a higher consciousness
beyond the mind.
Our human mind is not the source of knowledge but only the instrument of knowledge. It cannot build
knowledge, it can only reflect. That is why Patanjali calls for a discipline to quieten and establish a state of
undisturbed calm in the mind so that it may reflect the Truth like the limpid and calm waters of a lake.
For a radical spiritual transformation of the mind, it must learn to forsake its role of constructing
knowledge. The usual activities of reasoning and formation of idea-constructs must be brought to a
standstill. It is only when the mind halts its restless and incessant movements in ignorance that the higher
faculties get a chance to enter into the mental being.
Intuition, for instance, is a power of Truth that begins to act when the mind falls into quiescence. No
doubt it gets mixed up with the habitual activity of the reasoning mind, yet with vigilance and
discrimination it is possible to be steadily open to the action of intuition. Once this is organised and
stabilised, still higher faculties begin to make themselves felt. It is through the action of these higher
faculties that the Truth can modify, change and transform the mind. The mind, by itself, cannot do that;
but if it is quieted, then the higher action becomes possible.
Indeed the quality of the mind as it has developed makes a difference. If the mind is cultured and
developed enough in the ways of the intellect, it provides a productive soil for the higher force to work
upon. But if the mind is too much intellectualised and accustomed to function in its set grooves, it
becomes an obstacle. If there is not this excessive, one-sided development, the mind provides the
necessary opening for the play of new powers, e.g. poetry, painting etc.
The mind has to learn to give up its leading role. It has to open to the influence and action of the psychic
or the spiritual consciousness and function as their instrument. That way lies its deliverance from its in-
built limitations; it can develop into a channel for the manifestation and organisation of the higher
Consciousness - its rightful role.