Thought Excels Light in Speed
While light travels at the rate of 1,86,000 miles per second, thoughts virtually travel in no time.
Thought is finer than ether, the medium of electricity. In broadcasting, a singer sings beautiful songs at Calcutta. You can hear them nicely through the radio set in your own house at Delhi. All messages are received through the wireless.
Even so your mind is like a wireless machine. A saint with peace, poise, harmony and spiritual waves sends out into the world thoughts of harmony and peace. They travel with lightning speed in all directions and enter the minds of persons and produce in them also similar thoughts of harmony and peace. Whereas a worldly man whose mind is full of jealousy, revenge and hatred sends out discordant thoughts which enter the minds of thousands and stir in them similar thoughts of hatred and discord.
The Medium Through Which Thoughts Travel
If we throw a piece of stone in a tank or a pool of water, it will produce a succession of concentric waves travelling all around from the affected place.
The light of a candle will similarly give rise to waves of ethereal vibrations travelling in all directions from the candle.
In the same manner, when a thought, whether good or evil, crosses the mind of a person, it gives rise to vibrations in the Manas or mental atmosphere, which travel far and wide in all directions.
What is the possible medium through which thoughts can travel from one mind to another? The best possible explanation is that Manas or mind-substance fills all space like ether and it serves as the vehicle for thoughts, as Prana is the vehicle for feeling, as ether is the vehicle for heat, light and electricity and as air is the vehicle for sound.
Thoughts Are Tremendous Powers
Thought has got tremendous power. Thought can heal diseases. Thoughts can transform the mentality of persons. Thought can do anything. It can work wonders. The velocity of thought is unimaginable.
Thought is a dynamic force. It is caused by the vibrations of psychic Prana or Sukshma Prana on the mental substance. It is a force like gravitation, cohesion or repulsion. Thought travels or moves.
Marvels of Thought-vibrations
Every thought that you send out is a vibration which never perishes. It goes on vibrating every particle of the universe and if your thoughts are noble, holy and forcible, they set in vibration every sympathetic mind.
Unconsciously all people who are like you take the thought you have projected and in accordance with the capacity that they have, they send out similar thoughts. The result is that, without your knowledge of the consequences of your own work, you will be setting in motion great forces which will work together and put down the lowly and mean thoughts generated by the selfish and the wicked.
Diversity of Thought-vibrations
Every man has his own mental world, his own mode of thinking, his own ways of understanding things and his own ways of acting.
Just as the face and voice of every man differ from those of another man, the mode of thinking and understanding also differs. That is the reason why misunderstanding easily occurs between friends.
One is not able to understand rightly the views of another. Hence friction, rupture and quarrel occur within a minute even amongst fast friends. The friendship does not last long.
One should be in tune with the mental vibrations or thought-vibrations of another. Then only can one easily understand another.
Lustful thoughts, thoughts of hatred, jealousy and selfishness produce distorted images in the mind and cause clouding of understanding, perversion of intellect, loss of memory and confusion in the mind.
The Cell-theory and the Thoughts
A cell is a mass of protoplasm with a nucleus. It is endowed with intelligence. Some cells secrete, while some cells excrete. The cells of the testes secrete semen; the cells of the kidneys excrete urine. Some cells act the part of a soldier. They defend the body from the inroads or attacks of foreign poisonous matter and germs. They digest and throw them out. Some cells carry food materials to the tissues and organs.
The cells perform their work without your conscious volition. Their activities are controlled by the sympathetic nervous system. They are in direct communion with the mind in the brain.
Every impulse of the mind, every thought, is conveyed to the cells. They are greatly influenced by the varying conditions or states of the mind. If there are confusion, depression and other negative emotions and thoughts in the mind, they are telegraphically transmitted through the nerves to every cell in the body. The soldier-cells become panic-stricken. They are weakened. They are not able to perform their function properly. They become inefficient.
Some people are extremely body-conscious, and possess no idea of the Self. They live irregular, indisciplined lives and fill their stomachs with sweets, pastries, and so on. There is no rest for the digestive and the eliminating organs. They suffer from physical weakness and diseases. The atoms, molecules and cells in their bodies produce discordant or inharmonious vibrations. They have no hope, confidence, faith, serenity and cheerfulness. They are unhappy. The life-force is not operating properly. Their vitality is at a low ebb. Their mind is filled with fear, despair, worry and anxiety.
Radium and the Rare Yogi
Radium is a rare commodity. Yogins who have controlled their thoughts are also very rare in this world, like radium.
Just as sweet perfume continuously emanates from an incense stick, so also divine perfume and divine effulgence (magnetic, Brahmic aura) radiate from a Yogi who has controlled his thoughts and who is constantly dwelling on Brahman or the Infinite.
The effulgence and perfume of his face is Brahma-Varchas. When you hold in your hand a bouquet made of jasmine, rose and Champaka flowers, the sweet perfume pervades the whole hall and tickles all alike.
Even so the perfume or fame and reputation (Yasas and Kirti) of a Yogi who has controlled his thoughts spreads far and wide. He becomes a cosmic force.
Thought—Its Weight, Size and Shape
Every thought has got weight, shape, size, form, colour, quality and power. A Yogi can see all these thoughts directly with his inner Yogic eye.
Thoughts are like things. Just as you hand over an orange to your friend and take it back, so also you can give a useful, powerful thought to your friend and also take it back.
Thought is a great force; it moves; it creates. You can work wonders with the power of thought. You must know the right technique of handling and manipulating a thought.
Thought—Its Form, Its Name and Colour
Suppose your mind is rendered perfectly calm, entirely without thoughts. Nevertheless, as soon as thought begins to rise, it will immediately take name and form.
Every thought has a certain name and a certain form. Thus you find that every idea that man has or can have, must be connected with a certain word as its counterpart.
Form is the grosser and name the finer state of a single manifesting power called thought.
But these three are one; wherever there is one, the other two also are there. Wherever name is, there are form and thought.
A spiritual thought has yellow colour. A thought charged with anger and hatred is of a dark red colour; a selfish thought has a brown colour and so on.
Thought—Its Power, Workings and Uses
Thought is a vital, living dynamic power—the most vital, subtle and irresistible force existing in the universe.
Through the instrumentality of thought you acquire creative power. Thought passes from one man to another. It influences people; a man of powerful thought can influence readily people of weak thoughts.
There are nowadays numerous books on thought-culture, thought power, thought-dynamics. A study of them will give you a comprehensive understanding of thought, its power, its workings and usefulness.
We Live in a Boundless World of Thoughts
Thought alone is the whole world, the great pains, the old age, death and the great sin, earth, water, fire, air, ether. Thought binds a man. He who has controlled his thoughts, is a veritable God on this earth.
You live in a world of thoughts. First is thought. Then there is the expression of that thought through the organ of speech. Thought and language are intimately connected. Thoughts of anger, bitterness and malice injure others. If the mind which is the cause of all thoughts vanishes, the external objects will disappear.
Thoughts are things. Sound, touch, form, taste and odour, the five sheaths, the waking, the dreaming and deep sleep states—all these are the products of mind. Sankalpa, passion, anger, bondage, time—know them to be the result of mind. Mind is the king of the Indriyas or senses. Thought is the root of all mental process.
The thoughts that we perceive all round us are only the mind in form or substance. Thought creates, thought destroys. Bitterness and sweetness do not lie in the objects, but they are in the mind, in the subject, in thinking. They are created by thought.
Through the play of the mind or thought upon objects, proximity appears to be a great distance and vice versa. All objects in this world are unconnected; they are connected and associated together only by thought, by the imagination of your mind. It is the mind that gives colour, shape, qualities to the objects. Mind assumes the shape of any object it intensely thinks upon.
Friend and enemy, virtue and vice are in the mind only. Every man creates a world of good and evil, pleasure and pain, out of his own imagination only. Good and evil, pleasure and pain do not proceed from objects. These belong to the attitude of your mind. There is nothing good nor pleasant in this world. Your imagination makes it so.
Excerpts: Thought Power-Its Physics and Its Philosophy Chapter 1, By Swami Sivananda
Yachna Yoga 