The Theosophical Forum – October 1946

SIGNIFICANCE OF MIND IN OUR CYCLE — Gertrude W. van Pelt

[Note: page numbers cited for The Esoteric Tradition are to the 2-vol. Second Edition and do not correspond to the 1-vol. 3rd & Revised Edition.]

The gift that Prometheus brought to man has been likened to fire as an extreme symbol of constructive or destructive energy. Dr. de Purucker has often said that ideas rule the world. An idea of rescuing the Holy Sepulcher once sent thousands of children wandering on foot over Europe.

Theosophy throws a strong light over the little understood nature of thoughts. In The Esoteric Tradition, p. 653, Dr. G. de Purucker writes, "Thoughts are energies, elemental energies. They do not originate in a man's mind. These elemental entities pass through the sensitive transmitting-apparatus which our mind is, and each one of us colors the thoughts as they pass through our minds, thus giving a new direction, a new karmic impulse to them. No thought was ever created in a human brain." And on page 652 he writes "The thoughts that we think in one incarnation affect us powerfully, because of karmic reaction, in the next incarnation, and indeed in all succeeding reimbodiments. It is by and through thoughts, speaking generally, that we grow, unfold, which means evolve."

In The Secret Doctrine, I, 124 ftn., we find, "Every thought, in addition to its physical accompaniment (brain change) exhibits an objective . . . aspect on the astral plane." And quoting from the Fundamentals of the Esoteric Philosophy by Dr. de Purucker, p. 311, "Every thought you think clings to the mind and inheres in it, and becomes what the Ancient Wisdom calls an "elemental," and it will turn and torture you unless you break them, i.e., transmute them." And on page 331, "Each thought has its own life, each thought has its own essence, each has its own course to run."

From these quotations we may gather, that though we do not create thoughts, we have a responsibility for those which we entertain and therefore reinforce. It is the undercurrent of thought which colors the day and proves that the joy of thought control far outweighs that of thought indulgence in loose and disintegrating thinking. The importance of wise and constructive thinking is emphasized by Mr. Judge in the 2nd Volume of Letters That Have Helped Me, pp. 17-18, from which I quote.

"So the Masters have said that this is a transition age, and he who has ears to hear will hear what has been said. What we do now in this transition age will be like what the great Dhyan Chohans did in the transition point — the midway point — in evolution at the time when all matter and all types were in a transition and fluid state. In the mental development we are now at the same point: and what we now do in faith and hope for others and for ourselves will result similarly on the plane to which it is all directed. Thus in other centuries we will come out again and go on with it. If we neglect it now, so much the worse for us then. Hence we are not working for some definite organization of the new years to come, but for a change in the Manas and Buddhi of the Race. . . . Let me refer you to that part of The Secret Doctrine penned by Master Himself, where the midway point of evolution is explained in relation to the Ungulate Mammals. It should give you a glimpse of what we have to do."



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