What kind of thought forms do you frequently have? Do you know?
Thought forms you produce in your mind, can become a material experience or expression in your life. Be careful what you think. Did you know that “thought forms” you have can actually form a habit of attention? Thought forms like, “I’m always late,” or “I’m always beautiful,” stick in your being, and take a form of life all their own. No matter what kind of thought form, be it a life impulse or a death impulse thought form, when repeated enough times, thought forms incarnate into matter, which we can “see” as habits of attention.
A few days ago I came across a post on Facebook worth pondering and I’d like to share it here with you:
“The actions of the mind are indeed actions. The body is really one’s thoughts, moods, convictions and emotions objectified and made visible to the naked eye. It is a point worth noting with care that every cell in the body suffers or grows, receives a life impulse or a death impulse from every thought that enters the mind, for one tends to grow into the image of that which one thinks about most. When the mind dwells on a particular thought, a definite vibration of matter is set up. This tends to repeat itself, to become a habit.”
– Swami Sivananda
This is the first I have ever heard of Swami Sivananda, but this quote speaks truth to me and resonates with similar constructs I have come across in other forms of religion, psychology, personal development, philosophy, and so on.
The quote is from an article by Swami Sivananda, entitled “Transcending the Mind,” which can be found on the Divine Life Society website.
Working with thought forms and habits of attention
In both the Enneagram and the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) systems, habits of attention, or thought forms, are discussed. Our habits and thought forms are like a personal dummy light system on the dashboard of our body-soul, not too unlike the dummy lights of a car dashboard. The car’s dummy lights on the dashboard were engineered to remind the driver to get an oil change, to rotate tires, and even to mark out when a 90,000 mile overhaul is needed. Personal habits of attention and thought forms can be a little like those dummy lights.
Let’s take an imaginary Sally for example. Say Sally spends her time and energy being there for everybody in her life. Sally may not register that, as a result of her focus on everyone else, there is little to no time left for herself. And then the dummy light of Sally’s personal health crises shows up. Sally’s habit of saying yes to everyone and everything, actually ended up by it’s nature denying Sally her own personal needs.
Perhaps at the same Sally felt some reward of being beloved by the people she had helped, but at what health cost? Was there a better way for Sally to have health, and love of people she helped? Perhaps. Maybe sometimes, Sally could have taken her own needs into consideration, and then Sally could have chosen to love herself, rather than fall prey to service of others at her own expense in order to feel loved. Knowing how to recognize a dummy light of habit, can create space for conscious discernment, Yes-AND! and moderation of thought forms.
In Swami Sivananda’s quote, he seems to be pointing out that we are our own engineers, and where we put our attention is where “vibration of matter is set up” and eventually a habit is formed. So we can engineer ourselves how we like, according to where we place our attention.
Learning how to use placement of attention
Placement of attention, or where our thought forms habitually coalesce, is where the Enneagram and the Myers-Briggs (MBTI) can really come into play and service as a roadmap of archetypally “normal” habits of attention by type persuasion. Then, once you know your “normal” type persuasion, the void begins to have form, and you can know both your habit and your not-habit. In this way, you can focus your attention, your thought forms, to create skill in your not-habit environment. As a result, the ability to respond in moderation to whatever arises from moment to moment is made surer, faster, and clearer, over time. You begin to have influence over and power to drive your own thought forms, rather than be driven by your habitual thought forms.
Those things that we do habitually, eventually we start to notice them….possibly long after our parents and spouses did, but eventually we start to notice. They say that awareness is the first step. This quote from Swami Sivananda seems to say that there is value in watching your thoughts, and knowing that your mind becomes action in the way your body manifests its “thoughts, moods, convictions and emotions”.
To each his own, I always say; but I do enjoy this quote’s idea of the mind’s value as a key to understanding the manifestation of vibratory matter, from simple thought forms.
