BREAKING THE MOULDS OF MIND by Stefan Carey
Breaking the moulds of mind is no easy task. But, each one of us has a personal responsibility to make sure that we do this. We need to stay young mentally if possible, by constantly ploughing and resowing our mental pastures. Let new crops grow there each season, at each stage of our development. From childhood, adolescence, young adulthood as learners and then as teachers, in middle life, later middle life, and retirement – each phase offers opportunities for expression of the different parts of our composite being.
Breaking the moulds or invigorating old thought habits can also be seen from a larger perspective, i.e. of nations. Remember, one of the reasons why the Theosophical Society was set up was to resist the inevitable grip of the materialism on the world. Helena Blavatsky had remarkable foresight to understand this, and create an extremely effective platform in the TS that gives the earnest seeker hope for the future. I feel we need universal ideas/concepts and truths to get a full understanding of this topic. That’s why the ideas put forward by Theosophy, based on universal propositions, can be so useful to get this understanding. Propositions which, by the way, can be found in all the major religions and philosophies if one looks hard enough.
Everyone at some stage thinks about ‘their place in space’. What we think our universe is, and how it operates, partly determines the kind of person we are. For example, we may feel the universe driven by a snowstorm of chaos, without conscience or intelligence or even divinity. We may also think the opposite – a “universe unfolding as it should” to quote from, Desiderata. I believe the universe is an extraordinary organism with multiple dimensions of being, working to a pattern of inner unfoldment. Learning, growing, in a vast interplay of cause and effect over mind boggling periods of time and space and beyond, where everyone and everything eventually gets what they deserve. Thus, my personal view of the universe, determines my thinking and our behaviour. It serves us as the foundation of our personal set of ethics. This personal picture may serve us unchanged and unchallenged for an entire lifetime.
Our ethics decide our actions in many instances – whether we are selfish or unselfish, honest or dishonest, cruel or compassionate. In very small ways, we decide the fate of the world, through our actions based on a set of ethics based on a sense of what the universe is – our faith if you like. So you can see that our thinking about all this requires time, open mindedness hopefully and the freedom to choose. We are lucky here in
Australia that we can think as we please. Furthermore; to act out a set of ethics we need thought processes to do it. Our ‘manas’ aspect (‘manas’ is a Sanskrit term meaning ‘mind’), helps us here. However, the need to survive and look after families and ourselves, and this imperative of daily life tends to lock us into certain thought patterns which then govern our behaviour, sometimes with negative effects. But, at the very most basic level, what is a thought? A thought is an energy produced by something. A galaxy has thoughts and produces star systems, as seen in the spectacular pictures from the Hubble telescope. What a concept – we watch a galaxy thinking through a powerful telescope! Thought has form, but not in the accepted physical sense. You can get some sense of thought’s semi-tangible quality by contemplating certain atmospheres where habitual thoughts seem to linger. Churches and hotels are a good example. Why is it we can sense the positive or negative atmospheres if thoughts are completely intangible? Thoughts are emanations and have a life of their own. Listen to what one of the masters has to say about thoughts in The Mahatma Letters to AP Sinnet from the Mahatmas M and KH. He starts with a general description of life on earth – the last sentence is the important one: “The lower world of effects is the sphere of such distorted thoughts; of the most sensual conceptions, and pictures, of anthropomorphic entities, the out creations of their creators, the sensual minds of the people who have never outgrown their brutehood on earth. Remembering thoughts are things – have tenacity, coherence, and life, - that they are real entities – the rest will become plain.” - from The Mahatma Letters page:48. From a
Sunrise article by Grace Knoche in Oct/Nov ’95, “Thoughts are potent and leave their indelible impress on inner planes; once a thought is released it is a living entity and becomes either an “active beneficent power… (or) a maleficent demon”. Thoughts can be transmitted to others, although this is a very basic description of what actually happens. If you want to know more our theosophical literature is an excellent resource. There is a danger that a negative thought addressed to someone else, does us just as much harm as we intended the target. In the same manner positive thoughts ‘travel’. To give a real life example, how many times have you called someone on the phone and they have said: “I was thinking about you today!” I do not believe this is chance. It has happened dozens of times. My father just sent me a copy of his memoirs, in which he describes as a young adult walking across a bridge a sharp sensation – his fiancé had just cut herself at the same moment. Not only do thoughts have this semi-tangible life, they also have a more tangible effect on the physical processes inside our brain.
Quoting again from GFK’s
Sunrise article: “HP Blavatsky said at a gathering at her
London residence ‘Ordinary intellectual activity moves on well beaten paths in the brain,’ she explained, ‘and does not compel sudden adjustments or destructions in its substance’. But because the brain is the organ of our waking consciousness, to comprehend ideas and truths larger than the ordinary takes a “new kind of mental effort… something very different – the carving out of new brain paths”. Theosophy challenges us to just this – to ponder ideas and truths larger than the ordinary, and turn these understandings into actions larger than the ordinary. And again from the same article: “Nearly a century later David Bohm, Britain’s famed theoretical physicist says that: “Powerful emotions and thoughts can permanently change the structure of the brain and cut deep grooves in it if not modified by an opposite energy of equal potency.” Each thought cuts a pathway in the brain, probably a biochemical/electrical/physical one. As we play a record the needle travels in grooves and eventually wears the groove deeper. Our thoughts cut grooves in our brain, and eventually we have thinking habits, and in some cases we have created rather deep ones where we may not want them! These are the ruts of our thinking, and we all have these to greater or lesser degree, for ‘better or worse, for richer or for poorer’ – I use this expression because it really is a kind of marriage or trilogy – our mind, thoughts and brain.
I don’t want to give the impression that all patterns or grooves are bad – there is a need for a whole range of them to remain intact if we are to survive – we need our instincts, learning, education, conditioning. This is necessarily, but if we want a better world we have to go beyond ourselves – each one of us. This requires us to occasionally bump the turntable once in a while and jump the needle out of the groove of our own limited selfish thinking.
Our Theosophical perspective, is that also that we should remain as flexible and fluid in our thinking for as long as possible, to stop our thinking patterns becoming too stagnant or crystallised. We need to challenge ourselves once in a while by saying to our reactions to things and our thoughts by saying: “Who goes there?” – stop ourselves and ask if we are becoming inflexible and closed minded, what do we cling to? Do our thoughts serve us or do we merely serve them? Are these thoughts really expressing the highest that is in us? Theosophy does not want you to accept anything blindly but to assimilate and test its ideas for yourself. The Theosophical Society is in a way, an organisation or system of thought devoted to breaking the moulds of mind that hold humanity in chains of ignorance and intolerance. Our physical body sheds part of itself each day – it is not afraid to let go of the parts that are worn out and need replacement – perhaps there are parts of our thinking we need to replace, especially if the record is stuck in place where the music is not so good.
My personal experience is that as time goes by it gets harder to change oneself, especially as one’s responsibilities for others seems to grow. I am in the middle of a process of personal change right now – but drastic actions are attractive but not practical. But, nothing stops me from changing how I think, even if I cannot change my occupation quickly. I have found doing short courses an extremely effective way of opening new areas of the brain I was dimly aware of – a recent course in graphic-design gave me a great thrill as I felt myself leaping over a creative hurdle or barrier mentally and achieving things I did not realise I could do. The same applies to a sculpture course I did and a screen-printing course. Even a new book or friendship influences us in a positive way. The key is to never stop learning, and as a friend from
Western Australia said, tolerance seems to be an important way to stay open-minded and alive. Try not to be threatened or afraid to try out new things. Be aware of too much rigidity and predictability in our lives – this is like living with curtains drawn on a sunny spring day! Theosophy is about open enquiry, fearless open enquiry, and has helped me expand my horizons immeasurably. On a personal level there is a natural resistance to any constant self reinvention and probably a healthy one – the human psyche is at once fragile as it is agile and tough. We need a basic makeup to survive as entities on this globe, and to completely redefine ourselves all the time would send us to the madhouse. There are basic things we must do to earn a living, keep a job, be a parent. These are useful moulds. Nonetheless, it seems to be in the nature of things that they change – and that if they are not prepared to change they will be obliterated – look at any species now extinct – is it because of an inability to change, to adapt? A Chinese saying says “the flexible will survive”.
I recently bought a wonderful book of wise sayings called, Bag of Jewels. A short quote is relevant today: “Sometimes a crisis event shatters all the anchors that hold our lives together”. There are also many films about this process of re-evaluation and breaking the moulds of mind – “Hook” being one of them, the businessman who forgot to live. Also, when we face death in some form, we re-evaluate our most basic assumptions about how we live.
Some of the moulds of mind we need to change on national scales are is an ability to destroy nature without thought for the future, the need to dominate others through war or other means of aggression, the inability to allow freedom of thought through political oppression or religious oppression, the view that only objects and not relationships give happiness – materialism. Fundamentalism of every kind. On a national scale these are powerful moulds of mind because they affect the cultures of entire populations, and the social conditioning of millions of people – something the Buddha said we will find very hard to resist. We all have a part to play nonetheless.
We are truly pilgrims or universal travellers in consciousness, with our little stick and knotted handkerchief with a few possessions resting on our shoulder as we walk the byways of manifestation. This is a good way to travel – we must travel light – those who travel lightest travel furthest, not tied down by too much mental baggage. Children are a living example of this approach.If we look at ourselves as children, we were spontaneous, open minded, naïve and inexperienced in life. The trick is to hold on to the more positive aspects in our later years, and let go and refine other parts. And to keep learning – I was amazed at a recent high school reunion, the first in 20 years, by how the ageing process had affected some and not others – the youngest thinkers also looked the youngest!
Even our own physical body knows when to let go of itself. Every day hair, skin, cells etc disappear, to be replaced by new invigorated structures. So in effect we are never the same person we were yesterday - we are not static. We need to keep the habit of exploring the new, the unexplored, otherwise we tend to get lost in our own fear and procrastination. This is hard to do with the demands of an ordinary life. But, worrying about changing ourselves and being really alive is also a good excuse for inaction!
Finally, we began by talking about a big picture, and we’ll end this way. You and I are energy centres – a group of energies combined, in a river of life, inseparable from a cosmic breath extending into countless millions of years. We exist now in multiple dimensions in infinite and limitless space. I think it is important to find the greatest picture of reality we can grasp. Tiny it may be. And then, stop and ask, from time to time; what is this picture I have formed? Does it need polishing? Expanding? Simplifying? Revising? This picture is a reflection of you, your inner awareness. This is all extremely important because if we always listen to the inner self and censor its message, we will cling to the same old things – slowly hardening inside, preventing the flow of life’s wonderful energies from the higher parts to the more human parts of our nature. Breathe life into your own thinking with open mindedness if you dare! And don’t forget, you can be an influence for a better and more compassionate world.
The above is the text of a lecture presented to the Theosophical Society Pasadena in Melbourne Australia. The views expressed are those of the author and not necessarily those of the Theosophical Society Pasadena.