Understanding the Complexity and Risks of Dealing with the Power of Thought Forms

There is a famous story in the Mahabharata which has a profound meaning when it comes to the application of any power of action in the world, including the power to create thought formations. One of the protagonists in the great war that was fought at Kurukshetra was Arjuna. He was the greatest warrior of his time. This story, however, relates to his son Abhimanyu. Arjuna had been teaching Abhimanyu all the various stratagems of warfare but had been unable to fully complete his training. At one point, the opposing army formed up in a specific formation on the battleground which no one present at that moment could pierce and defeat. Arjuna was away taking care of other urgent matters in the battle. Abhimanyu recognised the formation and undertook to use his training to pierce it and break the opposing force’s power. He succeeded and entered, wreaking havoc on the other side. However, he was then confronted with major warriors, highly proficient in the art of warfare, and he was surrounded and trapped. After putting up a valiant fight he was overcome and succumbed to the overwhelming force ranged against him. His success was due to the advanced training and understanding he had acquired on how to penetrate the formation. His failure was due to the fact that he had no knowledge about how to then extract himself from the situation he found himself in.

The story illustrates an essential point for anyone who undertakes to understand and apply the capacities and powers that lie hidden within them, as the following story related by the Mother so aptly describes. The development of thought-formations may seem like it is far distant from an application of a strategy in warfare, but the lesson is actually similar.

The Mother notes: “I don’t know if you have ever heard of Madame David-Neel who went to Tibet and has written books on Tibet, and who was a Buddhist; and Buddhists — Buddhists of the strictest tradition — do not believe in the Divine, do not believe in his Eternity and do not believe in gods who are truly divine, but they know admirably how to use the mental domain; and Buddhist discipline makes you a good master of the mental instrument and mental domain.”

“We used to discuss many things and once she told me: ‘Listen, I made an experiment.’ (She had studied a bit of theosophy also.) She said: “I formed a mahatma; with my thought I formed a mahatma.’ And she knew (this has been proved) that at a given moment mental formations acquire a personal life independent of the fashioner — though they are linked with him — but independent, in the sense that they can have their own will. And so she told me: ‘Just imagine, I had made my mahatma so well that he became a personality independent of me and constantly came to trouble me! He used to come, scold me for one thing, give me advice for another, and he wanted to direct my life; and I could not succeed in getting rid of him. It was extremely difficult, and I didn’t know what to do!’ “

“So I asked her how she had tried. She told me how. She said, ‘He troubles me a lot, my mahatma is very troublesome. He does not leave me in peace. He disturbs my meditations, he hinders me from working; and yet I know quite well that it is I who created him, and I can’t get rid of him!’ Then I said, ‘That’s because you don’t have the ‘trick’….’ (Mother laughs) And I explained to her what she should do. And the next day — I used to see her almost every day in those days, you see — the next day she came and told me, ‘Ah, I am freed from my mahatma!’ (Laughter) She had not cut the connection because that’s of no use. One must know how to re-absorb one’s creation, that is the only way. To swallow up again one’s formations.”

Sri Aurobindo and the Mother, Powers Within, Chapter II Power of Thought, pp. 14-15