Habits Of Thought

[QUOTING]

As we have seen, the candidate for new liberating life must first of all form the image of the Immortal, Heavenly, Original Man in the process of sanctification through which he must live. Through a fundamental change of life he must build up this mental conception, this thought-image within his field of respiration.

You probably know that all thought-images created by man are taken up into his field of respiration. Thoughts are things, light flashes, light impulses of the brain. These light rays are compounds of a very rarefied matter which can be detected and even weighed by means of very sensitive instruments. So thoughts are things, real material forms, though of a much more rarefied nature and construction than our gross material bodies. These thought-forms remain within or near their creators' immediate field of action. They unite with thought-forms of the same kind and become more and more powerful thereby. When we do not mentally animate these thought-beings within our field of respiration and they consequently remain at rest, they resemble cloudy accumulations that show a distinct motion like the cloud formations in the air.

If we observe a person from this point of view, we see these thought-clouds appear at the right-hand side of the body, at the height of the waist, then rise above the head, only to descend and disappear at the left side of the body, again at the height of the waist. When observing another person, this circulation appears to be clockwise, while observing the process withing ourselves, the movement appears to be counter-clockwise.

Since they are creatures, living beings, these thought-clouds must be fed. We have to understand that thoughts are living entities of a definite order and class. For their maintenance they depend upon the light-power, the light-matter of the brain from which they originated. These beings will therefore entreat, and if possible, even compel their creators to feed and maintain them with the same thought-power out of which they are created. We would like to fully describe the way in which this coercion is exercised by the offspring of our thoughts.

When a human being succumbs to this completely natural compulsion -- as he does daily, almost hourly -- then we distinctly see forms originate from these mental clouds circulating within the field of respiration, the most expressive external characteristics of which are perhaps the eyes. To the degree in which the form is being mentally fed, its eyes emanate a paralyzing, hypnotizing influence, with increasing force. Hypnotized by his own mental offspring, the person in question is driven to action, to a series of actions, and thereby to complete slavery to his own phantoms.

In this way all of us, in the course of ages, have become slaves of our delusions, of our prejudices and vices which had taken shape in our field of respiration through the working of our thoughts and which we had kept up and fed until they finally began to dominate us. The mode of life which we so often regret and so frequently offer powerless resistance, the mode of life which embitters our life because we become disgusted with ourselves and are in danger of losing all self-respect, is the result of that compulsion proceeding from this circulation of habits of thought, from our mental conception in the field of respiration.

Humanity is ill, mortally ill, a victim of its own creative drive, and there is no earthly man of whom this statement is not true. Because dualistic man, second-by-second, abuses the creative faculty of his brain we mention in such a horrible, chaotic manner -- with all the fatal results associated therewith -- he has often degraded himself below the animal. When the Bible fulminates against the abuse of the holy creative function, it refers to this destructive application of the mental faculty which is subjugated to an almost unbounded desire life and its consequences. Imprisoned within the vicious circle of habits of thought, many people are thus too black and depraved to be touched.

If we fathom our own heart we must admit that, imprisoned in the chain of habits of thought, we have experienced undesired thoughts forcing their way to the surface of our consciousness for unknown reasons, to follow their calamitous course. How many times have we not exclaimed: 'I don't do what I want, but do the very thing I hate!'

What then, is the cause of this disastrous, undesired stream of lower thought life, which escapes our control to an alarming extent?

Generally speaking, the cause is the blood! The desire, the susceptibility for unholy living lies anchored in our blood. Duality is rooted fundamentally in our blood. The passion of the blood forces its way, no matter what. This is a matter of survival for the human animal.

How does this passion, this primal passion, enter our blood? To answer this oppressive question, we must be detailed. The time has come for a more scientific explanation.

From "The Nature of Human Imprisonment" - The Coming New Man - Jan van Rijckenborgh

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