What are Thought Forms? – I
The basic unit of mind is termed a thought form. A thought form can be considered a homunculus of awareness: an observer / observed duality. The observer and the thing being observed arise together. For example, if a tree falls in a forest where no being can hear it, it does not make a sound thought form. There can only be a sound thought form if some being is hearing it. Although we believe that we are separated from what we are observing (seeing, hearing, smelling, etc.), the fact is that this is indeed merely a belief.
This is actually a very difficult point to grasp – that things don’t happen outside of us, as seems to be the case, but rather we and the things that happen to us are but two sides of the same coin. It’s like that optical illusion which can be viewed as either a vase, or else as two people facing each other. Which is it: a vase, or two people? In the same fashion, there is no world outside of ourselves, but merely a belief we have that there is an outside world there impinging on us. Things don’t happen to us; rather, the things that happen are us. The world outside of ourselves is merely our reflection.
This is easier to understand with regard to dreaming. While we are dreaming we believe that what is happening to us is real; but when we wake up, we realize that it was just our projection, no matter how real it appeared to be while we were asleep. Similarly, the world we experience when we are awake is also just our projection, and it is only our belief that it is real which makes it seem real.
Whether we are awake or we are dreaming, things seem to happen to us. The “things” which happen to “us” are thought forms. In order for mind to operate there has to be both “things” there, and also an “us” to which those things are happening (separation between that which is happening and the being which is experiencing it). When we are listening to sounds or are otherwise attentive to the now moment, we are aware of the continual changes going on around us. By contrast when we are thinking we shut out our awareness of the world around us and focus on a self. Either we are thinking about the past or the future; but in either case we frame our thoughts in terms of a self to whom things happened in the past or to whom they will happen in the future. This focus upon a continuing, abiding self who has a personal history and will have a personal future is what creates that continuing, abiding self; or better said, creates a sense of a continuing, abiding self, because in fact the continuing, abiding self doesn’t have objective existence. All that exists is a stream of thought forms.
Although they arise and fall from moment-to-moment, thought forms create a false sense of continuity because of our inattention to their momentary nature. In other words, we do not usually notice the fact that we are not the same person from moment-to-moment. On the contrary, we believe that we are continuing, abiding beings. Thought forms are our sense of there being a detached, moment-to-moment observer – a self – which abides and which is experiencing the unfolding of an external reality. In point of fact “we” are a myriad of thought forms which are just passing the baton of attention from one to another. This passing around of attention is what appears to us to be the unfolding of events in linear time. It seems to us that there is a sensible progression from moment-to-moment only because we choose to believe that there is a sensible progression from moment-to-moment – just as in dreaming things make sense even if, from the point of view of waking, the unfolding of events is completely bizarre. It is merely our belief that we are continuing, abiding beings in the midst of unfolding events which makes it so.
(continued …)