Does thought become matter – can thought enable us to achieve everything?
Thank you. Hare Krishna.
Hare Krishna. Question, does thought become matter? Can thought help us, enable us to attain anything material or even Krishna? Answer, thought doesn't necessarily become matter because thought itself is often material. Now, thoughts, presently as we think about them, they are functions of the mind.
They come from the soul, but presently our consciousness, our existence is three-dimensional. There is the body, there is the mind, and there is the soul. And the soul is spiritual, the body is material, the mind is also material.
The body is made of gross matter, the mind is made of subtle matter. And in this chain of spirit, subtle matter, and gross matter, the soul's consciousness comes through the mind and goes to the body and beyond the body outside. So, our, just as our speaking faculty right now is the speech.
Speech also comes from the soul, but it is rooted through the mind. Our hearing faculty is the ear. It's not the ear that is hearing, it is the soul that is hearing.
But the tool that is the faculty that is used for it is the ear. So, similarly, the part of us, the part of our embodied condition which facilitates thinking is the mind. And because at present the thoughts that we have are primarily rooted through the mind, so those thoughts are already material.
So, now, do thoughts materialize, do thoughts become matter? What this means is, our thoughts become matter, this is usually used in the context that whatever we think about, that will become a reality. Yes, this is true with some provisos. It is not that everything that we think will necessarily become a reality.
It is not that if we suddenly start thinking, I'm sitting on this chair and I will levitate and I will fly into the space. It's not that just by thinking like that I will be able to actually fly in the sky. No, there are certain physical limitations which we have, which we cannot overcome.
We cannot just swim underwater without any external equipment, just like say some underwater aquatic creatures can. So, there are certain physical limitations. So, it's not that everything that we think about will automatically materialize.
At the same time, it is true that consistent, persistent thinking about something is important if we want to actualize it in our life. There is vision and then there is purposeful action and there is transformation of vision into reality. So, Shri Prabhupada, he said that when he was sharing Krishna consciousness all over the world, he had a vision to share Krishna consciousness all over the world.
At that time, he was practically alone but still he had a vision that there are temples and there are devotees all over the world and only time is separating us. I mean, Prabhupada said time is separating us but Prabhupada did not just passively stay there. He actually moved onwards and he worked purposefully, tirelessly, intelligently, creatively to try to share Krishna consciousness and eventually hundreds, thousands, millions of devotees manifested all over the world and over 100 temples manifested in different parts of the world.
So, thus, thought is vital for actualizing things but it is not that all thoughts will automatically transform into reality and those who say that thoughts alone create reality or thoughts become matter, what they often overlook is that thoughts are not supreme. The one extreme is, say, B.F. Skinner's Behaviorism, that thoughts don't matter, everything that happens is simply a result of the laws of physical nature. The other extreme is to make thoughts, so the first extreme makes thoughts utterly unimportant.
The other extreme is to make thoughts as all important. So, there are books like The Secret which say that thought itself, if we think about something, we will immediately, we will achieve that thing. So, this makes basically thought into God.
But thought is not God. Thought is meant to be used in the service of God. And so, that's why one of the principles in the Bhagavad Gita, central principle of bhakti is to always think about Krishna.
Because when you think about loving Krishna, think about serving Krishna, think about glorifying Krishna, then by that thinking, gradually the thought reality will become our lived reality. Our consciousness will become elevated to the spiritual level and we will experience Krishna as our life's highest reality. And thus, thinking is vital for achieving anything in life.
But thinking alone doesn't achieve things. Thinking followed by action and thinking followed by purposeful action accompanied by God's grace. That will lead to the actualization of things.
But thinking is vital. And that's why we need to provide, we need to give adequate time, invest adequate time in cultivating the right kind of thoughts. And when we become devoted to Krishna and we focus on loving and serving Krishna, we focus on his merciful loving nature, then positive spiritual thoughts become our natural mental disposition.
That is the most empowering disposition that we can ever have. Thank you. Hare Krishna.