The Wordless Dialogue of
Feelings, in the Ocean of Human Thoughts
Carlos Cardoso Aveline
During a meeting, an idea occurs to you and in the same instant someone else says to everybody that which you just thought. You may say to yourself that this is a coincidence.
On another occasion, you think of someone and the phone rings. You answer the telephone, and it’s the person of whom you thought. You can force yourself to conclude this also happened by pure chance. But one day you wake up in the morning thinking of an old acquaintance from whom you have heard nothing in many years, and you receive a letter or message from the person. Or you arrive to a meeting in the precise moment when your name is being mentioned.
Such facts are frequent in daily life, and none of them is mere coincidence. They constitute concrete examples of one of the most fascinating functions of human consciousness: telepathy, the perception and transmission of feelings and ideas at a distance.
The English language term “telepathy” combines two Greek words: “Tele” (“at a distance”) and “Pathos” (“feeling, suffering”). The literal meaning is “to feel at a distance”.
The word means therefore much more than mere transmission of logical and clear-cut thoughts. It includes all kinds of contact between two or more minds, when such an interaction transcends (though often including) the help of the five senses.
The phenomenon is more frequent than people generally think, but in most cases it happens in semi-conscious, unperceived and undesired ways. Telepathy is present in the various aspects of daily life, although in partial and distorted ways. Those who know about that are more careful with what they think and feel regarding persons and situations.
The magnetic affinity that makes telepathy possible can be harmonious or not. Telepathic exchanges are the source of suffering and blessings. Not everything that is similar can be harmoniously combined. Some differences are complementary, and some are not. In order to avoid problems, the best choice is to stop thinking in wrong ways and to intensify the unconditional practice of right thought.
In some situations, and especially when we make silence in our minds, we can listen to thoughts. We don’t hear words, but we perceive the ideas and intimate feelings of others. Thoughts are transmitted in natural and inaccurate ways. Telepathy occurs in silence and side by side with verbal communication. It uses words as its vehicles and instruments. Telepathy gives another and deeper meaning to whatever a person says or hears. It re-writes an old popular saying:
“What the eyes can’t see, the heart feels.”
The student of theosophy must reduce the level of inaccuracy in the way his heart feels, and improve the way his heart talks without words.
A family, a group of friends and a school of philosophy are telepathic fields. They are subtle territories inhabited by groups of thoughts and feelings. The unnoticed telepathy is partially responsible for collective habits, customs and opinions that come to be consensus. It explains the process of leadership.
Just like telepathy, the transmission of written or spoken words is a magnetic process. A correct idea, emitted by someone in a favourable context and moment, is quickly transmitted to the consciousness of many.
The same correct idea, if issued in an unfavourable moment and context, may remain ignored by other minds and need a long time to have its value socially recognized. In every epoch, evolutionary pioneers must open new pathways under difficult conditions and challenge the accumulated power of collective ignorance, until their ideas are recognized as true and transmitted in wider circles, destroying the veils of previous illusions. The pioneers of universal brotherhood, for instance, have been working for many a millennium. They have kept the perception of this ideal alive and preserved the ethics, the wisdom and the discernment that are inseparable from it. Their mission will proceed until humanity fully awakens from the unfortunate dream nightmare of unbrotherly civilizations.
In individual life, telepathy is a form of direct dialogue between human auras. It reinforces and accelerates the process of harmony and disharmony. When someone meets another person and likes him or her, he will think well of the person. The positive thoughts and feelings get to the other and – if there is real affinity – friendship and cooperation may take place. When the individual dislikes someone he meets, his thoughts and feelings also get to the other person and if other factors are not stronger there will be a tendency for the negative feeling to become mutual.
There is a practical conclusion to that. If you stimulate balanced and constructive feelings of respect for all people – including those with whom you have a difficult relation – the law of magnetic reciprocity and the unavoidable circulation of thoughts and feelings will grant you the harvest of what you sowed.
The universe does not have long-enduring secrets based on separateness or absence of communication, and it does not allow them to exist. There are some facts which humans do not understand, and to which many are unprepared. The true esoteric secrets, for example, are preserved as such because they occur on planes of abstract thought and universal perception which cannot be grasped by unprepared and inattentive minds, and would have harmful effects on them.
The law of karma has no exceptions: that which goes, must come back. What one sows, one harvests. Everything you do, think, feel, dream and wish regarding yourself and others is recorded and, whether good or bad, will bear its fruits in due time, including future lifetimes of your spiritual soul. This is the great power and responsibility of human thought.
The magnetism of altruistic ideas makes telepathic transmission easier. The fact does not mean that angry feelings remain isolated. Anger is well transmitted in the short term. In the medium and longer term, it tends to provoke separateness. Bitterness and pessimism produce a sense of disconnection. The magnetism of solidarity unites and stimulates confidence. According to Helena Blavatsky, the only thing that can separate two minds is the difference between their states of consciousness, and not physical distance. She wrote:
“The time is not far distant when the World of Science will be forced to acknowledge that there exists as much interaction between one mind and another, no matter at what distance, as between one body and another in closest contact. When two minds are sympathetically related, and the instruments through which they function are tuned to respond magnetically and electrically to one another, there is nothing which will prevent the transmission of thoughts from one to the other, at will; for since the mind is not of a tangible nature, that distance can divide it from the object of its contemplation, it follows that the only difference that can exist between two minds is a difference of STATE. So if this latter hindrance is overcome, where is the ‘miracle’ of thought transference, at whatever distance?” [1]
The subconscious telepathy that unites human minds is the source of that traditional vigilance of parents who wish to make sure their children have correct friendships. If someone spends time with an individual who has correct thoughts, the elevated mental energy is telepathically absorbed.
It is not always necessary for a wise man to be near people who think right. In the New Testament, Jesus is surrounded by deluded people and leads them to moral and spiritual healing. A good and wise man has the power to irradiate light and peace through his very presence, and is protected by his own purity from the magnetic contamination of negative feelings. The classic work “The Dhammapada” says:
“Him I call a Brahamana who is friendly among the hostile, mild among the violent, ungrasping among the greedy.” [2]
It is by subconscious telepathy that, when we are in the presence of a truly saint person, we feel inspired and elevated. That is the reason why the Golden Verses of Pythagoras recommend:
“…Make the most virtuous thy friend.”
The Law of Nature establishes that attraction must take place by similarity. One must follow his natural tendency to look for Truth and Goodness, while avoiding or putting limits to other influences. But how does the transmission of thoughts and feelings take place? The Indian theosophist Subba Row wrote in the 19th century:
“The only explanation we can give of the phenomena of thought-transference depends upon the existence of the astral fluid – a fluid which exists throughout the manifested solar system, but which does not extend beyond it.” [3]
According to esoteric science, the akasha or astral light is the subtle and transcendent counterpart of the material, vital, emotional and mental planes of life. Subba Row added, a few paragraphs later: “Perhaps matter in its ultra-gaseous condition – radiant matter – may help us to a conception of the astral fluid.”
The concept of “radiant matter” was used by the end of 19th century to refer to that which was later called radioactive or atomic energy. Technically, atomic energy belongs to a lower level of the akasha or astral light.
Subba Row says that the astral fluid exists uniformly throughout space in the solar system. Yet it is denser around certain objects or organisms due to their molecular action: “…This is especially the case around the brain and spinal cord of human beings, where it forms what is called the aura. It is this aura round the nerve cells and nerve tubes which enables a man to catch the impressions made upon the Astral Light in the Cosmos.” [4]
Each thought takes place together with a corresponding change in the energies of the nervous system. In the medium and long term, the nervous system always adapts itself to the nature of the thoughts we produce. The energy of the nerves has its aura and is united to it by a strong and intimate connection. The aura works like an antenna to the subtle world. Subba Row writes:
“In certain cases we find that a sense of calamity is felt by a person at a distance when his friend is dying (…). We believe that somehow our mental ideas are connected with the emotions of pleasure and pain (…)”. Other currents are accompanied by “feelings without images”. [5]
According to the inner quality of his consciousness, each citizen will have the habit of attuning to some higher levels of reality, or will be able to attain to them by his own efforts.
Nobody is a passive victim of circumstances. Individual human beings create the psychic atmosphere in which they must breathe and live. A raja-yogi of the Himalayas wrote:
“… Every thought of man upon being evolved passes into the inner world, and becomes an active entity by associating itself, coalescing we might term it, with an elemental – that is to say, with one of the semi-intelligent forces of the kingdoms. It survives as an active intelligence – a creature of the mind’s begetting – for a longer or shorter period proportionate with the original intensity of the cerebral action which generated it. Thus, a good thought is perpetuated as an active, beneficent power, an evil one as a maleficent demon. And so man is continually peopling his current in space with a world of his own, crowded with the offsprings of his fancies, desires, impulses, and passions; a current which re-acts upon any sensitive or nervous organization which comes in contact with it, in proportion to its dynamic intensity.” [6]
Wherever he goes, a human being takes with himself in his aura a luggage full of thoughts, emotions and records of past facts. He also carries with him the direct and indirect seeds of his future. Part of such a karmic luggage comes from previous lives. The contents of his aura guide the individual along life, but do not suppress his freedom, nor his responsibility.
Free will consists in choosing the karma one will sow each moment, and in deciding which seeds one will cause to germinate under existing conditions. Within the limits offered by karma, one can choose the influences which surround him. One can also work for the circumstances around to improve, starting from within.
There are numerous possibilities in the interaction among minds. Theosophy invites us to remember that each human being is a summary of the cosmos and contains a world in his consciousness. When two persons have different opinions on someone else, this often occurs because they detect different factors or layers in the total being of the third person. There is no such thing as an absolutely neutral observation. Every examination exerts some form of influence over the being or object under scrutiny.
When an individual who is aware of the ongoing involuntary telepathy wants to act in a correct way regarding the challenge, he makes an effort to purify his mind and leaves aside the temptation of destructive thought. Self-control and self-purification are easier when his soul is dedicated to the search for universal wisdom. Human mind has the size of that which it contemplates, as Patanjali clarified. No mind is narrow which is dedicated to elevated goals.
Helena P. Blavatsky wrote that it is hard to find anyone who is not under the influence of another person’s active will. She gave a few examples. In classical war, when the beloved general rides along the front, the soldiers get into magnetic sympathy with him and share his enthusiasm. They follow him without fear and bravely face danger.
In a church, the preacher gets up in his pulpit and irradiates his own magnetism. H.P.B. describes the typical scene:
“…Although what he says is the most incongruous nonsense, still his actions and the lamenting tone of his voice are sufficiently impressive to produce ‘a change of heart’ amongst, at least, the female part of his congregation, and if he is a powerful man, even skeptics ‘that come to scoff, remain to pray’. People go to theater and shed tears or ‘split their sides’ with laughter according to the character of the performance, whether it is a pantomime, a tragedy or a farce.” [7]
We are constantly affected by the will, the feelings and thoughts of others. And we affect them at the same time.
The mistake of carelessly forming an untrue and negative opinion of anyone will never remain unpunished by the law of karma. He who has common sense abstains from forming negative views or images regarding the ones he loves, or regarding those with whom he has no affinity. All are under each one’s influence, up to a certain extent. One must be careful with any open criticisms, if they are destructive. But silent negative thoughts can be even worse, for they often remain unperceived, or are only partially perceived.
We must look at people from a generous point of view, and honestly criticize the attitudes which we consider wrong, giving them a chance to answer and to explain.
The general view and image we have of another person must be positive for at least two reasons. The first one is that the other is, in part, a psychological mirror to us. The second one is that, just like ourselves, each human being has an unlimited potentiality towards goodness. Criticism must be limited therefore to an action, an aspect, and a given time. One should not criticize a person without sincerely mentioning some of his virtues. Persons of goodwill will not forget that every human being has in himself the seeds of perfection. We are all students and teachers in the school of life. We help build each other’s character in various ways, including involuntary telepathic interactions.
An individual who pays attention to life feels responsible before his conscience. He has a clear purpose in any situation. He is not taken here and there by the illusory wind of other people’s thoughts. The spiritual apprentice tries to be fully conscious of the feelings and thoughts he emits. He patiently observes the ways he harvests the fruits of life. He gradually learns to sow goodness. Gradually the thoughts and feelings he produces and transmits to others and to the astral atmosphere become more consistent and beneficent, and his action as a center of peace expands.
Everything in the universe is made of pulsating energy and there are numerous levels of vibration. The colors, lights and sounds we perceive are all vibratory layers and waves, just like the sensations of taste, touch or smell. In the heart-beating rhythm, in the breathing movement of the lungs and in the flow of thoughts and feelings, all life is cyclic and undulatory. Its precise rhythm, however, is not always easy to perceive. The ocean of life has many different currents. Each human being uses his free will to establish his individual mantra, his particular way of vibrating and expressing the One Law. However, there is no separation. Everything that vibrates in an individual is transmitted to others, and goes back to him after undergoing a number of changes.
Human beings constantly produce vibrating currents on the various levels of thought, emotion and on the physical reality, and these lines of action are recorded in the astral light for his debit or credit. The thoughts and feelings he creates have – up to a certain extent – a life of their own. Their effects and destiny depend above all on the intention and the intensity with which they were emitted. Appearances make scarce difference: a harsh criticism is good karma when the intention is to have a mistake corrected in the effort toward wisdom. The kind compliment is bad karma when not sincere. Astuteness is the opposite of intelligence.
There are positive and negative forms of telepathy, and the one we ought to stimulate the most is that which takes place as a sense of communion with all beings in the universe. Our thoughts, feelings and intentions create a corridor of magnetic affinities which unites us to all and to each one upon whom we concentrate our attention and with whom we interact in our minds. Life and the Law of Karma “listen” to our thoughts and have them recorded. Each human being can improve the quality of the unique “occult sound” which is peculiar to him, and which results from the sum total of his intentions, emotions, thoughts – and actions.
The universe is an ocean, and it has a superficial layer of life where one finds apparent confusion and disharmony. As we look from a deeper point of view we see that everything flows in unity in the sea of human thoughts. He who takes responsibility for his own life ceases to act in a self-defeating way and concentrates his vital energy around permanent goals.
Although probations are necessary so that progress is firm and durable, inner peace expands in one’s life from the starting point of such an effort. One’s mind obtains stability; a distance is naturally established from confusing thoughts. One’s eyes see across larger distances. The sky of one’s consciousness gets wider and clearer, free from unnecessary tempests. As a stronger sense of communion takes place, the conscious perception of thoughts and feelings gets more accurate.
NOTES:
[1] “The Key to Theosophy”, Helena P. Blavatsky, Theosophy Company, Los Angeles, 310 pp., 1987, see Section XIV, p. 291.
[2] “The Dhammapada”, Theosophy Company, Los Angeles, 139 pp., see chapter 26, p. 93, aphorism 406.
[3] “Esoteric Writings”, T. Subba Row, Theosophical Publishing House, 576 pp., India, 1980, see p. 130.
[4] “Esoteric Writings”, T. Subba Row, Theosophical Publishing House, 576 pp., India, 1980, see p. 131.
[5] “Esoteric Writings”, T. Subba Row, Theosophical Publishing House, 576 pp., India, 1980, see p. 135.
[6] “The Occult World”, by Alfred P. Sinnett, 1884 edition, Kessinger Publishing Co., Montana, USA, 140 pp. plus Appendix, see pp. 89-90.
[7] See the third and fourth paragraphs in the article “Are Chelas ‘Mediums’?”, by H. P. Blavatsky. The text is published in “Theosophical Articles”, Helena P. Blavatsky, Theosophy Co., Los Angeles, Volume I, pp. 295-298.
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The initial version of “Telepathy, the Silent Conversation” was published in Brazil by “Planeta” magazine. In the first semester of 2009, the text appeared in another magazine, “Bodigaya”. A Portuguese language version of the article, revised in 2014, is available at our associated websites under the title of “Telepatia, a Comunicação Silenciosa”. The present English language version was published in December, 2014.
See the short-story “The Islands of the Mind-Readers”, about the large-scale occurrence of natural telepathy. Written by Edward Bellamy, the classical story can be found at our associated websites.
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In September 2016, after a careful analysis of the state of the esoteric movement worldwide, a group of students decided to form the Independent Lodge of Theosophists, whose priorities include the building of a better future in the different dimensions of life.
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