Pir-o-Murshid Inayat Khan continues his explanation of the nature of mind and the work of the imagination. The previous post in the series is here.

Someone asked me what elementals look like. I answered, ‘Elementals are exactly like your thoughts. If you have the thoughts of human beings, then the elementals have human form. If you have the thoughts of birds, then the elementals have the form of birds. If your thoughts are of the animals, then the elementals have the form of animals, for elementals are made of your thoughts.’

There is another most interesting aspect in studying the nature of the mind. Every mind attracts and reflects thoughts of its own kind – just as there is a part of the earth which is more suitable for flowers to grow in and another part of the earth more suitable for fruits, and yet another part where weeds grow. Thus, a reflection that falls from one mind to another mind only falls upon the mind that attracts it. This is the reason why like is attractive to like. If a robber or a thief goes to Paris, he will certainly meet with another thief. He will easily find out where the thief lives, and he will recognize him at once because his mind has become a receptacle for thoughts of the same kind. As soon as their glances meet, a communication is established, as their thoughts are alike.

One sees in everyday life how like attracts like. The reason is that the mind has developed a certain character, and the thought-pictures of that particular character appeal to it. It is so very interesting for a person who sees this phenomenon in everyday life that there is not one moment when he does not see the truth of it.

High minds will always reflect and attract higher thoughts; from wherever it comes it will come to them. It will be attracted to the mind the ground of which is prepared for it. An ordinary mind is attracted to ordinary thoughts. For instance, a person who has a habit of criticizing people is very eager to open his ears to criticism because that is the subject which interests him, his pleasure is there. He cannot resist the temptation of hearing ill of another because this is most dear to his heart, for he speaks ill of others himself. When that thought does not belong to a person, it is a foreign note to his ears, and he does not want to hear it. His heart has no pleasure in it and wants to throw off anything that is inharmonious. Therefore, the mind-world is man’s kingdom, his property. Whatever he sows, he reaps. Whatever he keeps that property for, that is produced in it.

Now, going into deeper metaphysics, what is it that forms the thought-picture? It is a very subtle question. A materialistic scientist will say that there are thought-atoms that group and make the form. Joining together, they compose the thought-form. If he wants to make it more objective, he will say that in the brain there are little thought-pictures, just like moving pictures, and that, moving successively, they complete the form. For this person does not see further than his body, and so he wants to find out the secret of the whole life in his body and in the physical world. In reality, the brain is only an instrument to make thoughts clearer. Thought is greater, vaster, deeper and higher than the brain.

To be continued…