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The Need for Understanding the Power of Thought Formation · Sri Aurobindo Studies

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  What is thought formation? For many people, the constant
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  stream of haphazard ideas, thoughts, reflections, and
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  perceptions represents thought. Their minds are constantly
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  bombarded by thoughts of all types without a consistent flow
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  or theme. They jump from one subject to
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  another without even a transitional link.
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  They have not discovered the true power of thought when it is
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  organized, focused and directed. There are times and moments when
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  an individual concentrates his attention on a specific subject
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  of interest that one can observe a systematic development of
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  thought focused on that subject and building from one idea to
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  another until a pattern or picture emerges, which we may
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  call a thought formation. The thought forms so created are
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  usually general in nature and go out into the mental atmosphere,
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  vibrate there, and if there is another individual receptive to
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  that vibrational pattern, it gets picked up and potentially
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  further enhanced and rebroadcast.
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  There are thought forms that are tied to a specific individual
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  and are tightly focused around that person's own interests,
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  needs, wants, and plans. In that case, while a thought
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  form is created, it does not achieve full and free
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  independence, but also continues to act within the mental space
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  of the individual who created it.
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  Thus the individual finds that the thought pattern returns and
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  continues to fix the attention of that individual time and
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  again until the underlying issue is fully resolved or
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  implemented, as the case may be. Sometimes the formation so
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  developed take over the mind of the person, and they develop a
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  monomania of sorts that does not let go of them, the mother
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  observes. Quote.
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  Human thought is very creative in the mental world all the
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  time. When you are thinking, you are
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  creating forms and you send them out in the atmosphere and they
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  go and do their work constantly. You are surrounded by a heap of
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  small formations. Naturally, there are people who
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  can't even think clearly, so they form nothing at all except
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  faint eddies. But people who think clearly are
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  surrounded by a heap of little forms which sometimes go out to
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  do some work in others, and one when one thinks of them again,
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  they return. And we have seen instances of
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  people who are troubled by their own formations, which return
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  constantly as though to take possession of them, and which
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  they can't get rid of because they don't know how to undo the
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  formations they have made. There are more cases of this
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  kind than one would think when they have made a particularly
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  strong formation for themselves. You see, relatively, this
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  formation is always tied up with the one who makes it and returns
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  to knock at the brain to receive forces, and ends up by truly
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  acting as a necessity. It is a whole world to know one
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  truly lives in ignorance. One has powers 1 doesn't know
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  about. So naturally 1 uses them very
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  badly. 1 uses them somewhat unconsciously and very badly.
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  End Quote reference Sri Aurobindo and the Mother, Powers
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  within, Chapter 2. Power of Thought, page 14.