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The Power of Thought to Shape Our External Existence and Its Significance · Sri Aurobindo Studies

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  When we begin to reflect on the role of thought in the creation
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  of forms in the world. It becomes clear that it is an
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  important part of the process of converting pure conscious
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  awareness into the world of vital action and physical
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  substance. Thought is a tool of
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  consciousness. When properly utilized, it has
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  the power to shape matter and life.
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  We see this in the way we manipulate material substance in
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  the world. We are now able to edit genetic
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  sequences as well as liberate energy from matter.
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  The basic building blocks of material forms and living beings
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  are being harnessed and redirected.
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  The power of thought, however, is not necessarily always
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  beneficent. It can be applied for negative
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  or positive aims based on the intention and the care taken in
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  applying this tool. As we become aware of the power
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  of thought to shape the direction we take in life, it
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  becomes ever more evident and important to us to choose our
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  thoughts wisely, to focus them on creation and support of
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  harmony, compassion, goodwill, light and clarity of purpose,
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  rather than directing them into negativity, hostility, hatred,
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  division and the pursuit of mindless distraction.
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  Sri Orobindo notes in his Thoughts and Glimpses quote,
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  thought is not essential to existence nor its cause, but it
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  is an instrument for becoming. I become what I see in myself.
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  All the thought suggests to me I can do.
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  All the thought reveals in me I can become.
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  This should be man's unshakable faith in himself, because God
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  dwells in him. End Quote.
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  The Mother elaborates. Quote.
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  Sri Aurobindo declares that thought is not essential to
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  existence. It is not the cause of
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  existence, but is just the process, the instrument of
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  becoming. For thought is a principle of
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  precise formulation which has the power of creating forms.
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  And as an illustration, Sri Aurobindo says that all that one
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  thinks one is 1 can, by the very fact of that thinking, become.
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  This knowledge of the fact that all that one thinks 1 can be is
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  a very important key for the development of the being, and
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  not only from the point of view of the possibilities of the
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  being, but also from that of the control and choice of what one
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  will be, of what one wants to be.
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  This makes us understand the necessity of not admitting into
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  ourselves any thought which destroys aspiration or the
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  creation of the truth of our being.
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  It reveals the considerable importance of not allowing what
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  1 doesn't want to be or doesn't want to do to formulate itself
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  into thought within the being, because to think these things is
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  the beginning of their realization.
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  From every point of view, it is bad to concentrate on what 1
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  doesn't want, on what one has to reject what one refuses to be,
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  for the very fact that the thought is there gives to things
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  one wants to reject, a sort of rite of existence within
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  oneself. This explains the considerable
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  importance of not letting destructive suggestions,
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  thoughts of ill will, hatred, destruction enter, for merely to
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  think of them is all ready to give them a power of
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  realization. Fioro Bindo says that thought is
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  not the cause of existence but an intermediary, the instrument
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  which gives form to life, to creation, and the control of
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  this instrument is of foremost importance if one wants disorder
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  and all that is anti divine to disappear from creation.
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  One must not admit bad thoughts into oneself under the pretext
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  that they are merely thoughts. They are tools of execution and
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  one should not allow them to exist in oneself if one doesn't
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  want them to do their work of destruction.
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  End Quote Reference Sri Oro Bindu and the Mother Powers
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  within, Chapter 2, Power of Thought, pages 23 to 25.