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A Series of Lessons in Raja Yoga608
Many other writers have given us examples and instances of the operation
of the out-of-consciousness planes of thought. One has written that when the
solution of a problem he had long vainly dealt with, flashed across his mind,
he trembled as if in the presence of another being who had communicated
a secret to him. All of us have tried to remember a name or similar thing
without success, and have then dismissed the matter from our minds, only
to have the missing name or thought suddenly presented to our conscious
mind a few minutes, or hours, afterwards. Something in our mind was at
work hunting up the missing word, and when it found it it presented it to us.
A writer has mentioned what he called “unconscious rumination,” which
happened to him when he read books presenting new points of view
essentially opposed to his previous opinions. After days, weeks, or months,
he found that to his great astonishment the old opinions were entirely
rearranged, and new ones lodged there. Many examples of this unconscious
mental digestion and assimilation are mentioned in the books on the subject
written during the past few years.
It is related of Sir W. R. Hamilton that he discovered quarternions one day
while walking with his wife in the observatory at Dublin. He relates that he
suddenly felt “the galvanic circle of thought” close, and the sparks that fell
from it was the fundamental mathematical relations of his problem, which is
now an important law in mathematics.
Dr. Thompson has written: “At times I have had a feeling of the uselessness
of all voluntary effort, and also that the matter was working itself clear in my
mind. It has many times seemed to me that I was really a passive instrument
in the hands of a person not myself. In view of having to wait for the results
of these unconscious processes, I have proved the habit of getting together
material in advance, and then leaving the mass to digest itself till I am ready
to write about it. I delayed for a month the writing of my book ‘System of
Psychology,’ but continued reading the authorities. I would not try to think
about the book. I would watch with interest the people passing the windows.
One evening when reading the paper, the substance of the missing part of