Acharya Tulsi
A puppet-show was on in the village. The children had forgotten about eating their food and were engrossed in watching the show. Even the young and the elderly people formed part of the audience. The puppets were dancing and singing. They were talking with each other. They were also quarrelling and doing many others things. The audience was fascinated, wondering how these lifeless puppets, made of wood and bits of cloth could do all those things.
The puppets have no life and for that reason, they do not think. Without the power of thinking, it becomes impossible to carry on all those activities intelligently. The puppets did not do those activities on their own. The puppeteer who pulled their strings was at the back of the stage. Keeping himself invisible, he was making those puppets act.
Activity and Emotion
Man does many activities. He eats drinks and laughs, he beats abuses and condemns, he admires, gets angry and loves, he makes wars, gets frightened and who knows what else he does. The same person indulges in all these contradictory activities. Sometimes one begins to wonder how the person, who was perfectly calm a moment ago, got suddenly so excited. One wonders if it is the same person or someone else.
What one concludes after seriously thinking about this problem indicates that all human activities can be compared with the actions of the puppets. Like the person who handles the puppets, there is an invisible factor that guides the human activities. This factor is emotion. Man's activities reflect his emotions. From this point of view, human activities depend on his emotions.
When a person gets angry, his eyes become red. His nostrils pulsate. His lips quiver. His fists close tight and he starts babbling. He raises his hand on someone with a stick. What do all these things indicate? Our acharyas have described them as inauspicious. They have called them negligence. Feelings like anger, greed, attachment etc. lead to such negligence or inauspicious responses. Resorting to 18 sins like pranatipat amount to negligence or inauspicious responses. If there are no feelings of anger, greed, attachment etc., resorting to sinful acts would become gradually impossible.
Emotion and Aura
What is an emotion? It is necessary to understand man's aura in order to understand his world of emotions. The brighter the aura, the purer are his emotions. The haziness of his aura is the concrete proof of his impure emotions. Man's emotions are related not to external form, but his aura. It can also be said that man's aura would show what his emotions are. A person may be extremely handsome to look at and give the impression of being very gentle and charming. But if the reflections of his aura are hazy and unseemly, then it must be concluded that there is something wrong with his emotions. Similarly the glowing aura of the persons who have an ugly appearance shows that their emotions are pure. It is not within the power of ordinary persons to understand that aura, but it is possible to remain alert about it for the sake of the purity of emotions.
Emotional Disorder the Main Cause of Illness
What matters is emotional health. To understand the meaning of emotional health, it is necessary to pay attention to vyadhi[1], adhi[2], upadhi[3], and samadhi[4], all of which are of the same nature and convey the same sense. The trouble is created by their prefixes. As long as the individual is dominated by adhi, vyadhi and upadhi, he cannot be healthy. Only the person in samadhi can remain healthy. The joy of living can be experienced only in the state of samadhi.
One goes to a doctor when he is ill. The doctor examines him, and tries to go to the root of his patient's illness. He treats that illness depending on how far the illness has affected the patient's physical condition. But he forgets the patient. He treats his vyadhi, but does not go deep enough to take into consideration the patient's mental condition before treating his illness and try to understand his situation and his emotions. The health of the body, mind and emotions of the patient are kept in mind during the treatment at the emotional level.
The basic problem is to understand the knower and the knowable. The renowned scientist Einstein said, "I have known the objects well enough. Now I want to know those who know about the objects." So long as the knower is not regarded as the knowable, it would not be possible to know him thoroughly.
Treating Emotional Disorder
Discoveries in the field of medical science have made this field very wide. Today, there is no dearth of hospitals and doctors. As the number of doctors goes up, there is a corresponding increase in the number of patients. A doctor, whether he is a physician or a surgeon, gives the treatment in the light of mechanical diagnosis. Only the symptoms recognized at the physical level become the basis of the treatment. In that condition, the treatment of mental agony and anxiety becomes secondary.
As for emotional disorder, there is no medicine, no physician and no salubrious diet to deal with it. The state of emotional disorder can be treated with the awakening of a sense of discretion. Emotional disorder is an internal illness which manifests itself in the form of feelings like anger, attachment, and greed in intense sensuous desires and in impulses. Dhyan, pranayam, anupreksha, yogasansa etc., are necessary to minimize their impact. In brief, it may be said that it is possible to get over this illness through the process of self-control.
Emotional Conflict
If bhavas are considered as a matter of principle, we are faced with two types of bhavas: due to rising of karmas, emergence of feelings and their annihilation cum-subsidence. With the emergence of the feeling of attachment, man's emotions become distorted. The subsidence of that feeling refines his emotions. The sadhaka realizes that the emergence of those feelings is repeatedly defeating their subsidence. Still he does not lose heart. He, who keeps his endeavour like a sharpened weapon, manages to strengthen the subsidence of his feelings. But in the absence of alertness and endeavour, it is difficult to cope with the emergence of those feelings. The frog which struggled inside the pot full of curd saved itself and the frog which remained inactive, found itself in the jaws of death. The subsidence and emergence of emotions can be explained by this incident.
The conflict between the emergence and the subsidence of emotions continues till the seventh gunasthana. After this comes the state of subsidence of attachment. In this context, Jayacharya has written in the Chaubisi:
In the process of upward movement, unashamed and kshapaka emanate from the eighth gunasthana. The sadhaka who rises through upashama is forced to return to the 11th gunasthana.[5]
The sadhaka proceeding through subsidence suppresses his feelings of anger, pride, attachment and greed. He suppresses these feelings to such an extent that it makes him almost a dead person. But he does not die. He only gets into a state of swoon. He becomes calm as the illness which is suppressed with the help of allopathic treatment. One gets fever, he is given an injection and the fever goes down. But when the effect of the injection wears out, the fever rises again. Similarly, the sadhaka in the 11th gunasthana becomes dispassionate. He is freed from the feelings of anger, attachment, greed etc.
But he is bound to retract from that point. He has suppressed his impulses, not eradicated them from his system. Unless those feelings are eliminated, they would surge up again and when one gets into that state, his fall is certain. The person going down from the 11th gunasthana can even go down up to the first gunasthana.
The sadhaka rising through the path a kshapaka does not suppress his negative feelings but proceeds by gradually eliminating them. He keeps from the 10th gunasthana and crossing over the 11th gunasthana, reaches the 12th gunasthana. Only he, who has completely eliminated attachment, can go to the 12th gunasthana. After reaching that point, the path of going back is closed and the danger of the emergence of the feeling of attachment is also eliminated. From this point of view, it can be said that the kshyikabhava is the ultimate goal of a sadhaka.
Struggle is Life
Kshyikabhava is highly desirable for us. Why only for us, it is the only way to rise to the highest level of development. Only the person with kshyikabhava can become dispassionate. He alone can become a siddha. One has to constantly struggle for that. Bhagwan Mahavira has said, "It is rare to find the proper equipment for the war. [6] Man's insatiate body is that equipment. Therefore, till the old age does not bother, vyadhi does not increase and the powers of the senses do not decline, keep on struggling. But against whom should that struggle be? It has been said in reply to that question: What would you gain by struggling against a lion or a brave warrior? If you are keen, struggle with your on Soul, with the Karma shareera.[7]
Anuvrat proclaims, "Restraint alone is life." And prekshadhyan pronounces, “Struggle alone is life." If the course of emotions has to be changed, we shall have to struggle for it. Keep on struggling, persist in your struggle, and do not look back. Only one who struggles, triumphs. With that faith in mind, constantly struggle.
Carry on the struggle till the emotions do not follow a different course. Otherwise, the serpent of pride would hiss once more. The fire of anger would flare up again. It is the greatest defect to allow feelings of pride, anger etc. to prevail over you. It is the greatest illness and the worst type of anxiety. Hence, prekshadhyan exhorts first of all to understand the world of emotion. So long as the state of emotional health is not reached, one cannot be completely healthy, physically and mentally. It is absolutely necessary to take a plunge in the three some process of anuvrat, prekshadhyan and jeevanvijnan. [ 8]
