People in order to escape quotidian tasks are involved in materialistic pursuits which further complicate their lives. They must meditate.
When does God laugh? "God laughs when the patient is dying and the doctor says that he will not let him die". Can any doctor give life to someone? If medicine could keep people alive, the population of the world would have been many times more than it is today. No one would have died, as doctors would have kept everyone alive.
What keeps us alive is our pranshakti or bio-energy. As long as bio-energy is there, cells will retain the power of regeneration (constructive metabolism) and as long as cells keep regenerating life will remain intact. Once the regenerative power ends, our resistance or immunity will decrease and gradually a stage is reached when neither the doctor nor any medicine will be able to save the life.
Pranshakti is the main basis of life. In Sanskrit life and pran are synonyms. Acquiring this understanding is the main subject of Prekshadhyan. The energy that keeps the body going is pran. Then there are the senses and their pran. The energy that keeps the senses functioning is pran.
There is a practice in prekshadhyan: Breath and experience the inhalation. It is pran that makes inhalation possible. During this practice the subtlety and concentration of the mind register a high rise.
Once Einstein invited a friend for dinner. The latter arrived on time but found that the scientist was totally absorbed in his research. In fact, he had forgotten about the dinner. The guest sized up the situation, helped himself with the food and quietly returned home. When Einstein finished his experiment and found empty used plates on the dining table, he said to himself possibly he had already eaten and went back to the laboratory.
How did such a great scientist behave so abnormally? When we are engaged in the subtle investigation of bio-energy, our energy withdraws within itself and nothing external is remembered.
Perception of the body, perception of the sense, perception of the mind, perception of the vital essence or bio-energy and other practices are aimed at a comprehensive understanding of life. From this point of view, it can be said that prekshadhyan is not mere meditation, but a philosophy of life.
Let us examine the philosophical aspect. 'Philosophy' is an ancient word, but what is taught in modern universities is purely at the level of ideas or thoughts. There are two dimensions of the word 'philosophy' - one is related to it as a subject and other as a body of ideas. The subject of philosophy is facts. The only function of philosophy from this viewpoint is to know reality. It can be factual or fact-oriented philosophy.
The second stream is utilitarianism. It is concerned only with utility and not with reality. These days there is a lot of talk about 'Applied Philosophy'. Anything that cannot be applied is not philosophy. Philosophy should not be merely factual, it should be utilisable.
Traditionally, philosophy split into two schools: Idealistic and realistic. In the latter, existence or reality is central, while in the former, the whole thing moves around an idea or presumption. Let us veer away from both approaches and link philosophy to life. Let us refrain from explaining the world or the highest or absolute truth. Let us explain only life and try to understand it. Such a philosophy is the philosophy of understanding life.
Today the entire energy is being spent on understanding the means of livelihood or earning a living. I asked students who came to meet me; "do you ever think about life?" They could not understand. Then I asked, "what is the purpose of your studies?" They replied; the aim of studying well is to earn sumptuously. The whole life has got cribbed and confined leading to all sort of problems.