Internal Manifests First, Then Comes the External

To take an internal trip and see the goings on there is prekshadyan. We tend to burden our minds. We presume that X is good while Y is bad; one thing is agreeable, another disagreeable: that A is a friend while B is a foe. Who presumes these things? The mind's functions are confined to remembering, imagining and thinking. The presumption's source is the world of our emotions.

The original source is the soul. It is the soul's animation that flows out. Around the soul the first circle is that of the karma sharir, a body made up of the eight kinds of karma from where vibrations of the karma sharir emanate. Another circle is the sukshma sharir, made of the aura and light radiation. In it vibrations coming from the karma sharir take shape and turn into a stream of emotions, which enter the hypothalamus in the brain. The mind in itself lacks animation; it is animated by emotion. Prekshadhyan considers the difference between the mind and the subtle or activating mind.

The mind is lifeless; it is directed by emotions. Emotion is instinctive awareness, and its vibrations together with those of the sukshma sharir become emotions, which direct the mind.

Jain philosophy and Patanjali Yoga lay emphasis on the psyche. Anger, conceit, deceit, fear, greed, hatred and lust - they dwell inside. These feelings manifest themselves through the medium of the mind. The expression ‘mental feeling' is indicative of the fact that the psychic drives force themselves on the mind and are experienced as mental feelings.

Charles Darwin used the expression ‘struggle for survival'. That struggle takes place externally, but even in our inner world, there is constant struggle. According to karma philosophy there are two aspects: one is of constant struggle that increases self-conceit, anger, simulation and dissimulation and jealousy. Its only function is to nourish these distortions. The other tendency is to assuage or remove these perversions, and to encourage and nourish modesty, uprightness etc. These two tendencies are at war with each other.

While one of them is the soul's pure stream, the other is its karmic stream. Both are working within us all the time. Practise prekshadhyan because we have to strengthen that stream or inclination of the soul which has in it peace, integration, friendliness and coexistence, and we have to weaken that stream which produces disquiet, wars, terrorism and agitation.

The UN constitution says: “Since wars begin in the minds of men, it is in the minds of men that the defences of peace must be constructed”. Mahavira revealed the same truth 2,000 years ago. Violence is first born inside us and only later on manifests externally. The external world is manifest, the inner one is non-manifest.

Sankhya philosophy says the earth is odorous. Well, the earth does have an odour, but it is not manifest. If water is poured over it, fine scent comes out of it. The world of our mind is manifest while that of our inner feelings is non-manifest. Most things first happen in the inner world and then manifest themselves outwardly. One who has tried to understand the theatre of inner happenings knows what is happening and where. What matters ultimately is bringing about a transformation.