Acharya Mahaprajna
The first power of the mind is imagination. Only a man of imagination can achieve great things. The practitioner is time and again warned not to give a loose rope to the faculty of imagination during meditation. However, we need imagination when we are not meditating. Meditation needs a state of thoughtlessness. Thoughtlessness and imagination are not basically opposed to each other. Imagination is however, a hindrance in meditation. In ordinary life it is a very useful faculty. It is also useful in the progress of meditation. Before he sits down for meditation the practitioner must have a clear image of the ideal he wants to achieve. Thearhat is an ideal and the practitioner should draw a clear image of the arhat in his mind. He has to fix this image in his mind. Meditation has the power to transform the meditator according to the ideal he has imagined for himself. It is the medium of transformation of personality. It is also a medium of acquiring all sorts of powers, good as well as evil. Such powers can be acquired by the concentration of the mind also.
Will is the next power of the mind. It strengthens contemplation. Will is another name of bhavana. If the practitioner has a strong will, he begins to feel himself to be what he wants to make of himself. Will produces such vibrations in the thought process, which bring about a transformation of personality. It also produces vibrations in the sky, which bring us nearer to our ideal.
Sometimes we hear that God revealed himself to such and such a person. How does such a revelation take place? The practitioner who has formed a clear image of Mahavira becomes Mahavira. Those who had clear images of Rama and Krsna became Rama and Krsna. The nature of revelation is determined by the kind of image we form in our minds. The god we see is the god whose replica we had formed in our imagination. The replica becomes the god revealed to us. This happens due to the vibrations caused in the sky by the practitioner's will power. These vibrations produce the image the practitioner contemplates. This is how we have revelations.
We have to utilize both will and imagination in sadhana. The third power of the mind is concentration. We have to utilize this power also. We have to concentrate the entire energy of the mind on the ideal. This will not allow the mind to go astray. Mental processes which do not flow towards a fixed direction*defeat the purpose of sadhana. We can become what we want to become only when the mind begins to flow in a single direction. Let us, therefore, walk on a straight path. One who beats about the bush cannot achieve success. A combined and correct application of imagination, will and concentration of the mind leads the practitioner into a state of meditational self-absorption.
Samayika is our ideal. We are meditators. There is a long distance between the meditator and his ideal. It can be measured in terms of our restlessness or in terms of concentration. The more the restlessness, the longer the distance. The more the concentration, the shorter the distance.
There are two planes of the mind, the plane of restlessness and the plane of concentration. The restless mind refuses to concentrate on a single point. The concentrated mind, on the other hand, is a one-pointed mind. It does not stray. It is, therefore, necessary to reduce the restlessness of the mind because it always keeps the ideal at a distance from us.
There are two states of knowledge: knowledge and meditation. Both come under the category of knowledge. Changing consciousness is knowledge whereas fixed consciousness is meditation. Meditation is knowledge but all knowledge is not meditation. Every form of meditation is knowledge. There is no form of meditation, which may be spoken of as ignorance. Only that consciousness is meditation, which is fixed on an ideal.
It is very difficult to shorten the distance between the meditator and his ideal. Attempts to shorten this distance are often fraught with difficulties. The meditator often becomes distracted and loses his concentration. In such a state the mind becomes entangled in external things and the image of the ideal becomes dim and hazy. Sometimes it is lost. The distance can be reduced only when the mind constantly flows towards the latter. As soon as the meditator frees himself from restlessness, the ideal begins to move nearer him. When it becomes achieved, the meditator becomes absorbed in and one with it. Absorption means unity with the ideal. In such a state every thing other than the ideal disappears. The earlier personality of the meditator becomes transformed into a new personality. The empirical self or the ego disappears and the true self is realized. The state of samayika is a state of unity. The meditator becomes samayika itself. The duality between the meditator and the ideal comes to an end. Having arrived in this state the meditator has nothing else to do. His entire life becomes samayika. The ideal of equality materializes itself. This process can be utilized for purposes other than samayika also. Whatever the ideal, it can be realized by it. The purpose of preksa meditation is the attainment of full consciousness. We begin this meditation by first perceiving the bones of the body, then the flesh, marrow and blood and then other constituents of the body. We perceive all the dirty material accumulated in the body. Why should we be called upon to perceive these things when our aim is the attainment of full consciousness? It may be mentioned that perceiving these things of the body is inevitable in the process leading to self-realization. We have to pass-through, these perceptions before we can perceive the soul. The ideal is not remote from the body. It is inherent in it. A crocodile once took a monkey for a pleasure trip across a lake. When they reached the middle of the lake, the former told the latter that it wanted to eat its heart. The clever monkey remarked that it had left its heart on the shore of the lake. Samayika is not like the heart of the monkey, which could be separated from the body and left in some remote corner. The meditator's soul always remains in his body. Therefore we have to perform our journey through the body in order to attain the self. We will begin this journey by first perceiving the skin of the body and then pass on to the nervous system. Then we will cross the taijasa body, which is the driving force of all the impulses and tendencies of the body and mind. We receive our vital energy from the taijasa body. After having crossed the vibrations of the vital energy we will come face to face with the karmai sarira, which is the spring of all our energies. Other springs are minor and smaller springs. The biggest is the karma body. The practitioner will have to perceive all the traces of past deeds imprinted on each and every particle of the karma body since time immemorial.
The subtle body is a vast world. It is so vast that all the worlds seen till today can be submerged into it. It is far bigger than the biggest star. We will have to cross the karma body. As soon as we have done so, we will begin to have glimpses of the fundamental consciousness, the attainment of which is our ideal.
