Acharya Mahaprajna
- An energised mind accompanied by the consciousness of duality produces misery.
- Consciousness of duality produces tension. Tension produces mental deformities and diseases.
- The main part of mental therapy is the lessening of tensions.
- Let the feeling of equality and self-awakening continue indefinitely.
- Consciousness of duality is the fertile ground for emotions and impulses. Grieves and problems grow in this ground.
- Three major inspirations from consciousness free from duality:
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- Man by his very nature shuns problems and miseries.
- Supersensual tendencies of the brain.
- Experience of freedom.
- Consciousness free from duality is called Samayika.
- Attainment of consciousness free from duality is the greatest aspiration.
- Results of Samayika:
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- Control of mental processes.
- End of problems.
- Beginning of a life free from problems and grief.
We are fortunate that we are human beings. We are capable of developing our powers. We possess the potential for developing sense-consciousness, mind-consciousness and pure consciousness. Every living being has sense-consciousness. It is found among the most undeveloped living beings also. Living beings having two or three or four sense organs also possess sense-consciousness but man alone is capable of developing it in an unprecedented manner. Living beings other than man do not possess this capacity. This is also true of mind-consciousness. Living beings other than man and animals also possess a mind but man alone can develop his powers. The possibility of this development is not available to other living beings. Man is engaged in developing mental powers in all directions.
Memory, thinking and imagination are the functions of the mind. All these faculties point towards the great potential of the mind. The mind is the most powerful organ. Its powers are infinite. Memory, imagination and thinking are not the only powers of the mind. It has more powers than these. We can know these powers only when they manifest themselves in the course of the development of mental processes. So far as we remain circumscribed by memory, imagination and thinking, we shall not know the further possibilities of the development of the mind and its powers. We have drawn a circle around the mind. We do not want to cross this circle. It is not possible to assess the potentials of the mind without breaking this cordon. The mind can know the thoughts of other minds also and influence them. It can send and receive messages to and from other minds also. It can act on plants. Both conscious and unconscious beings can be affected by the mind. The mind can move objects and transplant and transport them. A trained and energized mind can do all these things easily.
How to train the mind? How to energies it? Let us consider these questions. The only way to energies the mind is to change the orientation of our life. It is not possible to change the course of life without changing the breath process. Breath or prana is the most powerful instrument of our powers. Life depends on breath. We live because we breathe. Let us therefore keep the lamp of life burning. There are lights, which keep burning for centuries and centuries together. Ordinarily lamps keep burning for a limited time only. Oil lamps burn for a few hours. But men have burnt lights, which will never be extinguished.
An Italian peasant was once working on his field with a spade. All of a sudden it stuck on a particular spot. When the soil of the spot was removed, it was found that there was a door beneath the soil. The peasant broke the door open. When he tried to enter into the door, he found that a light was burning within. He suspected that there might be a ghost there. But when he went near the light he saw that there was no lamp but only a flame. It was not a man made flame but an eternal flame because it was not produced by a lamp.
There is an eternal flame burning within us also. There are innumerable lights burning within all the living beings also. They will never be extinguished. Among the fuels, which keep these lights burning, the first is breath. The lights are the centres of energy. Those who have not practised breath perception will never be able to reach the centres of energy. So far as memory and thought processes continue, these lights can never be perceived. It can be said with confidence that the Tirthankaras and men possessed of knowledge and those accomplished in sadhana had burnt such lights with the fuel of breath only. Such an achievement is possible even today. Breath control and the turn we give to the breathing process are the preconditions of success in sadhana.
It is necessary to develop vital breath in order to develop the powers of the mind. Breath, vital energy and mind have got to be merged in each other. They form a continuous chain. When even a single link of the chain is broken, the entire process gets disturbed. We cannot catch the mind directly, but we can catch vital energy through breath and the mind through vital energy. Once we have succeeded in controlling vital energy, our personality begins to undergo a transformation and we can control the mental processes.
Samayika is a necessary condition for the development of mental powers. There can be no mental development without it. The state of serenity cannot be attained without it and even that small part of it which we have some how attained begins to retard. Samayika and mental progress form an inseparable pair. Both depend on each other for their respective development.
Samayika is the third area of consciousness. There are five kinds of duality in human life: gain and loss, pleasure and pain, life and death, praise and blame and respect and disrespect. Spiritual practice and astrology are based on these concepts of duality. The science of omens also depends on them. Astrologers forecast life and death, pleasure and pain, etc. in the light of the movements and positions of the planets. Such forecasts are made by the science of omens and breathing also. The outcome of man's life also depends on these pairs. A deep understanding of these pairs removes the dualities we experience in life. Spiritual exertion begins to grow at this stage and becomes consummate when consciousness becomes free from duality. Ordinary life is run by mutually contradictory forces. It is natural for the mind to feel grief in adverse circumstances and joy in favourable ones. Unfortunately we have taken these experiences to be the nature of human life. Joys and sorrows appear to be the natural characteristics of man's existence. We do not know that there is another aspect of the mind, which is beyond empirical consciousness. The entire course of our life runs within the limits of sense-consciousness and mind-consciousness. Spiritual life comes into being only after these limits have been broken. A third area of consciousness comes in our view only then. All duality comes to an end in this area. Once the self has entered into this area the five dualities mentioned above cease to exist. It is a balanced state, a state of equilibrium, of equality and serenity.
