Acharya Mahaprajna
Daily Excelsior
The beauty and good features of the body also affect human personality. There was a Vaidya (Ayurveda practitioner) in Jaipur, named Nand Kishore ji. He was the disciple of the famous Dadupanthi Swami Lachchhiram ji. It was the time when Gurudeva was camping at Melusar village near Sardarshahr.
The Vaidya met him and as he was looking at Gurudeva reverentially, his eyes got fixed on the latter's ears and he said, 'Acharyaji, seeing you, I am reminded of Lord Buddha. Your ears are very much like his.' Thus the external features also influence the onlooker considerably. They are also a constituent of personality.
However, we should not stop but go beyond them to acquaint ourselves with the inner personality. We should see how healthy the nervous and the endocrine systems are.
Many methods and techniques of preksha dhyan aim at making the nervous and the endocrine systems healthy. Some of the pranayam exercises balance the nervous system. A big problem the teacher faces is that he encounters two types of students - those who are rudely rebellious and those who are timid and cowardly, always staging a retreat.
A competent teacher will try to locate the problem, direct attention to the nervous system and come up with a solution. But an ignorant teacher will complain against the students to their parents or guardians, who will remonstrate with their wards, which will in no way solve the problem. Complaints may bring temporary relief, but cannot bring about any great reform. They do not solve the problem of building the student's personality.
The solution lies in being aware of the fact that we are inattentive to the process of transformation. We rarely deliberate on the way which can bring about a change and build personality. No need was ever felt to include things like these in formal education.
In the past, students were subjected to corporeal punishment, but it did not at all help in personality building. Nowadays, teachers refrain from it, they either register complaints against the erring students or grow indifferent to them, neither of which again leads to the development of personality.
Those determined to bring it about have to have a comprehensive view of things and locate the cause of the aberration. That is why the teacher too has been regarded as a physician, for he also diagnoses and treats to cure.
As has been noted earlier, there are two constituents of personality-building - the endocrine system and the nervous system. Preksha Dhyan exercises balance the endocrine system. A number of students who were extremely cowardly got rid of their fear by meditating on the taijas kendra or Centre of bioelectricity. The son of a millionaire had a constant fear of people and things and even in his business dealings shivered with fear and hesitation in talking to other people. He too by following the same practice, completely overcame his fear and began talking and negotiating deals with utmost confidence and self-assurance.
Fear automatically vanishes with the activation of the taijas kendra (at the navel), which is the product of bio-energy. The exercise relating to the balance of the endocrine system is meditation on the chaitanya kendras or psychic centres. It is extremely helpful in building personality.
Similarly, exercises in the perception of breathing through alternate nostrils and the perception of slow and deep breathing also play an important role in balancing the nervous system. The clear direction towards personality-building requires that the body be made one of its means and its inner aspect be