I And Mine: [03.08.03] - 8 Formulas For Making Individual Efforts To Attain Liberation - 8. Mental Concentration (3)

Jainendra:

There is a danger of becoming inactive or inflating the ego in meditation.

Muni Shree:

One experiences innate joy during meditation. I look within myself. I spend some time on meditation. Even then my activeness has not diminished, nor am I assailed by egotism. On the other hand, I keep experiencing joy. Therefore, I feel that there is no danger in meditation. In the absence of joy the process of meditation can have something wrong in it.

Jainendra:

I have known at least a dozen people engaging in meditation up to two hours. Yet I find that their minds are distracted.

Muni Shree:

Something may have gone wrong with the process. Otherwise meditation results only in joy not in distraction.

Acharya Rajneesh came to Rajsamand. The topic of meditation cropped up for discussion. He emphasised concentration without any external support. I said it was an advanced stage; in the beginning difficulties arise in the absence of support. Using the navel as the support is extremely helpful in concentration. The very source of the breath pulsation is brought under control. It becomes rhythmical and the mind becomes steady. Eyebrows, the tip of the nose, throat, the heart, the navel, the middle part and the big toe of the foot are centres of consciousness. Concentrating the mind on these centres is called Pindasth meditation. During Padasth meditation support of words is sought. One should choose one' s adored word as support, like God or someone else. During Roopasth meditation one meditates on a concrete object other than oneself. It is because of this type of meditation that idols came into being. There is the story of Eklavya, who wanted to become proficient in the martial arts. For him the best support was Dronacharya. He got deeply involved in learning the arts after making Dronacharya 's idol as his support.

Roopatit meditation is meditating upon the Supreme Being. It frees one from perversions. It is the process of abandoning perversions.

The Gita says:

(Sense-objects cease for him, who does not enjoy them with his senses; but the taste for them persists. This relish also disappears in the case of the man of stable mind when he sees the Supreme Being). Sensual pleasures and perversions are two different things. The former are outside, the latter are inside. In Jainology the word Rus means perversion. There are 23 sensual pleasures and 244 perversions. By closing the eyes one does not derive sensual pleasure but one does not get rid of perversion. It is destroyed only when one comes to know the Param, i.e., the Supreme Being. He is without sensual pleasure, without perversion. He is the goal. He is what you want to be. By knowing that Supreme Being one frees oneself from perversions. During meditation liberation is achieved from both sensual pleasures and perversions.

No, it is a state of existence. In it while finite pleasures are got rid of, infinite joy is achieved. Supreme bliss is infinite, firm or steady and indestructible or endless. Worldly pleasures are ephemeral. A man is not so foolish as to abandon existence and go into non-existence. Mocking at the non-existential concept of liberation of the Vaisheshik School of Philosophy some Acharya of the Nyaya School of Philosophy has written:

(Gautam would prefer the presence of a jackal in Vrindavan to accepting the liberation propounded by the Vaisheshik.)

Liberation is at once a state of existence as well as non-existence.

We want limitless knowledge, limitless joy, limitless purity and limitless power. In the absence of the above, there can be no religion.

These are bur four goals. Irrespective of how much one achieves, the goals remain what they are. Such a state cannot be called non-existential; it is a developed state of consciousness. What we do not want is a finite state. Its existence ends there; therefore, it is a state in which both existence and non-existence inhere.

Jainendra:

Some of the leaders of the Sarvodaya movement are getting inclined towards V.K. Krishnamurti. One day Dada Dharamadhikari took me also to him. He sounds extremely correct. He speaks with complete confidence. But what is said is not practised. He says that time does not exist but his weekly programme of activities is drawn in advance.

Muni Sukh:

So far as freedom from passion BILD166a is concerned, that of the Tirthankar (founder of a religion) and the Kevali (the omniscient) is equal. A Tirthankar is busy with the creation of a religious doctrine, but this is not the case with Kevali. Can it then be said that the completion of freedom from passion lies in creation?

Muni Shree:

Creation comes out of the process of experiencing but its form depends on one's competence and background. For both (Tirthankar and Kevali) the behaviour and activity of the body are essential. This essentialness will continue so long as the body exists.

Muni Sukh:

Is there a logical sequence in Pindasth, Padasth and other types of meditation?

Muni Shree:

No thought was ever given to this point but, if necessary, it can be investigated.

At this point Umaro Chandji Mehta interrupted:

The body approaches the soul through the steadiness of speech and mind. It is the soul, which is beyond form. The first three types of meditation are instrumental in achieving stability or steadiness of the body, speech and mind.

Muni Shree:

There is a different sequence in some works, but the sequence presented above is sensible. Pind (the body), Pad (speech), and Roop constitute a proper sequence.