Thursday, January 10, 2008
For meditation, it is necessary to go beyond the limits of the senses.
The practice of meditation started with the recitation of this maxim and it was concluded in course of time. A sadhak asked: "Is the maxim of perceiving the soul through the soul a practical one? Is it possible?"
The sadhak said - "My knowledge is subservient to the senses. Whatever I know, I know through the five sense organs and the mind. If I renounce them, wherefrom shall I obtain the data on which knowledge is based? Wherefrom shall I receive the raw material? The sense organs constitute the only means of our contact with the world. There are five sense organs with their five subjects, called the intrinsic modes. There are five qualities - sound, form, smell, taste and touch.
To apprehend these, there are five senses - the sense of hearing, the sense of seeing, the sense of smell, the sense of taste and the sense of touch. Each sense apprehends its particular quality. Under these circumstances, how is it possible to perceive the soul through the soul?" For meditation, it is necessary to go beyond the limits of the senses. Acharya Siddhasena wrote: "Let us observe the condition of the body; let us perceive the state of our mind. Let us observe all this with our mind's eye, which means 'perception of self through the self.’ There are eight kinds of karma and hundreds of dispositions. These dispositions come to fruition every minute. Knowledge-covering, intuition-covering, deluding, obstructing - all these dispositions are in the course of maturing. A complete system thereof is functioning in the body. To witness all these varying states with the mind's eye is 'perception of the self through the self."
The man who observes the different states of the body and the mind, starts witnessing, besides the present, his past and future, too. This is an exercise of generic memory. First of all, a person observes the phases of the gross body, then the phases of the taijasa sharir (electrical body) and the vibrations of karma sharir (microbody). Later, he will start witnessing his past life.
Thus progressing from the gross to the subtle, he will develop the capacity to witness his future. This condition of farsight is possible only through self-perception. If we see only others, we will not be able to resolve our problems.
Looking at others has become our second nature, but along with it we must develop the capacity to look at ourselves. Then we shall be able to maintain an equilibrium. A balanced approach will be helpful in the all-round development of our life, freeing us from all bias and taking us towards perfection.