Central Chronicle
It should be understood through anekanta that all the yogic modes, that is modes created by contacts and relations, and the different states of opinions and external stimuli, can be changed. They are modes that are within our control. We can change them if we want to and not change them if we do not want to.
This is like a voluntary nervous system. As soon as we wish to change, we change. Our body, psyche and mind changes. Our rays of consciousness changes. Our subtlest variations of consciousness changes. Our aura changes. The energy of our body changes. The chemicals and the functioning of the nervous system of our body also change. The hormones secreted by the glands also change.
Everything changes if we wish it. We should get this clear that while we can play no role in interfering with the natural modes, we can change all other modes. Man thinks he cannot change. That habits can never change. This is false and ignorance impedes our development. We have taken those which are not rules to be rules. It is because of this that man does not aspire to change.
A priest was talking to a scientist. The scientist said, "Man can fly and in fifty years from now he will." The priest replied," you are wrong. Only Gods can fly not men. By saying so you are insulting the Bible and other ancient saints. You are trying to prove them wrong. The development that was to take place has taken place. All discoveries have been made.
No new discoveries can be made. All doors to discovery are closed." Such a notion evolved because the priest thought that truth was searched out only in the past and that it had been completely found and no new search was thus possible. Religion accepted this as the only truth and clung to it and so the religious world saw no further development.
You will find it surprising to hear that the same priest's sons discovered the aircraft fifty years later and flew in the sky.
Transformation is an eternal rule. All the truth that has been uncovered is but a drop in the ocean. The ocean of truth is full. With one single drop we have assumed that we have comprehended all truth; that our search has ended; that the doors have been closed. But who opened them to close them?
The Jains say that today the door to moksha or liberation is closed. Jamb swami closed the doors to liberation. Whether he did so or not, we definitely have done so. Who locked and who unlocked? Who reached the doors and who inserted the keys? Who had the keys? Was there a watchman at the door to liberation who locked or unlocked the door as desired? Acharya Tulsi once said that the Jains have rejected the possibilities of liberation and have made the religious world like the material world. People now sit back believing that there can be no esoteric knowledge or absolute knowledge. Liberation cannot be. This belief has stultified their desire for quest.
If an ill man thinks he can never get better, then he never will. If a fire catches on and anybody thinks that it can never be quenched then it can never be quenched. Man will never make an attempt to fetch water or sand. Due to a wrong belief, all of man's hard work, efforts come to naught. We should not be worried if the door to liberation is open or not, if it is locked or not. We should believe that even today liberation, pure knowledge and esoteric knowledge are attainable. All the possibilities are still open.
The need is only for extreme effort and extreme hard work. We should not worry how far our effort will take us. But we should see to it that there is no drop in the effort put in. When man is dejected in the first step itself then his second step is never taken. He is engulfed by many problems. Due to his ignorance, false beliefs and strange thinking man takes the wrong steps and gets caught in the vicious cycle of problems. This can happen due to fear also. He begins meditational practice but fears the future because of his accompanying remiss behaviour. Fear, ignorance, ambition are all obstacles to meditational practice. They do not let us transform.
The transformation we want to undergo we are not able to effect. Undesired changes occur but not the desired ones. They get distanced.