The Thought Process

Deccan Herald

We have either good thoughts or evil thoughts or no thoughts at all in our minds. Similarly we do either good deeds or bad deeds or no deeds at all. Thoughts are mental processes. As processes they do not differ from each other. Both are waves. Generally we believe that physical objects have colour, form, sound, etc. A scientist does not think in these terms. For him objects have neither colour nor form nor sound nor heat. He thinks of the world in terms of time and energy. The world is a process of energy in time. Energy is the substance of which the entire universe is made. Therefore, thinking, whether we think good or bad thoughts, is a process of energy. If our purpose is to arrive at a state beyond these processes, the first thing we have to do is to rescue ourselves from bad processes and to swim with the good processes.

Lesya meditation is the easiest means of swimming with the good current and can turn your thoughts in the right direction. Social relations are the breeding ground of all kinds of evils, more especially mental evils. They force us to react. We cannot get rid of the life of reactions without meditating on auspicious colourations (lesya). There are three auspicious lesya called taijasa, padma and sukla. We can change our mentality by meditating on these lesyas.
Thoughts are produced either by internal tendencies or by sounds prevailing in the sky. Pudgal (material) particles of sound enter into our mind and produce thoughts. For example, a group of persons sitting together. There maybe good or bad among them. The thoughts of the good men spread in the sky and influence the entire company. It is the same with bad men. This influence is due to the force of thoughts. They strike the minds of other men and influence them.

The Acaranga says, “Don’t keep company with bad men.” To avoid the effects of bad thoughts we have to take precautions. The first is to subdue bad tendencies. Meditation of taijasa and padma lesyas purifies mental tendencies. The second is not to allow evil thoughts to arise in our minds. Meditation on the sukla lesya stops the rise of such thoughts. Meditation on the white colour wards off evil thoughts, which enter into our minds from outside. Meditation on red and yellow colours stops evil thoughts, which rise from within the mind itself. Once we have shielded ourselves from external and internal sources of thoughts, our minds become the abode of good thoughts only, which are helpful to us in our spiritual pilgrimage. Although lesya itself is a wave, yet it carries us to a state of calm.