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TULSI PRAJÑA The main aim of all these isms and techniques is to achieve an altered state of consciousness full of ecstasy by transcending the individualized personal ego. However, some of them employ crude methods like taking certain intoxicating drugs and tortuing the body. At least one thing is certain, that mạn has been in search of an altered state of consciousness since time immemorial because he has not been feeling satisfied with the consciousness in which he lives.
What is Meditation?
Meditation can better be understood by its process than by its definition, Yet, an attempt shall be made to define it. But before that there is a particular philosophy behind the process of meditation which can briefly be put as under:
i "Just as the modern scientists have discerned and taught that all matter is ultimately one and eternal, definitely related throughout the whole wide Universe; just as they have discerned and taught that all force is one and eternal, so coordinates throughout the whole universe that whateveraffects any atom measurably affects the whole boundless realm of matter and force, to the most distant star or nabula on the dim confines of space; so the ancient sages of India had discerned and taught that all consciousness is one, immortal, indivisible and infinite. Consciousness knows not multiplicity. All our misery is due to the development ofindividualized consciousness into such a hard rock that it refuses to communicate with the Universal Consciousnes. True happiness can never visit the hardened lower self. Sri Aurobindo says, "When we have passed beyond enjoying, we shall have bliss. Desire was the helper, desire is the bar. When we have passed beyond individualizing, we shall be real persons. Ego was the helper, ego is the bar". Meditation is the process to metamorphose the lower self into the higher self, not · by the extinction of the lower self but by extending its frontiers to the Higher Self,
like when we develop a single storey house into a multi-storey one. The lower self like the lower storey provides a base to the upper storey. This is the process of carrying out the spiritual man out of the physico-socio-emotion-intellectual man. The lower self does not fade away but enlarges to touch higher vistas. This process cannot be conducted harmlessly and gradually till the element of love - an unconditional love for all, is not there; for we all are basically one, the children of one Father. Only love can sustain this process of transformation of physical man into a spiritual man. This birth and growth of the spiritual man, and his entery into his immortal heritage may be regarded either as the culmination of the natural process of evolution and involution, or in Vedantic language, it may be looked at as the restoration of pure spiritual consciousness to its pristine and essential form. This spiritual impulse is an evolutionary imperative in man which, whenever curbed or repressed, causes wars, destruction, suicides, crime, neurosis, psychosis and all other distorted and maladaptive forms of behaviour. It was not the matter which suddenly decided to develop a part of itself into consciousness, but it is the
January-March1993
Jain Education International
For Private & Personal Use Only
www.jainelibrary.org
| SR No. | 524573 |
| Book Title | Tulsi Prajna 1993 01 |
| Original Sutra Author | N/A |
| Author | Parmeshwar Solanki |
| Publisher | Jain Vishva Bharati |
| Publication Year | 1993 |
| Total Pages | 156 |
| Language | Hindi |
| Classification | Magazine, India_Tulsi Prajna, & India |
| File Size | 9 MB |