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YOGA AND MEDITATION
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Rūpātita dhyāna is a meditation which is focuses on bodiless objects such as the liberated souls or siddhas, which stand individually and collectively for the infinite qualities that such souls have earned. That omniscient, potent, omnipresent, liberated and untainted soul is called a nirañjāna, and this stage can be achieved by right vision, right knowledge and right conduct only. Right vision, right knowledge and right conduct begin the fourth stage of the 14fold path (see chapter 9).
The ultimate aim of such yoga and meditation is to pave the way for the spiritual elevation and salvation of the soul. Some yogis develop their own methods for meditation. But every one of them has to learn how to silence his or her mind, body and speech.
The kayotsargi method is found to be very useful by many Jains. The meditator sits in a comfortable position (preferably in a lotus position on the ground) and breathes easily and deep, with closed eyes for five minutes. Next one imagines oneself to be dead, and that the body has lost its consistency: visualizing upward from the toes to the heels, the knees, the thighs, waist, chest, shoulders, neck, face, cheeks and eyes and then the forehead, the body is a corpse, i.e. utterly relaxed. Then one starts all over again from the toes to the forehead, and so on, repeating until one feels fully relaxed.
With every cycle one feels a deeper relaxation and the breath becomes slow and deep. Because the meditator imagines that he is dead, he listens to no one and nothing, and feels no pain. All physical senses have been extinguished. The meditator is even unable to move. Simply as an observer he knows that his body breathes and his heart beats. Then he asks himself the following question: Who am I? When I am dead, is this body “I” or something else? I was once a child. Before that I lived in my mother's womb – what I don't remember. This “I” is completely alone. I came alone. I live alone and will go alone. For whom and for what purpose am I here? Who really belongs to me in this world? Who can liberate me from suffering and death? Has anyone ever been liberated and
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