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Direct Knowledge
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Jhāna consciousness is a mystic consciousness. It is brought about by auto-suggestion. It consists in intensifying or concentrating consciousness on a single object. The object is first of all a percept, than an image, than a concept. So far the mind is in the preparatory stage. Then gradually the contents of consciousness are eliminated in the different stages of Rūpa jbāņa till the mind at last acquires supernormal clarity of vision and hedonic indifference. So long the mind is in the plane of visible forms ( Rūpaloka ). It is conscious of the ethereal but not of the immaterial or non spatial. Then the mind comes in touch with the entirely immaterial world of the invisible or formless by gradually eliminating all consciousness of distinction and limitations. The mind is, at first, concentrated on infioite space, then on infinite consciousness, then on infinite pothingness, and last of all attains the stage of complete trance or quasi unconsciousness which may be described as neither consciousness nor unconsciousness. This is the highest stage of Jhāna-consciousness, but not the highest plane of consciousness. When the mind completely transcends even the plane of visible or formless (Arūpa loka), it attains the stage of transcendental or super mundane consciousness (Lokottaracitta).
As to the noetic quality, Jhāna.consciousness is strongly characterised by it. It gives us insight into depths of truth upfathomed by the discursive intellect: it brings the mind into touch with higher and higher planes of existence. The chief intellectual result of the different stages of Jhāna-consciousness is a supernormal clarity of inward vision or intuition untroubled by discursive intellection or hedonistic affection.
The Jbāņa process gives the following powers :
(1) Hyper-aesthesia of vision or clairvoyance (dibbacakkhu
abhinna), e. g. the supernormal vision of the past and
the future history of a particular individual. (ii) Hyper-aesthesia of hearing or clairaudierce (dibbasota)
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