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Jaina View of Life
engaging my attention for some time past. The bhava-lesya has a psychological significance. It is an aura created round the soul due to psychic effects and Yoga. It is dependent on the activity of the mind. The six primary colours are effects of the Karmic influx arising out of the mental states and events. Every psychosis brings some after-effects which are both physical and psychic; it is possible to show, by proper analysis and investigation, that such psychic phenomena exist and are detectable. The effects of psychic states are transformed, through some form of radiation into the 'aura' of colour spreading round the organism, like the halo supposed to surround a prophet. We have heard that the gods and the prophets like Jesus, Mahavira and Buddha, had halo round them. The Jainas have said that the enlightened ones still living in this world get a white halo around them. But those who are liberated are without any Lesya or coloration. They are alesyi. Such aura or coloration may not be visible to the eye, nor detectable by the ordinary instruments of science. But men disciplined in the Yoga and those who have developed an extrasensory capacity may see it. We may perhaps find some methods pertinent to para-psychology by which we may discover the possibility and existence of such phenomena. It would, therefore, be a problem for the para-psychologist's research.
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I have recently read an autobiographical note by Lama Mangalabjong Rampa, who states that he could see, owing to the Yogic discipline he had undergone, the 'aura' of colour round an individual. It varied with individual difference in the mental states at the moment. He once saw blue rays of light emanating from a Chinese delegation which had gone to see the Dalai Lama. He then appealed to the Dalai Lama not to take the delegation at their word, as they were full of fraud.
It would not, therefore, be a presumption to suggest that the Lesya phenomena should be investigated by the methods of parapsychology.
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