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THE MYSTBRIES OF MIND
knowledge of their past lives. He who possesses such knowledge remains perplexed because he knows the good or bad deeds he had done in the past. It is so because he is not able to bear the burden of the memories of his past life.
Sometimes we come across those whose 'third eye' has opened. Such men are capable of anticipating what is going to happen in the future, distant or immediate. They is likely to know when they are going to die or what harmful event is going to happen. All the worries of the future begin to hover over their mind, and because they are not capable of standing all these, they become perplexed and restless.
If we accumulate knowledge which we are not able to carry, it will upset our mental balance. An increased voltage of electricity, if the insulation system is weak, will produce danger. We cannot sustain an increased volume of knowledge if the insulation of the mind is defective. It will undo the recepient. Hence the need for balance. The system according to which knowledge manifests itself determines howmuch of it can be sustained by the recepient. In the language of the ancient scriptures the knowledge-obscuring agencies increase or decrease according to the increase or deciease in the volume of obstructing karma (antarāya). Only that amount of knowledge can be turned into practice which is the outcome of a balance between the amount of knowledge and man's capacity to sustain it.
A disciple-once asked his preceptor : “What can we achieve with the help of the sense organs?” The preceptor replied, “The achieveinent depends on the reduction in and eradication of the clouds which obscure knowledge and perception and the karma which obstructs the progress of the soul.” Obstructingkarma and antarāya work as an insulating device for the human mind. It will, therefore, be wrong to think of achieving anything only by removing the screen which obscures knowledge and perception. We cannot under-estimate the insulatory role which antarāya plays in the mental processes, Knowledge and perception work according to the system into which they have been placed, whereas the obstructing-karma is concerned with man's capacity for knoviledge. The latter watches howmuch ignorance and delusion have been redụced
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