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THE MYSTERIES OF MIND
more valuable than it. We have to activate this system. It is by activating it that we can get rid of fear and all kinds of ordeals. Physiology has not yet been able to hit upon the method of activating the glandular system. The spiritualists have suggested a practical method.
Breath perception, body perception, self perception and meditation on the lasyās or colorations of the soul are methods of a harmonious acceleration of glandular activity. If we meditate on the glands which are the centres of consciousness, they will become active. Their activity will destroy fear and other emotions and open a new field of joy, enthusiasm and vigour for us.
One of the participants in the sādhană camp told me that he had a strange experience in his meditation which he had never had before. He felt that his glands had become active. I told him that what he had experienced is called apūrva karma. A pūrva means what has not happened before. Karma means a state of the mind. Apūrva karma means a state of mind which has never before been experienced. A practitioner experiences this state of the mind iwice in the course of his meditations. It first happens when right perception has been arrived at. It happens a second time when the practitioner ascends the kşapaka śrèņi or a special stage of medi tation which leads to sukla dhynaā (meditation on white colour). The practitioner passes through these two stages which along with other stages are arranged in a heirarchical order one above the other.
Meditation on the centres of consciousness is the only means of spiritual progress. Body perception is not an unimportant exercise. You may very well ask as to what the sense is in perceiving the body which is only a heap of flesh, bones, glands, nervous complexes etc. If the practitioner perceived only these, he will certainly remain an extrovert. He has to go deeper so that he may perceive the glow of the soul beneath the physiological contents of the body. Most of the practitioners do not dive so deep into the body.
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