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THE MYSTERIES OF MIND
will not accept subordination to any power on earth. He would awaken the Bahubali in him. He would refuse to be overwhelmed by the forces of delusion and ignorance. He would join battle with them. What is needed is a strong will and determination. A strong determination and an equally strong devotion to truth made Bāhubali victorious over his adversary. The practitioner always remains wakeful and eschews self-negligence. He will never surrender before the forces of delusion.
Bharata had a ring-shaped weapon called Cakra. It had been coveted even by the gods. The practitioner of sadhana also has such a weapon with him. It is the weapon of prēksā or the power of perception or perceptive meditation. Preksā dhyāna is a powerful meditation. He has nothing else to do except to perceive.
When the battle between Bharata and Bahubali reached a stalemate, the armies stopped fighting. It was decided that Bharata and Bahubali should fight a duel. He who won the duel will be declared the victor. One of the conditions laid down for the battle was that the combatants will not weild any other weapon except their eyes. They would go on starting at each other's eyes without twinkling them. If in the course of this staring, the eyes of any one twinkled, he will be declared vanquished. The practitioner of preksā meditation also uses his eyes as a weapon. Preksā means looking within with wide open and fixed eyes and with an unprejudiced or empty mind.
When we start looking within, we come across anger, pride, deceit, conceit, likes and dislikes, craving for sensual pleasures and mental disorders seething and surging in our hearts. The practitioner has nothing else to do except to watch them, to perceive them. In the course of a prolonged perception, they will disappear by themselves. Perceptive meditation is a great weapon. It is a sharp and deep-penetrating weapon. In perceptive meditation we employ will and feeling. We also meditate on leśyā or coloration. These devices make the practitioner immune from external influences.
It is said that the future wars will be fought not on the geographical plane but on the psychological plane. There will
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