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THE THIRD AREA OF CONSCIOUSNESS-EQUANIMITY
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It is necessary to develop vital breath in order to develop the powers of the mind. Breath, vital energy and mind have got to be merged in each other. They form a continuous chain. When even a single link of the chain is broken the entire process gets disturbed. We cannot catch the mind directly, but we can catch vital energy through breath and the mind through vital energy. Once we have succeeded in controlling vital energy, our personality begins to undergo a transformation and we can control the mental processes.
Sāmavika is a necessary condition for the development of mental powers. There can be no mental development without it. The state of serenity cannot be attained without it and even that small part of it which we have somehow attained begins to retard. Samayika and mental progress form an inseparable pair. Both depend on each other for their respective development.
Sämarika is the third area of consciousness. There are five kinds of duality in human life : gain and loss, pleasure and pain, life and death, praise and blame and respect and disrespect. Spiritual practice and astrology are based on these concepts of duality. The science of omens also depends on them. Astrologers forecast life and death, pleasure and pain etc. in the light of the movements and positions of the planets. Such forecasts are made by the science of omens and breathing also. The outcome of man's life also depends on these pairs. A deep understanding of these pairs removes the dualities we experience in life. Spiritual exertion begins to grow at this stage and becomes consummate when consciousness becomes free from duality. Ordinary life is run by mutually contradictory forces. It is natural for the mind to feel grief in adverse circumstances and joy in favourable ones. Unfortunately we have taken these experiences to be the nature of human life. Joys and sorrows appear to be the natural characteristics of man's existence. We do not know that there is another aspect of the mind which is beyond emperical consciousness. The entire course of our life runs within the limits of sense-consciousness and mind-consciousness. Spiritual life comes into being only after these
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