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MENTAL POWERS AND SAMAYIKA
181
Life is a synthesis of and compromise between several elements.
A joyous life needs four factors : knowledge, perception freedom from passions and power. A full life can be possible when all these factors manifest themselves simultaneously. When this happens one begins to feel that his life is free from weakness. disturbance and excitement and that it is not an empty dream. Let us, therefore, devote ourselves to the attainment of all these factors. We should not be votaries of mere knowledge or mere perception or mere passionlessness or mere power. Passionlessness energises consciousness. Activization of consciousness increases energy. Increased energy brings about a state of passionlessness. The full development of personality is the result of a combination of these four factors. A single sided development is not beneficial. We cannot deny the importance of power, but the development of power without the simultaneous freedom of consciousness from duality is not beneficial. Power creates and encourages duality. Awareness of duality produces tensions. Passions and impulses find a fertile ground in the awareness of duality. All kinds of excitements take place in a state of tension. There will be no passions, excitements and cravings when there are no tensions. They appear only when the mind and body are tense. Predilections produce tensions before they become active.
Tensions cause mental disorders and diseases and even mental derangement. Mental disorders have invaded the world on an unprecedented scale. Psychic disorders have become an ever recurring phenomenon in the modern world.
The psychosomatic method of treating patients has revealed one interesting fact. A large number of physical diseases is caused by psychic factors. The root cause of several bodily diseases lies in the mind of the patient. This is the general trend of medical thinking today.
The number of patients of mental diseases has become so large today that it seems impossible to cure all of them of thelr diseases. Psychiatrical cases have multiplied by leaps and bounds. Electric shocks, tranquillisers and sedative drugs are being used in huge quantities to calm the minds of all sorts of lunatics. These methods are helpful in reducing
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