Mysteries of Mind

Author(s): Mahapragna Acharya
Publisher: Today and Tomorrows Book Agency

Page 32

DEVELOPMENT OF THE FORCE OF RESISTANCE
nerves and the motor nerves are ordered to remove the thorn.
The entire nervous system has a great importance in sādhanā. It is essential for the practitioner to understand the functioning of the nervous system.
We often renounce things. This renunciation leads to self-discipline. Does self-discipline directly follow from all kinds of giving up? We also employ our will to renounce things. This does result in some kind of discipline. This discipline has got to be strengthened and stabilized. Much more than mere renunciation is needed to materialise this. It is true that self-discipline is a precondition of achieving that state of the mind in which further inflow of activity is stopped. Will-power has other functions also. Self-discipline has got to be strengthened and stabilized. It is also true that the control of future actions results in the stopping of further actions or karma in the present. But in order to strengthen and stabilize self-discipline we have to clean our hearts and to remove all the dirt that has accumulated in it in the past. This scavenging of the heart has two aspects : one is operation of instrumental causes and the other is the operation of substantial causes which bring in the dirt.
In the course of the practice of self-discipline various agencies begin to disturb our minds. For example, if some one abuses us, the mind becomes disturbed. If somebody praises us, this, too, affects the mind. Words, forms, tastes and smells go on disturbing the mind ceaselessly. This causes a set-back to our practice of self-discipline. Can we escape from all this? The practice of self-discipline is an excercise aimed at making ourselves immune from the desire for objects by renouncing them. It is not a difficult task. It is quite easy.
When a playful child disturbs its mother, she gets annoyed and loses her patience so much so that she slaps the child. The slap restrains the child from further disturbing the mother. But the annoyance and anger of the mother which resulted in the slapping of the child leave their traces on the nervous system of the mother. She develops a predisposition in her, and whenever a similar occasion arises, she again slaps the child as a matter of habit.