Mysteries of Mind

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

Page 62

DEVELOPMENT OF ENERGY -- TAPA
49
mean merely giving up things. Discernmect does not become operative unless both the desirable and the undesirable are actually present before us. Discernment chooses that which is desirable without which pratyākhyāna is meaningless. Once the choice has been made, that which is desirable begins to exercise a pressure on us and that which is undesirable begins to disappear without any effort on our part to discard it. The spirit of renunciation becomes active of its own accord. Man will become a dead entity if this choice is not offered to him. Only a moral choice is a step in the direction of selfrealization. Renunciation is not a negative attitude. It is a rational process of abandonment. It is through reason that mankind bas preferred the railways to the bullock carts and the aeroplanes to the railways. It is natural for man to choose what is progressive in place of what is retrogressive. Reason is a natural property of man.
The spirit of renunciation reveals to us the value of moral discipline and attracts us towards it. The practitioner prefers to live in the world of the spirit and becomes inmersed in it. The glow of consciousness becomes so attractive to him that he does not like to revert to the darkness of the empirical world. But a glimpse of this new horizon brings about a fierce struggle in the mind of the practitioner. The influx of alien matter in the soul, natural tendencies and emotions begin to resist the expansion of consciousness. Attachments and a versions begin to cast their ominous shadow on the mind of the practitioner. Self-negligence and passion for material objects take up arms to resist the new development. Inertia becomes entrenched against it. A fierce battle ensues within the practitioner. This battle provides great opportunities for him and he must take his chance. The Ācārănga says : “The opportunity for this struggle is a god-sent boon and it does not come time and again. It is a rare opportunity.” The practitioner can achieve his real existence through this struggle only. He comes to realize that the rehabilitation of the soul as a seer and knower par excellence is much more commendable than the watching of breath and the activization of the centres of consciousness, fasting and moral discipline. He leaves these exercises behind and steps up to a higher level of consciousness. Once he has upgraded himself to this