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Means of Self-Realization
practised under the guidance of an enlightened sadguru, or else it may lead to the increase of interest in mundane life. The thing to be remembered while practising breathing excercises for meditation, is to observe whether one's passions subside day by day or not and whether ātma-bhāva improves or not.
Śrīmad gives very important advice to the sādhaka. He says if one desires that one's mind should be quiet and that it should stop wandering so that one can succeed in meditating, one should not have attachment or delusion for dear things and persons, nor should one have dislike and hatred for anything or anybody. 133 In verse 146 of ‘Pañcāstīkāya' of Kundakundācārya, it is stated that one who is free from attachment, repulsion. delusion etc., destroys auspicious and inauspicious karmas by meditation, the latter working like fire. !}* In verse 152 of the same scripture it is said that if the sādhaka is full of right (samyak) knowledge and faith (jñāna and darśana) and if he meditatcs with the object of destroying karmas (nirjarā) and without associating or combining any other substance in meditation, he merges in his own pure self.135
Srimad has very well explained the importance of upavoga (conscious attention or cognition) and its
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