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THE PRACTICAL DHARMA
all-illumining kevala jñāna (omniscience), does not arise in the consciousness of the jāva. The preparatory course for the realisation of the śukla dhyāna, therefore, consists in the two-fold method of concentration and meditation which give rise to the kevala jñāna and fix the form of * thought.
If the reader would bear in mind the fact that belief is the builder of character and that the essence of the soul is pure intelligence, which is influenced by its own beliefs to such an extent that it actually becomes what it believes itself to be, he would not find it difficult to understand that steadiness of mind is not possible without there being a corresponding fixity of belief in the first instance. Hence, belief must first mould the essence of spirit before any permanent results are to be expected. To this end the Scripture enjoins the practising of the following kinds of dhyāna in the final stages of asceticism:
(1) Pindastha dhyāna which consists of five dhāraņās (forms of contemplation) as follows: (a) Prithivi dhāraņā. The yogi should imagine a boundless ocean
of the size of madhyaloka, motionless and noiseless, of the colour of milk, with a huge resplendent lotus of a thousand petals and a bright yellow stem of the height of Mount Meru in its centre. On the top of this stem he should place, in his imagination, a throne of the brightness of moon, and should imagine himself seated on this throne, in a calm and peaceful attitude of the mind, firmly established in the belief that he is fully capable of destroying the eight kinds of karmas, which hold him in captivity and
bondage. (6) Agneyi dhāraņā. When the prithivi dhāraņā becomes firmly
fixed in the mind, the yogi should imagine himself seated as before, and should further imagine a small lotus of sixteen petals in the region of his navel, with the sixteen vowels, (a), * (T), z (i), (i): 3 (u), 5 (1ī), # (și), (rī), (li), 2 (lī), 5 (e), $ (ai), 7 (o), st (au), 5 (ang) and 7: (ah), inscribed on its sixteen petals (one on each), and the holy
