Preksha Dhyana Contemplation and Auto Suggestion

Author(s): Mahapragna Acharya
Publisher: Jain Vishva Bharati

Page 23

w
In the first category of exercises, the practitioner contemplates on an eternal or transcendental truth. For instance, in the exercise of “Contemplation of Transitoriness”, he contemplates, “Everything is associated with everything else by a transient relationship and hence the association must come to an end". On the basis of this basic principle, the practitioner starts the exercise by contemplating and reflecting on the obvious seprateness of two associated gross objects e.g. seperateness of clothes and body. As the exercise proceeds, he contemplates on the sperateness of subtle and still more subtle objects, (which is not quite obvious) e.g. seperateness of urges and emotions from the conscious substance, and further reflects on their dissociation. As the contemplation concentrates, the practitioner will realise the truth on the level of real experience.
In the second category of exercises, the practitioner resorts to the technique of auto-suggestion to cure physical sickness, mental unbalance and phychological distortions. He, not only attains physical health and mental equilibrium but also develops a strong reasoning mind and rationlizes his judgements by conscious reasoning. In other words, he acquires not only physical goodness but also psychical goodness by eradicating all evils from his thought, speech and action. He acquires the capability to transmute habitual negative attitude and psychological distortions and develops positive attitudes and internal harmony. For instance, by contemplation of fearlessness, the practitioner eradicates irrational fear. In this category of exercises, concentration of mental equipment is coupled with auto-suggestion.
The practitioner must first select and determine his objective that is he must identify and pin-point the specific evil distortion to be eradicated to acquire the correspending virtue. His aim is attained by becoming what he wills to become and his tool is the technique of auto-suggestion. It must be remembered that until the selected objective does not reach the internal sub-conscious level, his willing will not be successful One must learn to subdue one's conscious mind and activate the sub-conscious one. The desired image is to be projected upon the subconscious from the conscious level.
16