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Introduction
The objective of meditation is not to acquire physical goodness alone. but to acquire total psychical goodness by eradicating all evil from one's thoughts, speech and action. It is a “process of remedying inner incompleteness and reducing inner discord" as aptly stated by William James.
To achieve this objective, the system of Prekṣā Dhyana bifurcites into (a) Concentration of Perception and (b) Concentration of Thought i.e. Prekşā and anupreksā. In the former technique of meditation, preception and awareness are primarily used for concentration; thinking is considered a distraction and is banished as far as possible. In the latter technique, the conscious mind is encouraged to engage itself in a 'thinking process i.e. contemplation. Perception and contemplation both awaken and develop practitioner's conscious reasoning and thereby modify one's attitude and behaviour. Contemplation is, sometimes, defined as “religious' meditation which is non-discursive (i.e. intuitive) and mostly mystical. But in Prekṣā Dhyāna, contemplation is both discursive as well as intuitive. It means, research and deliberate reflection for Truth and Reality. Just as impartial (without like or dislike), objective and concentrated perception is meditation, a totally impartial and objective contemplation bereft of subjective prejudices and emotions is also meditation. Contemplation, therefore, is search for truth by a single-point mental faculty engaged in reflecting upon the reality, eliminating all that is mere appearance or illusion. It consists in concentrating on the entire mental faculty in searching Truth and nothing else.
The process of contemplation banishes all memories, eliminates all ideas and conceptions except one. Full concentration
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