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Preksha Dhyana :
Vigilance
The second benefit of sarīra prekṣā is vigilance-increased awareness of the conscious mind. One, who closely perceives the everchanging pattern of the sensations, stays always active and awake. Sometimes the sensation is pleasant and sometimes it is painful. The vigilant sädhaka carefully avoids involvement of attachment to the pleasant and aversion to the painful. He is fully but neutrally aware of the phenomena.
Swimming Upstream
A further benefit of sarira preksa is swimming upstream. Our habit of perceiving non-self (i.e. external things) has so vitiated our perception that we never think of seeing the self. We have forgotten that we must also sometimes turn inwards. Sarira prekṣā is the process of looking inwards and seeing one's own self. This process strengthens our consciousness and enables it to swim against the (habitual) current. Consequently, it gets rid of the habit of seeing non-self and begins to see one's own self. At the commencement of the meditation session it is customary to recite the slogan, "See the self. To see the self, I am going to practise prekṣā meditation." The object of reciting and repeating the solgan at every session is to strengthen our consciousness, stop the habitual drifting and create the capacity to swim upstream.
Until this happens, we consider the external conditions to be more attractive than our own selves. When, however, the transformation takes place, the values are reversed, i.e., the self takes the driver's seat and the environment is relegated to the back sea. Thus the capacity for swimming against the current enables us to resist and overcome the forces of circumstances and establish full control over them.
Transmutation
In the process of sarīra prekṣā, one not only perceives the state-of-the-moment but is also fully aware of the transformation and transmutation (resulting from the practice). One feels the change from heaviness to lightness at the beginning and the end of the session. Sometimes at
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