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STAGES OF SPIRITUAL DEVELOPMENT
217 Concentration to improve and develop the spiritual nature can be upon the five classes of holy men already mentioned. Their lives should be imitated; we should think of their characteristic virtue and make special (not general) application to ourselves.
Concentration can be used also for getting equanimity of mind, and consequent spiritual illumination. The process of meditation here would again be different, as follows:
Here, the position of the body should be such that the back of the head, between the shoulders, and the small of the back are in a vertical line.
Movement of the limbs, head and trunk should all be stopped, also speech; in a place neither hot nor cold, where there are as few sounds as possible; the eyes should be closed; and there should be no scent or other smell, and the sense of taste should be inactive. Suppress mental images, including recollections of sounds, tastes, smells, and contact. There will then be a consciousness of blackness; try to lose it.
All this is the first step in the process. Then, now that we have stopped bodily movement, speech, sense activity, and mental imagery, with a feeling or reverence for those five classes of holy mon, which will remove all baseness, with a feeling of forgiveness for all beings, including neighbours and enemies, and with the conviction that the virtues possessed by those holy men are potential and can be developed in us, contemplate. Study the five Bhāvanas, Tattvārthasūtra, VII. 2.
1. Blissfulness; the joy of being alive; the gloriousness of a miseryless world; that, as daylight is always present in the universe, as a permanent reality, so is bliss. Forgetting this is misery; sunlight never need be out of the mind; so with bliss, the feeling of glorious joy; revelling in life, immortality, you will hurt none, you know their joy in living, their love of life.
2. Contemplate truthfulness. The truth is there; you have but to know it, not to manufacture. There is no effort, it is easy. Let it be asserted, not covered up.
3. Contemplate honesty. It is the opposite of stealing. Do the obvious thing, don't shirk.
arod un
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