Ten Days Journey Into The Self

Author(s): Chitrabhanu
Publisher: Jain Meditation International Centre

Page 24

Chapter Seven - Meditation On Overcoming Our Inner Enemies
We can enter meditation by repeating a mantra. However, to do its work, a mantra calls for our pondering the full scope of its meaning, and its application in our daily living. It requires the entire struggle of life behind it.
Friends. We will enter meditation by pondering the universal mantra "Namo Arihantanam". "Namo Arihantanam" means "I bow before those who have conquered their inner enemies, in order to conquer my own inner enemies."
There is no name of a particular god or saint or apostle, or any delineation of race or nation or culture in this evocation; it is species wide. We all have inner enemies. The enlightened are those who have recognized and overcome their inner enemies, and thereby have been enabled to reach the state of perfection. I define perfection as the state of anyone who is bringing his potentiality for creativity into full bloom.
To build the good life, and to help turn this earth from a battlefield into a garden, all of us have to overcome our inner enemies. But inner enemies are not easy to recognize! Hitler, blind to his inner enemies, idealized his sadistic power drive as the instrument for achieving a victory that would last a thousand years. Did those who burned witches recognize their own inner enemies? They projected their fear on the women they burned.
Often our inner enemies seem to operate in pairs. We are afraid to recognize some weakness or malice in ourselves and project it outward onto others. If we are afraid to assert ourselves, to become ourselves, we listen to inner culprits telling us to settle for the security of the familiar instead of taking the risk of advancing into the dimension of the unknown. Or we may fill our emptiness with "something that is better than nothing," that is, by indulging in alcohol, drugs, rituals, and day dreams. The leader of our band of inner enemies is always assuring us there is no means for us to live in any other way! How expertly we disguise, idealize, and rationalize our inner enemies!
Over twenty-five hundred years ago, Mahavir told us to know and overcome our inner enemies. he also said, "Ekam jane savvam jane,"- "He who knows one knows all." After that in ancient Greece, Socrates advised "know thyself." He and other sages have insisted, "Know the truth, and truth shall set you free." they recognized that the root of evil is ignorance. Today, psychology and psychiatry are developing a science of self-knowledge of which the seers have had foresight for over twenty-five centuries.
Several years ago a young man came to America from Germany. His father was a rabbi who was obsessed with the idea of virtue and tried to pound his own ideas into his son. He often severely punished his boy for failing to live up to his rigid standards. Ultimately