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The Rare Occasion 133
form can be dangerous. What we are learning here is how to refine it. It takes time. We don't want to discard it, abolish it, or blow it off. It is very precious. Imagine what power our mind has-it takes hundreds of people into the sky in a single jumbo jet. What is that which lifts the plane? Not the plane itself, but a human mind. If the human mind were not responsible for this feat, then the plane would not budge from the ground. Try throwing a stone into the air; it comes down. Even a feather does not stay in the sky. Here hundreds of thousands of tons are lifted into the sky for fourteen hours at a time! And we all trust it. The trust is based on what? Not on the inanimate plane, but on the human mind which created such a marvelous machine, and on another one that flies it.
Your life is more precious than any airplane. You cannot afford to waste it by stagnating, by keeping this intellect in a crude form. Engage yourself in refining it, and it will help you harness your energy, create beauty and harmony in your life, and move in the direction of evolution. How to refine the intellect? You take on a process of training, of awareness, of meditation. As you go on purifying, gross elements accumulated in the mind are dropped and it becomes clearer and clearer. That in you which is pure, subtle, and beautiful emerges. When you become subtle, even your thoughts become transparent, no longer heavy and crude. Thoughts no longer drive you in various directions. They begin to take you in the right direction.
For the initiates, this right direction, this refinement, this insight is called bodhi. Bodhi means to know, to be aware. It is the knowledge which comes from an inner
