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Chapter 6
The highest form of tapas: Dhyāna, mental concentration
He who has purged the defilement of error 1 indifferent to the pleasures of the senses, all mental activity being suppressed, strengthened in his own nature, that one becomes absorbed in the atman. 4
Let us recollect from the start that the Three Jewels are experienced in the ātman and that therefore it is through the ātman that one reaches mokşa.In the course of a long pilgrimage, through a constant and sustained effort of purification directed solely towards freeing the ātman of all that is foreign to its nature, one comes slowly but surely to a more and more kcen and direct awareness of the ātman. According to vyavahāra, a method is necessary to arouse and direct this awareness, according to niscaya, the ātman has an un-mediated self-awareness, in a movement of enstasy.
1 Cf. moha: aberration, illusion, all that precludes right vision and right conduct.
2 Viratta (virakta): alienated, distant from, disaffected.
3 Mano ņirumbhitta (mano nirudhya): well-controlled mind or retention of thought; cf. Yoga-sūtra 2.
jo khavidamohakaluso visaya viratto mano nirumbhitta samavathido mahāve so appăņam havadi jhādā. PSa II, 104; lit. he becomes one who concentrates on the atman.
5 Cf. DravSam 39.
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