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The Highest Form of Tapas: Dhyana
muhūrta (48 minutes). After this period of time the mind is no longer able to continue concentrating on the same object, but it can remain in a state of recollectedness and concentrate itself afresh on a succession of other objects. 9
b) The different types of dhyāna
The treatises are unanimous in recognising four types of dhyāna: ărta, painful; raudra, cruel, violent; dharma, that which takes its inspiration from the dharma; śukla, white, very pure. The two first types are productive of bad karmas, they defile the atman and deflect it from the path leading to Liberation. The two other types are productive of meritorious karmas and aid towards nirjarā,10
Each of these types of dhyana is subdivided into four different sorts. For our purposes it is sufficient to mention in brief the contents of the first two types; as for dharma-dhyāna, the one form of dhyāna that is of special interest to us just now, we must study it in detail. The two first stages of śukla-dhyāna demand a lofty degree of perfection and are therefore rarely attained, while the two last stages concern only the omniscient.
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Ārta-dhyāna, a type of painful and agonised mental concentration, may spring from several sources. Affliction may be caused by the presence of some factor or disagreeable object of which one would like to rid oneself or by an absence, an unendurable separation, by a shooting physical pain with its psychical repercussions from which one longs to be free, by some unsatiated thirst for enjoyment. Ascetics who lack fervour or are negligent can fall prey to this type of dhyāna.11
arrow; and nārāca: arrow; cf. TS Sukhlal, p. 345, where samhanana is translated by "bone structure"; cf. also P 641 ff.
9 Cf. DhyanSat 3-4.
10 Cf ADH VII, 103; DhyanSat 5; SthS 247; TS IX, 27-44; US XXX, 35.
11 Cf. DhyanSat 6-10; TS IX, 30-34.
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