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PROCESS OF ATTAINMENT
Parmahamsa Niranjanananda
It seems that people are afraid of many things in life because of their psychological make up. What people crave in life can be defined in one word, 'security', whether it be physical, intellectual, emotional, social or any other kind. But security is linked with happiness, security is linked with the feeling of pleasure, security is linked with the desire for attainment. This forms the main thrust and the main form of our psychological nature. In the expression of our psychological nature our pattern of behavior changes dramatically, depending on the circumstances and events. Sometimes we express the feeling of detachment, sometimes we express inhibitions, fears, euphoria, frustration, anxiety, and all these become part of our psychological nature.
Modern psychology tries to understand such expressions in life. In fact, we can even say that it aims at understanding the rationale behind the feelings of security and insecurity in an individual. This feeling of security and insecurity arises from the depths of our consciousness. When we are unable to understand what is coming from the depth of our consciousness due to prakriti, due to the nature of our personality, then we say, "Oh, it is coming from the unconscious nature, the unconscious mind, the achetan man," and what we are able to comprehend through our intellect is generally described as emanating from the chetan man, from the conscious mind.
It is this area of research in psychology which needs a clear direction today and that can be provided by yoga. This is because yoga attempts to go one step further by saying that what we experience in the form of securities and insecurities, attachment and detachment and dislikes, inhibit the expression of the faculties inherent in our personality. Therefore, the thrust of human endeavor is towards the discovery of new horizons and dimensions within the human personality.
We are afraid of losing many things. We are afraid to leave behind many things. We get paranoid if we have to leave
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