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period of time; and then greater brain-power. It begins to give you the power to have sustained
study, sustained thinking and good memory. When it has been converted from gross to subtle and
when sublimation takes place, the same power rises upwards and you are able to utilise it for
purposes of concentration and inner meditation. It takes up the form of psychic or spiritual
dynamism. So, this is the effect of Tapas and this intense heat of Tapas, generated by self-control
and conquest of desires, has the nature of awakening within, your awareness of yourself as distinct
from the physical body and the senses. So, it counters basic ignorance and body-identification.
Svadhyaya, i.e., daily regular spiritual study, removes from your nature these second, third and
fourth obstacles to illumination, viz., ego-consciousness, aversion and attachment. Because, the
material of spiritual study is wisdom, the teaching of the great Masters, and day after day as you go
into a serious and earnest study of these books, slowly there comes about a transformation in your
mind. Your ignorance is removed, knowledge begins to qualify your thinking and feeling.
Actually, Svadhyaya is a type of negative Satsanga. That means, you put yourself in contact
with the great master-minds and spiritual luminaries of the past as well as the present. Because these
people were perfected beings, their words are living words. They never die. They are immortal
words. For instance, if you take to a regular study of the  Evangel, then you begin to live and move
with the Divine personality of Jesus day after day. If you begin to read the Gospel in a systematic
way, with reverent attitude, with right feeling towards it, what happens is this: It has the effect of
moving you from the time-space framework and taking you into a different time-space dimension,
and therefore you will be living in the time of Jesus, walking along with him, and remain in his
company. You will be transported, may be in the source of Galilee and then you will become one
with the audience that drank in his immortal nectarine words. The tyrannical hold of this time-space
work will have no meaning for you. You transcend beyond this time-space framework. We make
much of the modern times, and think that it is difficult for us to live the Divine Life in this twentieth
century. This is all self-created condition. You yourself are creating this condition because you
always think:  I belong to the modern times, I belong to the 20th century, I belong to the West, and
this is not possible for me. This is all ninety per cent self-created conditioning.
Human nature has always been the same. And whatever applied to the human being 5000
years ago, it applies even now also. It will apply to him as long as the sun and moon shine. Because,
the inner nature is always the same. Environment must have changed. Outer things must have
changed, but the basic human being and his problems have not changed. What he had to struggle
against is the same. And therefore, the eternal validity of these teachings that show the way of
solving the eternal human problems cannot be questioned. To this self-created tyranny, this
conditioning coming out of the environment which has gripped the psychology of modern man,
Svadhyaya offers an unfailing, efficacious method of breaking it by giving you a means, a
technique by which you completely transport yourself into a different time-space condition.
Gradually the exaggerated sense of importance which things, events and environments holds you in
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ASMITA, RAGA AND DVESHA
their grip, that exaggerated grip or importance is loosened. So, you are in a better position, a
position of advantage to deal with them. You can renounce them, you can triumph over them, you
can overcome them, because, you have loosened yourself from their bear-like grip. Day after day,
if, in this way, you go into deep Svadhyaya what happens? You begin to live and move in the
company of those illumined sages like Buddha, like Jesus. Supposing you are absorbed in the study
of Gita, every day regularly at a set time, what happens is, you are actually in the company of the
great Master Krishna and He is not so much speaking to Arjuna, He is speaking to you. You are
receiving the Wisdom-teaching from Him directly.
In this way, Svadhyaya is a marvellous gift of removing from human mind, ignorance and
false ego-consciousness, brought about by ignorance and the attachment to passing things and the
aversion that follows at the heels of attachment. These three products go to form basic spiritual
ignorance. Ignorance is the cause of these three things, viz., false ego-consciousness or
individualised ego-consciousness, attachment and aversion. Gradually, you are able to remove
them from your consciousness by regular Svadhyaya which is imbibing of wisdom, day after day.
You begin to enlighten and illumine your inner being by Svadhyaya and Isvarapranidhana. They
remove the last obstacle, this clinging to life. Because, it gives you a totally different sense of value
which is no more of this world. All its glittering things have no more importance to you. Because,
you begin to replace this feeling and attitude in a different and changed vision.  I am living for this
world with the new attitude, I am living for the Reality, I am living for the universal Being, the
Almighty Being, I am living for the Reality, not for the passing unrealities. That is
Isvarapranidhana. It effectively makes you to overcome this clinging to this little life, by bringing
you into a different state of mind, where your sense of values is totally transformed and where the
goal becomes not anything here, but the Ultimate Reality. You live and move and have your being
in God. He becomes the Supreme Value and to attain Him, becomes your goal.
This is the effect of Tapas, Svadhyaya and Isvarapranidhana in relation to the basic
obstacles to illumination. There is a monastic tradition of Tapas taking various practices, such as
walking without shoes, moving bare-headed, without umbrella in the rain and the sun, and sleeping
upon hard bed instead of having soft and luxurious bed, making the diet simplest mere
vegetables, bread and water occasional fasting, bearing heat and cold, and bearing discomforts
without murmuring, without grumbling. These positive acts of mortification, the ancient ones
underwent, are unbelievable. Even forgoing things to which the human beings have become
accustomed to, the more and more comfortable way of living evolved by modern scientific
civilisation that itself becomes an enough kind of austerity, even without subjecting yourself to
the positive, painful mortifications. The very fact of forgoing things to which you have become
addicted, accustomed and habituated, that itself has become an act of Tapas. In the physical level,
this expresses itself as Tapas.
Svadhyaya unifies the mind and heart by bringing in spiritual wisdom and inspirational
spiritual thoughts and sentiments, Isvarapranidhana dedication to God brings your deepest
inner being to your Consciousness, the purifying light of God s presence and His Divine Presence,
in everything that you do. Now, how do these three things have direct effect upon concentration?
Tapas unifies your thoughts and feelings by eliminating from you the excitement and stimulation of
constant sense-experiences. Every time, you indulge in sense-experience, it stimulates you, it
creates inner excitement and this excitement causes restlessness of the mind. Craving is intensified
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LECTURES ON RAJA YOGA [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]