You are listening to my speech, and at the same time, you are aware that you are aware of this fact. You are aware of the time. You are aware of the place. You are aware of the event and you are aware of this awareness, which is a privilege in man.
This awareness has to be developed so that it becomes broader and wider. The greater the awareness, the finer are the inventions. The greater the awareness, the more potential are the accomplishments. Those whose awareness is narrow, they are buddhus, fools. People with cosmic awareness, with wider awareness, can function in the realm of society, religion, crime, because every activity, invention, accomplishment needs the potentiality of the human mind.
If the mind is not aware a thief will be caught before he gets into your house, because he has not kept in his mind all those things which could happen. When you are dealing with a machine or a plant you have to be intuitively aware of all the things that the machine means, that the plant means and anything that can happen at any time. That is the subject of awareness.
The mind is constituted of various elements of nature. Please listen carefully. Thought is not the definition of the mind, thought is one aspect of the mind. Please remember this. Thinking is one aspect of the mind. Thinking does not represent the mind. Feeling is not the mind. It is an aspect of the manifestation of the mind. Mind is a scientific matter. It is a substance constituted of various elements.
Even in science, in physics, you take matter and you define it in terms of ninety six elements, or ninety seven elements by dividing it. Likewise the mind can also be divided. The ultimate form of the mind is ‘shakti’, energy. Just as the ultimate form of matter is energy. Likewise, when the mind is divided and made finest, then the shakti flows from the mind.
In between the gross and the crude state of the mind and the final and ultimate state of the mind, a lot of products and byproducts are received. You can receive various things, the finest memory or how to handle a situation at the right moment with firmness and will, total patience and equilibrium. These are some of the finest products of the mind during the process of refinement.
In the practices of raja yoga we try to make the mind fine and this is done through the practice of dhyana yoga. I am not using the word ‘meditation’ for the time being although I have no option. In English there isn’t any equivalent for dhyana yoga.
In the practice of dhyana yoga you maintain the awareness of one object. If the awareness of that object is intercepted or interceded by any other thought pattern you negate it. This process of negation is something like the process of breaking, the process of disintegration in science. This is raja yoga. I’m only introducing the subject in relation to your life.
26 March 1979, BHEL, Hyderabad, India