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Purity of Mind
#. Since sattva guna is the nature of the mind, and since the mind is pure and undefiled like ether, what is called mind is, in truth, of the nature of knowledge. When it stays in that natural state, it has not even the name "mind". It is only the erroneous knowledge which mistakes one for another that is called mind.
What was the pure sattva mind, of the nature of pure knowledge, forgets its knowledge-nature on account of nescience, gets transformed into the world under the influence og negative forces being under the influence of rajo guna, imagines "I" am the body; the world is "real", it acquires the consequent merit and demerit through attachment, aversion.
Through the residual impressions, one attains birth and death.
But the mind, which has got rid of its defilement through action without attachment performed in many past lives, listens to the teaching of scripture from a true guru, reflects on its meaning, and meditates in order to gain the natural state of the mental mode of the form of the Self, of the form which is the result of continued contemplation of the Self.
When this removal takes place the mind becomes subtle and unmoving. It is only by the mind that is impure and is under the influence of excessive activity or idleness that Reality which is very subtle and unchanging cannot be experienced; just as a piece of fine cloth cannot be stitched with a heavy crowbar, the details of the subtle objects cannot be distinguished by the light of a lamp flame that flickers in the wind.
But in the pure mind that has been rendered subtle and unmoving by the meditation described above, the Self-bliss will become manifest.
As without mind there cannot be experience, it is possible for a purified mind endowed with the extremely subtle mode to experience the Self-bliss, by remaining in that form. Then, that one's Self is of the nature of Brahman will be clearly experienced.
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