[continued from previous message]   
      
   There was always more than one doctor present. In one case I remember, Dr.   
   Ramesh (recently retired as vice-principal of Ranchi Medical College) examined   
   the subject thoroughly and declared him clinically dead. Baba said that if   
   left in that condition,    
   ants would start congregating around the body within half an hour. But then He   
   ordered, one by one, all the vayus to return, bringing life back to the body.   
   He advised us to massage the body for a long period and administer hot milk   
   since the joints had    
   become very weak as a result of the experience. According to Baba, normal   
   death is not painful, though death caused by accident or certain diseases may   
   be.   
      
   I knew a Margii called Diipak who had a very deep desire to take part in   
   Baba's demonstrations. He enjoyed the samadhi demonstrations, but after   
   experiencing one death demonstration, he backed out whenever Baba called his   
   name again. When I teased Diipak    
   as to why he refused, he replied, "A strong body is required for such   
   demonstrations, especially the death experience. The effect on me was   
   devastating. I felt very weak afterwards and it took me months to become   
   normal again."   
      
   The Mystery of the Mind and Mystical Perception   
   During a class in the Jamalpur jágrti in February 1966, Baba described the   
   mind as having three parts: the conscious part (between the eyebrows), the   
   subconscious part (extending up from there the width of ten fingers to the   
   pineal plexus) and the    
   unconscious part (starting from pineal to the back part of the skull).   
      
   We work with the help of the conscious mind, but its freedom is limited since   
   it is always influenced by the immediate subconscious. The subconscious is the   
   repository of all past memories, from the day we first emerged as protozoa   
   through millions of    
   lifetimes until our present birth. So we all work according to our past   
   samskaras   
      
   I had difficulty in comprehending the nature of the mind. It was even more   
   difficult to explain it to others. No analogies that came to mind were   
   satisfactory. Then I read a beautiful article by Baba in Bengali that is   
   loosely translated as "Different    
   Stages of Psycho-spiritual Sadhana". I was astonished by the example He used   
   of the development of a cloud. In my teens I once witnessed this very   
   phenomenon and I never forgot it.   
      
   You might have noticed that on some days the whole sky is clear blue except   
   for a small patch of cloud on the distant horizon. If you go inside for an   
   hour or so, on coming out again, a huge fluffy cloud nearly fills the sky with   
   the same shape as the    
   first small one. It takes a few seconds for you to appreciate that the   
   original patch of cloud has grown into a gigantic shape. Baba used this   
   analogy to 'describe how the mind expands through psychic .clashes and sádhaná.   
      
   Mind is the combination of citta (done "I'), 'aham (doer "I") and mahat (the   
   witnessing "I" or the knower "I"). For example you imagine that you are eating   
   a mango. In your mental picture, a portion of your mind becomes the mango, and   
   another portion of    
   the mind engages in the act of eating, and the third portion witnesses the   
   action. The mango is the citta, the act of eating is the doer "I", and the   
   witnessing entity is the knower "I".   
      
   The third portion is common for both the unit mind of a person and the Cosmic   
   Mind of Parama Purus'a. The only difference is that the mahat of unit beings   
   is like the air within a pitcher, and the enveloping air of nature is the   
   Cosmic Mahat. The two are    
   divided by the doer "I" feeling which is the wall of the pitcher.   
      
   In 1986 or 1987 I was struggling to understand two words that Baba used in his   
   talk "Universal Man and Spiritual Man": manasphot'a and cetanasphot'a. Manas   
   means mind, cetana means consciousness and sphot'a means explosion.   
      
   The formation of mind stuff or ectoplasm is described in Baba's Idea and   
   Ideology - the inquisitive reader should go through this book. Still much   
   research is required to understand this process. Here I am only trying to draw   
   on my own experience to    
   explain how ectoplasm explodes into endoplasm and then endoplasm explodes or   
   melts and merges into the Cosmic Mahat.   
      
   Sádhana transforms physical cells into ectoplasm, and ectoplasm in turn   
   explodes into endoplasm. Citta is responsible for the done "I" feeling, but   
   the faculty of awareness is less in it. Sometimes when you are half asleep,   
   you know what is going on    
   around you, but on waking you cannot remember things clearly. This hazy   
   consciousness is like citta awareness. Endoplasm is the distinctive "I"   
   feeling.   
      
   With manasphot'a or ectoplasmic explosion, one's awareness and "I" feeling   
   increase, and this causes the intellect and its capacity to memorize, perceive   
   and discriminate to also increase.   
      
   The inside of the outer layer of the expanding mind is called endoplasm. When   
   the volume of the mind enlarges, the density also enlarges due to a fresh   
   supply of ectoplasmic cells. The transformation of lymph cells into   
   ectoplasmic cells only takes place    
   through the process of intuitional practices or sadhana.   
      
   Both the mass and volume of the mind increase directly in meditation, contrary   
   to the Inverse Law of Gaseous Expansion. This expansion is the result of   
   friction between old ectoplasm and new ectoplasm, with intense bombardment on   
   the body's psychic    
   centres through the process of concentration. A crude example is if you   
   inflate a balloon, both the size and the circumference increase. With the   
   increase of the circumference of the mind, the doer "I" feeling increases, as   
   well as the magnitude of the    
   mind.   
      
   In Baba's last RU discourse in June 1990 He explained that mind's magnitude   
   grows in four ways:   
      
   1)       thinking power develops, which results in discovery and invention;   
      
   2)       memory power develops;   
      
   3)       transmutation and diversification of psychic pabula - in simple   
   language, the faculty of teaching;   
      
   4)       rationality increases.   
      
   The faculty of teaching is very important. All students will benefit if they   
   are given an opportunity to teach with their studies. This will increase   
   self-confidence, conceptual power and thinking capacity.   
      
   Baba explained that rationality is a spiritual quality. The capacity to love   
   also increases when rational thinking increases. I have realized that the   
   ability to memorize is directly proportional to one's capacity to love others   
   without expectation.   
      
   Rationality is judicious love. One loves all equally and hates none. For   
   example, a rational and spiritual judge will harm none and benefit all.   
      
   With the increase of "I" feeling, knowledge increases. When a small child   
   cries to understand something, and, after psychic clashes, does understand,   
   his or her knowledge increases and the mind expands in a limited sense. At   
   that time the ego also    
   increases proportionately. Good teachers are well aware of these subtle   
   ectoplasmic explosions.   
      
   The contentment that a researcher experiences after solving a difficult   
   problem, is the peace he or she feels after a psychic explosion. The purpose   
   of university education with its many faculties and mammoth libraries is to   
   catalyse this ectoplasmic    
   explosion.   
      
      
   [continued in next message]   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)