Superphysics Superphysics
Chapter 4c

The Propensities and the Pineal Gland

by PR Sarkar Icon
3 minutes  • 633 words
Table of contents

Mind is a state in the process of Brahma Cakra.

  • It is the result of changing positions
  • It is essentially a stage in the process of motion.

This implies a momentum which mind has to express.

  • To find expression, the mind adopts certain inter- and intra-ectoplasmic occupations.
  • These occupations (love, hatred, fear, etc.) are known as propensities (vrtti).

A propensity is “the way of expression of mind”.

  • On the psychic level this is called “expressed sentiment” or feelings.
  • The feelings affecting subsidiary glands are known as “instincts”.

“Subsidiary gland” means any gland other than the pineal and the pituitary.*

Superphysics Note
*Therefore the main glands are the pineal (sahasrara chakra) and pituitary (ajna)

Some psychologists define “instinct” as “accumulated sentiment”. They impy that instincts are:

  • later stages of sentiments
  • created when sentiments get themselves habituated.

This is a theoretical definition.

A spiritual aspirant, who is a practical psychologist, realizes that instinct is a feeling affecting the subsidiary glands [not pineal nor pituitary].

  • These subsidiary glands are the sub-stations of organs whose main controlling station, as already discussed, is located in the brain.

The mind is:

  • “saḿkalpátmaka” when its internal feelings lead towards the Great.
  • “vikalpátmaka” when its feelings lead towards the mundane or crude

The help of the organs are needed for:

  • the evolution of the saḿkalpátmaka and vikalpátmaka mind
  • the creation of external waves

This help is also essential for crude manifestation in the physical stratum and other multifarious activities.

  • The subtle brain does not work directly.
  • It requires cruder sub-stations under its control.

Expression, Samskara, Propensity, Nerves, and Blood

Waves have to be developed for other manifestation of the internal samskaras.

  • These waves have to be created in the nerves and in the blood.
.

The sub-stations of the mind go on transmitting the waves depending on:

  • the sanguinary flow and
  • the strength of the nerves

The seed of every propensity is in the brain.

  • But the first expression occurs in the sub-station of the mind, as the glands of the body.

The glands or sub-stations of the mind create the waves.

  • These waves are then expressed outwardly through efferent nerves.
  • The motor organs work with the help of efferent nerves.
  • But the secret of the working lies with these mental sub-stations or glands.

The number of propensities varies according to the complexity of the physical structure.

  • The more complex the structure, the greater the number of propensities.
  • More-developed animals, therefore, have more propensities than less-developed ones.

Generally, there are 1,000 propensities in the human structure.

  • In their development and expression on the ordinary crude level, they are 50 in number.
  • This means that the 1,000 seeds of those propensities are present in the brain in the pineal gland.
  • This is why the yogis called it the sahasrára cakra (sahasra means “thousand”)
  • The subsidiary glands control 48 propensities.
  • The pituitary gland controls 2:
    • Saḿkalpátmaka, or one leading to parávidyá (knowledge of the Great)
    • Vikalpátmaka, relating to aparávidyá (knowledge of the mundane).

The pineal as a structure controls all these 50 propensities taken internally and externally by all 10 sense-organs.* 50 propensities x 2 internal-external x 10 sense-orgrans = 1,000.

Within the scope of these propensities lies the seed of saḿskára.

  • Yogis who can control the sahasrára cakra can attain nirvikalpa samádhi – a state where they are beyond the approach of all the propensities.
    • The attainment of such a state means the end of all reactive momenta (samskara)
    • The exhaustion of all the previous momentum accumulated by the mind due to its previous journeys in Brahma Cakra is called mokśa, the union with the Transcendentality.
Superphysics Note
We implement the 50 propensities as the lines (travel, marriage, venus, etc). The 2 is the change from past to present. The 10 is the dominant 7 mounts and 3 lines.

30 May 1959

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