The Objective and Subjective

Knowledge is an action not exclusively confined to:

• the material world nor
• the abstract world

Rather, it is a happy blending of the physical and mental strata.

The faculty of knowledge:

• stems from perception (anubhava)
• reaches its highest point in the state of realization.

You can acquire knowledge about an elephant in various ways:

• seeing it
• hearing it.

These result in the formation of a mental image of an elephant, where almost all of your mental body is metamorphosed into that same mental elephant.

• Only a microscopic portion of your mind remains as the witnessing entity.

Whenever an action of knowing takes place within the mind*:

• a portion of it plays the subjective role and
• another portion plays the objective role.

The mind is divided into 2 chambers:

1. The objective chamber

This is formed from almost all the ectoplasmic stuff.

2. The subjective chamber

This is formed from that portion which is the knowing self.

If you visualize an elephant, a major portion of the mental body is transformed into a mental elephant.

In the wakeful state, when your conscious mind remains active, you understand that you are visualizing a mental elephant, but are not aware that your mental body has been converted into that very same elephant.

In dreams, one takes the mental elephant to be a real one, because the real world is non-existent.

Naturally, in dreams one fabricates a world previously experienced in the wakeful state and accordingly thinks that the things dreamt are real.

But if the mind is disturbed as a result of some serious accident or disaster, the dream world is shattered.

This mental disturbance may take place in the wakeful state as well as in sleep. For instance, in a dream you may visualize that you are flying high in the sky in a puśpaka rath (a mythological flying chariot).

Suddenly the horse of the chariot stops flying and the chariot starts falling like lightning. Now if in a wakeful state your vehicle happened to fall in such a dangerous way, you would be frightened out of your wits. In a dream that same fear makes you jump, and as a result of the jumping, the dream chariot no longer remains intact and you wake up.

The mind takes less time to dream an action than the body does to perform it.

It will take you 5 days to go to Delhi, do something and then return. But in a dream it can be completed in a few seconds.

This is only because the mind’s speed is greater than the body’s speed.

Perhaps you dreamt for 2 minutes. Yet, upon waking up, you feel as if you had been dreaming for a long time.

When a dream-object, an object of imagination, seems to be absolutely real, there is also a marked change in the personality also.

Being obsessed with ghosts is a case in point.

People who are obsessed with ghosts think that they have become the ghost. Being possessed by spirits is yet another case of this type: the affected persons think of themselves as a deity.

In order to free their minds from the thought of ghosts, one will have to induce a traumatic jolt in their bodies. One will have to create some sort of frightful circumstance that will startle them.

Various methods may be used for this purpose, after which they will realize their error: that they wrongly identified themselves with their mental objects.

Rákśasii Vidyá

Sometimes, an object from the natural world comes within the objective chamber of the mind. One’s ectoplasmic stuff becomes so concentrated that it can be used in various ways.

Some people misuse their ectoplasmic strength by using certain methods.

With their ectoplasmic strength, they might cause bones or sticks to fall to the ground while sitting in a corner some distance away.

Common people wrongly take these actions to be those of a ghost. If you find the persons doing this, you should give them a good shaking to completely destroy their ectoplasmic strength. Then they will be forced to stop their roguery.

This science of the application of ectoplasmic strength through the objective mind on external events or objects is known as rákśasii vidyá in Sanskrit.

There is a story in the Rámáyańa to illustrate this.

Angada was the son of Bali. He went to King Ravana’s court to present his credentials to him.

Seated there were:

• King Ravana
• his son Meghanatha (Indrajit)
• his 19 ministers

When Angada appeared in court, Ravana was there in his usual form. But the 19 ministers, in order to misguide Angada, began to ideate mentally that they were also Ravana.

Angada was very confused since those ministers appeared to him as the exact replicas of Ravana, even though they were actually in their own forms.

They were merely ideating inwardly that they looked like Ravana. The impact of such ideating and their collective ectoplasmic strength had its effect on Angada’s mind.

Angada started seeing 20 Ravanas in the court and got confused.

The 19 ministers were fully utilizing the ectoplasmic strength of the objective chambers of their respective minds.

Their physical bodies were still motionless, just as in spiritual practice when one is required to direct one’s mind towards Parama Puruśa, one is not expected to move, walk, practise sit-ups or push-ups, etc.

Angada contrived a plan to create some disturbance in their minds.

So he angered the ministers to make them lose their mental concentration and thus remove their assumed personalities.

Addressing Indrajit:

This angered all the ministers, and immediately the concentration of the objective chambers of their minds was disturbed and they resumed their original forms.

The faculty of knowledge is the subjectivization of external objectivity.

The subjectivization of anything external is the first step towards the supreme subjectivization.

When the objective mind first subjectivizes an external elephant, the first phase is the objectivization of mind.

Objective knowledge is to know that external fact.

Various psychic diseases may arise if there is any defect in the process of the objectivization of mind.