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| | | Book Name: The Discipline of Transcendence, Vol 1 | Previous Next | |
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same has happened to modern physics. They were analysing matter in the outside world and they came to the immaterial. Buddha reached the immaterial on his inner journey, and science has reached the immaterial in its outer journey, but both have reached the immaterial. Scientists also will not say that this is spiritual. The scientist can only say this much -- that whatsoever was matter is no more there. He cannot say what is there. This much can be said -- that whatsoever we used to think of as matter is no more there. All that we can say is a denial.
Buddha says:
AND COMPREHEND THE IMMATERIAL, THEY ARE CALLED SHRAMANAS.
Now the categories of shramanas:
THOSE WHO OBSERVE THE PRECEPTS OF MORALITY, WHO ARE PURE AND SPOTLESS IN THEIR BEHAVIOUR, AND WHO EXERT THEMSELVES FOR THE ATTAINMENT OF THE FRUITS OF SAINTSHIP, ARE CALLED ARHATS.
Arhat is the highest state of no-mind. The word 'arhat' means 'one who has conquered his enemies'. Ari means enemy and arhat means 'one who has conquered the enemy'.
Who is the enemy? They are not outside you. The passions, the distractions, the desires, the hatred, jealousy, possessiveness, anger, sexuality -- these are the enemies.
In one way your mind is the enemy, the root enemy. One who has conquered the mind is called arhat. This is the highest state -- one who has come above all the clouds.
Have you sometimes, travelling by air, watched when the aeroplane comes above the clouds? All the clouds are just below you and you are in the pure, blue sky. That is the state, the inner state of arhat. One goes on penetrating the mind. By and by the clouds of passions are no more there, they are left far behind, and you are soaring higher and higher into pure space, into the immaterial space. This is the state of arhat.
In buddhist terminology that is the highest state. What Christians call christ, Buddha calls arhat. What Jainas call arihanta; that word also means the same. Or what Hindus call the avatara -- Rama, Krishna -- that is the same state, the state of arhat.
But Buddha is very scientific in that too. He does not call it avatara, because avatara means 'god descending
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