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Mind 145
The pull of the mind must also be reduced, controlled and finally destroyed so delusion may be rent asunder and reality revealed. It must be mastered every day until, on the fifteenth day, fifteen phases have disintegrated and only a streak remains. Then on Mahashivarathri, a special spurt of spiritual activity is undertaken to reduce the fickle mind to nothing, in order to overcome deluding desire and attachment to the changing, tempting world of illusion —in order to win the holy vision, to achieve moksha (liberation). By undergoing the rigors of sleeplessness, by fasting, prayer and song, the devotee cries out to Shiva to destroy the obstacles in the way to inner contentment, to grant liberation from bondage to the trivial and temporary, to reveal the vision of the highest self, the basis of all this appearance.2
Notes
1. See Sai Baba: The Holy Man and the Psychiatrist, pp. 63-64.
Repression is separating oneself from an aspect of one’s own inner life, out of fear. Thus certain desires and emotions become inaccessible to conscious awareness before one learns to harness and control their energies. Detachment, on the other hand, is surrendering desires and emotions willingly as a part of our yearning to continue to evolve — after we have gained conscious awareness and a measure of self-mastery of them. The quotes in this chapter describe the process by which this is accomplished.
2. TakenfromadiscoursebySathyaSaiBabadeliveredonFeb.2,1959named“The Moon and the Mind,” and printed in Sathya Sai Speaks Vol. 1, pp. 110-116, and Vol. 9, p. 42.


































































































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