..續本文上一頁ness, he decides that he is too weak to free himself from misery, that in fact he needs the help of a stronger invisible power. Imagining such an all-powerful entity, this person begs and beseeches it to end all his sufferings. He develops the blind faith that this imaginary almighty being will remove his misery if he simply recites its name or imagines its appearance. He is in fact misled by his own feelings of fear and weakness. He does not realize that should there really be a supreme being, such behaviour insults and devaluates it. After all, if someone is omniscient, he must know that all the beings of the universe are miserable, And if he is really omnipotent, surely he must be able to liberate all beings from misery. If this is so, then to suppose that this all-seeing, all-powerful God will help only those who keep him in good humour by calling upon his name or repeating his praises or by keeping in mind his form is actually to assume that this imagined Supreme Being is an ego-centered person lacking any trace of compassion.
Certainly one must be very egotistical to wish to hear one”s name constantly on the lips of as many people as possible, to wish to have as many people as possible imagine one”s form, to wish to receive the most exaggerated flattery. And certainly one is barren of any real compassion if one will help only those sycophants who dedicate themselves to inflating one”s ego in these ways. Could a Supreme Being really be of such a nature
If in fact a Supreme Being exists, such blind faith only degrades and insults him. Still, without thinking it through logically, one feels great comfort in believing that God will wash away one”s sins and sorrows if one simply recites his name or imagines his form. And so one tries to meditate on the form of God, summoning to mind a painting or sculpture that one has seen or a description that one has read. These images in paint, in stone, or in words are actually the products of the imagination of artists who have never themselves witnessed the being whose form they have portrayed. To the meditator the form is very attractive because he believes that the imagined deity will somehow help him.
Therefore it becomes easy for him to fix his mind on this object and so to develop concentration. But meditating on such an imaginary object will certainly not lead to truth. In the same way one finds it very appealing to repeat the name of an imagined god in whom one reposes all one”s hopes. This repetition of a word—, any word at all,— will generate a particular vibration, in which one becomes engulfed. The meditator”s hope that his god will fulfill his desires turns into blind faith, which motivates him to repeat the name of his self-created god. With great enthusiasm he keeps repeating the name until the mind becomes ecstatic. absorbed and immersed in the vibrations he has generated. But no matter how pleasurable the ecstasy it engenders, the repetition of a word will not lead the meditator to truth. Nevertheless such practices have their benefits. The mind forgets whatever unpleasant situation may exist and remains plunged in pleasant vibrations, artificial and imaginary though they may be. Thus it seems to the meditator as if misery has been eliminated. But in fact it still exists, because the roots of misery remain in the mind. Until these are removed there is no real liberation. In order to dig out these roots. we must penetrate to their level, to the depths of the mind where defilements arise. Mere recitations, contemplations, and imaginations will not help us to do this. We must investigate truth, the truth within ourselves.
As a meditator starts investigating truth within, he soon realizes that external objects exist for us only when they come into contact with the five phys…
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