When I first learned how to drive a car, the process was very slow. I had to think as to when to change gears and when to apply the brakes. I simply could not afford to be absent. The center involved in the process of learning is slow because the energies meant for this center are slow. Once I finished this learning process, however, I could be ‘anywhere’ while driving a car.

The center employed in this learning process is intellectual. The intellectual center is driven by energies intellectual that are the crudest and slowest of the energies we man-machines possess. For this basic reason the learning process is always slow. This is the reason that our intellectual energies are not capable of taking us far. This is the reason that our intellectual drives are not competent enough to hold or control our emotional drives. Then again, these are the tools we have to discipline our lives, to control and forge ahead on this evolutionary path. What else do we have, other than our consciousness, to know what consciousness is? We are in a hall of mirrors.

In the course of this learning process, by sheer act of repetition (owing to the law of repetition) another center, known as the ‘mechanical’ center, picks up the process and now this center alone drives the car (or cart, the choice is yours ha! ha! ha!). The intellectual center is no longer needed to drive the car. Needless to say, this mechanical center functions much faster than the intellectual center simply because the energies meant for this center are much more refined and powerful, comparatively. Now, you can be on the planet Saturn while you drive your car. Though you must take care that the mechanical driving does not land you in a situation it cannot cope with because it has not been trained or conditioned to do so.

Man has five known centers, namely, intellectual, mechanical, emotional, intuitional, and sex. The predominance of any one center at the cost of another produces a one sided, unbalanced man incapable of growing. It is said that a proper functioning of the five centers in harmony with each other brings them into contact with higher centers, which puts man into objective knowledge/heightened awareness. He then becomes isolated from the external influences. He thus attains certain amount of WILL.

Every adult man consists of habits, though he is mostly unaware of them. The three centers, namely, mechanical, emotional, and sexual are filled with habits, and a man can never know himself unless he studies all his habits. Yet, habits can’t be seen unless one struggles against them. A man is so governed by his habits that unless he puts up a fight against them, however feeble, he cannot realize his mechanical behavior pattern. This is paradoxical but it is so. One can register autosuggestions against these habits but this too is not sufficient because, eventually, repetition too becomes mechanical. One will have to wage a long drawn out battle against these habits.

Walking and sitting postures, holding a pen, eating, expressions of pleasant or unpleasant emotions, every movement of ours is a habit and unless we struggle with them we shall not realize how badly we are inflicted with the habits. We, as a matter of fact, are not even aware that these are habits. The added advantage of this battle against habits is that it improves our self-observation.
In the course of our observation and struggle, particularly our struggle against expressions of unpleasant emotions, we tend to learn that the so called actions are just reactions and every thought is the result of external stimuli. Nothing comes from one’s self. One is just a MACHINE drawing energies from the external subject to the LAW OF ASSOCIATION. One is bound to realize then that every thing HAPPENS and nothing can one DO. One is just a MACHINE controlled by accidents from the out side. Any change in the external brings a change in one’s mood, reactions, and thoughts. One cannot answer for one’s self for the shortest of time since there is no PERMANENT SELF in him.

When a person starts observing whatever work one is engaged in, the quality of the work improves drastically. This is because two centers are at work here, the mechanical, which does the work, and the intellectual, which keeps an eye out. Over and above if one can FEEL what one is doing the quality of the work further improves due to this infusion of refined emotional energy and, of course, owing to the linking of the centers. So then, if one is capable of SENSING, bringing into fore the INTUTIVE CENTER, the work will turn into a real multi-dimensional CREATIVE piece. One can apply this to writing or to any form of art, but know that each center should perform its role in harmony with each other center. For example, typing is the job of the mechanical center if one is typing. You are prone to mistakes if you allow other centers to interfere. The intellectual center can observe and watch the fingers moving and this shall improve the quality, but once it starts thinking where the ‘K” is, one is prone to mistakes. Thinking and reading is the job of the intellectual center, but since we know this we normally tend to think MECHANICALLY and often read mechanically. This happens because the mechanical center is trying to replace the absent intellectual center which is busy daydreaming, an extremely harmful activity unless it is done intentionally and for a purpose.

Any sort of dreaming is the opposite of useful mental activity. Any activity, which is directed towards a definite aim, can only be defined as useful. Day dreaming normally does not pursue any aim nor strives for any result. The motive for daydreaming always lies in the emotional center. The process is carried by the intellectual center. The inclination to daydreaming is partly due to the laziness of the intellectual center. That is to attempt to try and avoid the efforts and work connected to definite aim or direction. The process is also partly due to the tendency of the emotional and mechanical centers to relive past moments, recreate the moments already lived, to project them in fulfillment of their unfulfilled desires. Daydreaming of the pleasant kind can be justified sometimes since it serves a purpose by providing a kind of charge which helps in the work, but day dreaming of the unpleasant kind and character is utter absurdity, yet people tend to spend most of their lives in painful and morbid daydreams about misfortunes, pains, tragedies, sufferings etc.
Each center strives to pass on its work to the other center or rob the higher centers’ energies to make its job easy. The intellectual center tends to work with the mechanical or emotional energies, or the mechanical center thinks mechanically for the intellectual center though it is unfit to do so. The emotional center working for the intellectual center or the intellectual center thinking with emotional energies brings unnecessary nervousness, fear, fear of the fear, hurt, haste into a simple situation when calm and composed thinking, deliberations, assessment, and evaluation are the need of the hour. The thinking center working for the emotional center makes you think rather than allowing you to FEEL in thoughtlessness. The beauty is lost.
Thoughts are too slow. The interference of the thoughts in the domain of feeling or sensing is so meaningless.

The sex center is peculiar. It works on a powerful energy; quicker than all the centers. As a matter of fact, it tends to govern all the other centers in the absence of any control. Control alone can hold this center in submission. The energy tends to pass on to other centers and manifests itself in ‘tastes’, ‘terror’, ‘unnaturalness’ etc. Influenced by these energies, the intellectual center writing a book, for example, does not confine to the theme/subject, but creates false theories, criticizes vehemently, disputes, fights etc. The preacher then teaches abstinence, asceticism, try to generate fear and horror of sin, hell, talk of persecution etc. The emotional center using energy S will create cruelty. This is again gross abuse of this energy. Sexual energies are normally robbed by all other centers and the end result is useless excitement and in return these centers give this powerful center cruder energies with which this center can hardly work.

Energy S, if misused, can drive us to rob, to burn, or to kill. It can also manifest in a fighter winning his fight, a player creating records, and in finer impressions since the lower center is working with finer energy. But this is blatant misuse which exhausts this higher center forcing it to start using cruder energies, imagining rather than performing.

The S center can play a vital role in creating a general equilibrium and a permanent center of gravity if it can use its own energy. This will help other centers to work with their own energies. S energy is also capable of creating euphoria, an experience, which is known as Zero/mystic experience wherein you feel one with your surrounding, as if you are inside the out side and the out side is inside you, in the physical sense, if one can conserve and ‘canalize’ these energies. Energy S can also evoke intuition.

The ancient esoteric schools do see the possibility of the development of two higher centers, the higher emotional center and the higher intellectual center, but only if these lower centers can be properly and harmoniously developed. Some of the esoteric schools believe that these higher centers are fully developed in man and one can come in contact with these centers once the lower centers are fully developed. Well, it goes without saying that unless you arrive at the first floor you cannot ascend to the fifth and arrive at the tenth. (Ha!ha!ha!ha!ha!) Once the lower centers are developed, the higher centers automatically come into the fore, and man can experience the intensity and beauty of intellect and emotion, register new impressions, and attain knowledge hitherto entirely unknown to them.

The lower three centers exist by themselves because they are the conductors of the three forces, active, passive and reconciling. One moment the instinctive is active while the mechanical is passive. Suddenly, the instinctive is passive the mechanical turns into the active. The sexual center is always the reconciling. The thinking and emotional centers are higher centers and not indispensable for life.
The intellectual center can never follow the work of the mechanical center unless the mechanical center slows down. Like when you are driving or writing at a fast pace, still you are less able to follow the instinctive function of our organism. The instinctive center normally functions independently of the others and is a self-supporting machine.

Observation and attention makes it possible to distinguish the works of the centers. Real evolution has to be intellectual and not mechanical, Active and not passive. One center working for the other can be useful occasionally if it is intentional and with definite purpose and control. This sometimes becomes necessary for a continuity of mental activity, but when it becomes a regular feature, a regular habit, it is harmful and a sheer waste of energies. Defective working of the centers enables each center to shirk its own function and do whatever impression’s associations compel it to do by robbing the other center of its energies. These are the situations where you need to apply logic. Imagine the intellectual center working for the emotional center and the emotional for the intellectual? This will end in hurt feelings and hasty decisions driven by the drive of these powerful emotional energies.

08/17/2004

Author's Note: Unlike last time, the poem appeared first and then I followed by writing this commentary in the form of this article. Those who may be interested in the poem can click on Thoughts are Energy Capsules

Posted on 08/16/2004
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