272 THE SCIENCE OF SELF-REALIZATION
Marjanam means ‘‘cleanse,’’ and darpanam means ‘‘mirror.’’ The heart
is a mirror. It is like a camera. Just as a camera takes all kinds of pictures
of days and nights, so also our heart takes pictures and keeps them in an
unconscious state. Psychologists know this. The heart takes so many pic-
tures, and therefore it becomes covered. We do not know when it has
begun, but it is a fact that because there is material contact, our real iden-
tity is covered. Therefore ceto-darpana-ma@rjanam: one has to cleanse his
heart. There are different processes to cleanse the heart—the jfdna pro-
cess, the yoga process, the meditation process, pious activities. Karma
also cleanses the heart. If one acts very piously, his heart will gradually be
cleansed. But although these processes are recommended for cleansing
the heart, in this age they are all difficult. To follow the path of philo-
sophical knowledge one must become a very learned scholar, one must
read so many books, one must go to learned professors and scholars and
speculate. One must search out a person who has seen the light. So these
‘are all philosophical processes. Meditation is also a recommended pro-
cess. One should question, ‘‘What am I?’’ Just consider: Am I this body?
No. Am I this finger? No, this is my finger. If you contemplate your leg,
you will see, ‘‘Oh, this is my leg.’ Similarly, you will find everything to
be ‘‘mine.’’ And where is that ‘‘I’?? Everything is mine, but where is that
“2? When one is searching for that ‘‘I,’’ that is meditation. Real
meditation means concentrating all the senses in that way. But that
meditation process is very difficult. One must control the senses. The
senses are dragging one outward, and one has to bring them inward for
introspection. Therefore there are eight processes in the yoga system.
The first is controlling the senses by regulative principles. Then sitting
postures—that will help to concentrate the mind. If one sits leaning over,
that will not help; if one sits up straight, that will help. Then controlling
the breathing, then meditation, then samadhi. But today these are very,
very difficult processes. No one can immediately perform them. The so-
called yoga processes are fragmental—only the sitting postures and a few
breathing exercises are practiced. But that cannot bring one to the perfec-
tional stage. The actual yoga process, although a recommended Vedic
process, is very difficult in this age. Similarly one can try to get knowl-
edge by the speculative philosophical process: ‘‘This.is Brahman, this is
not Brahman, so what is Brahman? What is spirit soul?’’ Such empiric
philosophical discussion is also recommended, but it is useless in this
age.
Therefore Caitanya Mahaprabhu—not only Caitanya Mahaprabhu but
also the Vedic literature—says:
