The Propensities

Mind is a state in the process of Brahma Cakra.

• It is the result of changing positions
• It is essentially a stage in the process of motion.

This implies a momentum which mind has to express.

• To find expression, the mind adopts certain inter- and intra-ectoplasmic occupations.
• These occupations (love, hatred, fear, etc.) are known as propensities (vrtti).

A propensity is “the way of expression of mind”.

• On the psychic level this is called “expressed sentiment” or feelings.
• The feelings affecting subsidiary glands are known as “instincts”.

“Subsidiary gland” means any gland other than the pineal and the pituitary.

Some psychologists define “instinct” as “accumulated sentiment”.

• By this, they imply that instincts are later stages of sentiments, that is, that instincts are created when sentiments get themselves habituated.

This is a theoretical definition.

A spiritual aspirant, who is a practical psychologist, realizes that instinct is a feeling affecting the subsidiary glands.

• These subsidiary glands are the sub-stations of organs whose main controlling station, as already discussed, is located in the brain.

The mind is:

• “saḿkalpátmaka” when its internal feelings lead towards the Great.
• “vikalpátmaka” when its feelings lead towards the mundane or crude

The help of the organs are needed for:

• the evolution of the saḿkalpátmaka and vikalpátmaka mind
• the creation of external waves

This help is also essential for crude manifestation in the physical stratum and other multifarious activities.

• The subtle brain does not work directly.
• It requires cruder sub-stations under its control.

Waves have to be developed for other manifestation of the internal reactive-momenta .

• These waves have to be created in the nerves and in the blood.

The sub-stations of the mind go on transmitting the waves depending on:

• the sanguinary flow and
• the strength of the nerves

The seed of every propensity is in the brain.

• But the first expression occurs in the sub-station of the mind, as the glands of the body.

The glands or sub-stations of the mind create the waves.

• These waves are then expressed outwardly through efferent nerves.
• The motor organs work with the help of efferent nerves.
• But the secret of the working lies with these mental sub-stations or glands.

The number of propensities varies according to the complexity of the physical structure.

• The more complex the structure, the greater the number of propensities.
• More-developed animals, therefore, have more propensities than less-developed ones.

Generally, there are 1,000 propensities in the human structure.

• In their development and expression on the ordinary crude level, they are 50 in number.
• This means that the 1,000 seeds of those propensities are present in the brain in the pineal gland.
• This is why the yogis called it the sahasrára cakra (sahasra means “thousand”)

• The subsidiary glands control 48 propensities.
• The pituitary gland controls 2:
  • Saḿkalpátmaka, or one leading to parávidyá (knowledge of the Great)
  • Vikalpátmaka, relating to aparávidyá (knowledge of the mundane).

The pineal as a structure controls all these 50* propensities taken internally and externally by all 10 sense-organs. 50 x 2 x 10 = 1,000.

Within the scope of these propensities lies the seed of good or bad reactive momenta.

• Yogis who can control the sahasrára cakra can attain nirvikalpa samádhi – a state where they are beyond the approach of all the propensities.
  • The attainment of such a state means the end of all reactive momenta (samskara)
  • The exhaustion of all the previous momentum accumulated by the mind due to its previous journeys in Brahma Cakra is called mokśa, the union with the Transcendentality.

*Superphysics note: We implement the 50 propensities as the lines (travel, marriage, venus, etc). The “2” is the change from past to present. The “10” is the dominant 7 mounts and 3 lines.

30 May 1959