4.3. Yoga and Barah Bhavana

Moving ahead onto the path of self-purification leads one into twelve bhavanas or the twelve anupreksas, on which one must contemplate upon. They are:

1. impermanence (anitya);
2. helplessness (asharana);
3. the cycle of transmigration (samsara);
4. solitariness (ekatva);
5. the separateness of the self and the body (anyatva);
6. the foulness of the body (ashucya);
7. the influx of karma (asrava);
8. the checking of karma (samvara);
9. the elimination of karma (nirjara);
10. the universe (loka);
11. the difficulty of enlightenment (bodhi-durlabha);
12. the preaching of the sacred law (svakhyatatva).^[1]

This is what life is about, one lives it, learns from it, ponder over it and yet one is not supposed to get indulged into it. Sometimes with age and at the other with the happening of an incident, favourable or unfavourable, one starts thinking about the bigger purpose of life and one’s place in it. These twelve bhavanas are the ones on which one lands safely and then takes off for another journey towards a higher spiritual plane through analysing the self-further.