Dictionary-Explanations-The Srimad Vers-& Bhagavad Gita-Ch 5
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Dictionary of Religion
Dictionary and Explanations of The Srimad Bhagavad Gita
Dictionary of Religion
Dictionary and Explanations of The Srimad Bhagavad Gita
The Bhagavad Gita is part of The Mahabharata
This major epic originally in Sanskrit is of ancient India.
The other of its kind is known as the Ramayana. The Mah?bh?rata is a narration about the Kurukshetra War.
Due to the size and nature of many areas available within, for study purposes, a link is provided below.
EXTERNAL LINKS - MAHABHARATA
Srimad Bhagavad Gita
Fifth Chapter
The Way of Renunciation
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Alternate Translation:
BHAGAVADGÎTÂ.CHAPTER V
KÂSHINÂTH TRIMBAK TELANG, M. A.
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Arjuna A hero and one of primary characters of The Bhagavad Gita. He is known as the third of the Pandavas. These are the sons and princes of Pandu. When Lord Krisha teaches Arjuna is the one who is the Receiver of his Divine Word. It his conversation with Lord Krishna, which brings this Gita to life, both in philosophy and in learning of the Divine Ways of Lord Krisha. Arjuna, as a warrior is also a primary character, within the entire Mahabarata epic, and was one of the finest archers. It is He who facilitated the defeat of the Kauravas in the Kurukshetra War. Within The Mahabharata he receives many names, some of which you will note as you read the Srimad Bhagavad Gita.
Arjuna - one of taintless fame and glow like silver
Phalguna - one born on the star of Phalguna
Jishnu - conqueror of enemies
Kiriti - one who wears the celestial diadem, Kiriti, presented by Indra
Swetavahana - one with white horses mounted to his chariot
Bibhatsu - one who always fights wars in a fair manner
Vijaya - victorious warrior
Parth or Partha - son of Pritha or Kunti. Incidentally his father is the Lord of Heavens, Indra.
Savyasachi - skillful in using both arms, ambidextrous
Dhananjaya - one who conquers bows (dhanu) referring to his skills as an archer
Gudakesa - One who has conquered sleep (gudaka "sleep")
Kapi Dhwaj - Having flag of Kapi (Monkey) in his chariot (Arjuna's flag displayed an image of Hanuman from a previous encounter)
Parantap - one who concentrates the most, destroyer of enemies from his concentration
Phalguna - one born on the star of Phalguna
Jishnu - conqueror of enemies
Kiriti - one who wears the celestial diadem, Kiriti, presented by Indra
Swetavahana - one with white horses mounted to his chariot
Bibhatsu - one who always fights wars in a fair manner
Vijaya - victorious warrior
Parth or Partha - son of Pritha or Kunti. Incidentally his father is the Lord of Heavens, Indra.
Savyasachi - skillful in using both arms, ambidextrous
Dhananjaya - one who conquers bows (dhanu) referring to his skills as an archer
Gudakesa - One who has conquered sleep (gudaka "sleep")
Kapi Dhwaj - Having flag of Kapi (Monkey) in his chariot (Arjuna's flag displayed an image of Hanuman from a previous encounter)
Parantap - one who concentrates the most, destroyer of enemies from his concentration
NAMES and CONCEPTS OF THE SRIMAD BHAGAVAD GITA - CHAPTER 5
BRAHMAN
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Krishna
Arjuna: See above
Kunti: In Hindu mythology, within the Mahabharata, is the biological daughter of Shurasena and a Yadava. She is also the sister of Vasudeva, the foster daughter of her cousin King Kunti-Bhoja, the wife of King Pandu of Hastinapur and the mother of King Karna of Anga and King Yudhisthira of Indraprastha.
a Kshatriya.
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Sannyasi
Sannyasa s the life stage of renunciation within the Hindu philosophy of four age-based life stages known as ashrams, with the first three being Brahmacharya (bachelor student), Grihastha (householder) and Vanaprastha (forest dweller, retired). Sannyasa is traditionally conceptualized for men or women in late years of their life, but young Brahmacharis have had the choice to skip householder and retirement stage, renounce worldly and materialistic pursuits and dedicate their lives to spiritual pursuits (moksha).
Wikipedia
In Hinduism, one who renounces all ties with family and society and pursues spiritual liberation. Sannyasis are a class of sadhu that do not live in communities, instead leading a mendicant, itinerant life. Those recognized as having achieved full self-knowledge are considered free of all worldly rules and duties, including those pertaining to caste, and are not required to carry out image worship or offerings. After death, their bodies, rather than being cremated, are buried in a seated, meditative posture.
Merriam Webster
Moksha: In Indian religions moksha or mukti is the liberation from samsara, the cycle of death and rebirth.
Yajnas
The Threefold Purpose of Yajna
(HinduDharma: The Vedas)
The Three Fold Purpose of Yajna
The Vedic sacrifices have threefold purposes. The first is to earn the blessings of the deities so that we as well as all other creatures may be happy in this world. The second is to ensure that, after our death, we will live happily in the world of the celestials. But our stay in devaloka, the celestial world, is not for all time. It will last only until such time as we exhaust the merit earned by us in this world. The joy known in the celestial world is also not full or entire unlike the bliss experienced by great devotees and jnanins. It is nowhere equal to the bliss of the Atman: which is also described as "experiencing" Isvara.
Sankara has stated in his Manisa-Pancaka that the joy that Indra knows is no more than a drop in the ocean of Atma-ananda or the bliss of Self-realisation. However, life in svarga, the paradise of the celestials, is a thousand times happier than life on earth with its unceasing sorrows. The second purpose of performing sacrifices is to earn residence in this paradise.
The third purpose is the most important and it is achieved by performing sacrifices, as taught by the Gita, without any expectation of reward. Here we desire neither happiness in this world nor residence in paradise. We perform sacrifices only because it is our duty to invoke the blessings of the Gods for the welfare of the world. In this way our consciousness will be cleansed, a pre-requisite for enlightenment and final liberation. In other words the selfless performance of sacrifices means that we will eventually be dissolved in the Paramatman.
Sankara, who has expounded the ideals of Self-realisation and jnana, says: "Vedo nityam adhiyatam taduditam karma svanusthiyatam" (Chant the vedas every day. Perform with care the sacrifices and other rites they enjoin upon you). The Acharya wants us to conduct sacrifices not for happiness in this world, nor for the enjoyment of the pleasure of paradise. No, not for any petty rewards. Sankara exhorts us to carry out Vedic works without our hearts being vitiated by desire. This, according to his teaching, is the way to make our mind pure in order to realise the Self.
www.kamakoti.org/
Prana:Life Force
Apana; means subtle energy that moves in abdominal area and controls elimination of waste products from the body.
Bibliography: mimiyoga
The Philosophy of the Bhagavadgita
by Swami Krishnananda
Chapter 5: The Mortal and the Immortal (About The First Chapter)
The First Chapter of the Bhagavadgita pinpoints the basic difficulties which a spiritual seeker may face in the long run, in spite of the preparations that he might have made with all his logical conclusions and sincerity of purpose. In the earlier stages of our aspirations we do not fully realise the problems that are hidden deep, invisibly beneath the outer layers of our personality, not directly connected with our daily life. We have an unconscious personality apart from the conscious one limited to this bodily existence, and this unconscious level of ours is larger in its content than the little expression of it we visualise outside as the body and its sensory relations.
There are fears of various types which keep us secretly unhappy, and many of the activities of life in the conscious level are attempts to brush aside these fears; and then we imagine that they do not exist at all. We occupy ourselves so busily with works of various types as a kind of outlet or counteracting power against these fears, usually known in the language of psychology as ‘defence mechanisms.’ We protect our selves by certain psychic mechanisms which we have formed within ourselves as a kind of self-deception, we may say, finally. This is the attitude of the ostrich which is said to bury its head in the sand when it is threatened with any kind of fear outside. It hides its head in the sand so that it cannot see things outside, and when nothing is seen outside, it thinks that nothing exists outside. This is not merely the ostrich’s way, but, perhaps, the attitude of every human being when he is faced with insoluble difficulties. The problems are mostly in the unconscious level; they are not always on the conscious surface. It may not appear to us that they exist at all. We are comfortably placed in a sensory world wherein the senses are fed to surfeit and they keep us completely ignorant of the dangerous abyss through which we may have to pass in the future stages of our life. We are brain-washed by the impetuous activities of the senses to such an extent that we cannot be aware of what is ahead of us, what may happen tomorrow. Because, if we can be awakened to the fact of all things that are to be faced in the future, we may perish just now with a fear of it, and Nature does not want anybody to die like that, and defeat its purpose. Nature keeps everything as a secret and lets the cat out of the bag only when necessary.
Now, when the tremendous confrontation of the Mahabharata battle was there staring at the face of the otherwise heroic Arjuna, what was unconsciously present in the human being that he was came off and spoke in its own voice. Fears which were otherwise unknown and undreamt of manifested themselves as the only realities and gripped Arjuna with such power that his personality changed completely, and he was not the man that he was before. We can suddenly become different persons in a moment if serious conditions overtake us. Just a second is enough to transform one into a different personality altogether, and one can be a personality of any type, be cause we are everything inside us. Everything that is anywhere exists also within us. And anything can come out under a given condition. It all depends upon the particular button that is pushed, and there you have the genius coming up, as if we have rubbed the lamp of Aladdin, which you hear in the stories of the Arabian Nights. Great fears overpowered Arjuna’s mind like serious diseases. Doubts of various kinds harass our minds when we begin to tread the path of the spirit because of a basic misconstruing of the very meaning of the path chosen, which mistake we commit due to a lack of proper training in the art of living the spiritual life. An emotional stirring up of oneself into the enthusiasm of love of God, due to the study of scriptures or mystical texts, or listening to the sermon of a master, cannot be regarded as a reliable support for all time to come.
There must be a conviction which must go deep into the heart, and as long as the head and heart stand apart like the two poles of the earth, there is the likelihood of the psychic apparatus getting out of order and throwing us in different directions as scattered pieces of our personality, so that we may lose even the little that we had earlier. This is what they call the ‘fall’ in the language of mysticism, religion and spirituality. This happens because we are not studying ourselves properly and we had a wrong notion of ourselves based upon what we know through sense-perceptions, social relationships, etc.
The doubts that arise in the mind later on, when we advance sufficiently on the path, can be many, but those that are recorded in the first chapter of the Gita, as those that occurred to the mind of Arjuna, are a few. He had a few serious difficulties which he posed before Krishna. All this is the preparation for the war, the battle in which the seeking spirit is confronting Nature as a whole, and the society outside. “Can this adventure be a mistake on our part?” “Have I committed a blunder with no proper thought?” When we grow older in age, these doubts can come to the mind. “Is there not something different from what I am seeking just now?” I have made an evaluation of human society, my relationship with human society, and the world as a whole; and have come to a conclusion that they are to be faced in a storm if it becomes necessary.
They are to be subdued and thrown out, abandoned, put down for the purpose of the achievement of spiritual victory. But is this a proper attitude? Shall we face in a war those things, those persons, who have been our support and in regard to whom we are certainly required to per form certain obligations? There is what is called ethics and morality, there is an etiquette and a goodness, a charitable feeling, all of which is quite different from the spirit of battle or war with the atmosphere outside. Are we to consider it friendly and accommodate it with our relationships in the world of sense? Or, are we to fight with everything? What should be our spirit, our attitude in relation to the world and human society? A spirit of accommodation is one thing and a spirit of war is another thing. Are things to be completely put down with the power of our arms? Or, can this attitude be an error on our side?”
Arjuna puts this question: “Is this not a mistake? Are we expected to face our brethren, our nephews, our relations, our grandsire, our teachers as if they are our opponents? Is the world our enemy? Are we to confront society as an unfriendly environment? This is one difficulty. Secondly, if we set this example before other people, naturally, we expect others also to follow the same thing as a permissible attitude. The world will follow suit along this line, which will end in a chaos of the entire society, a destruction of all human values, and a defeat of the very purpose of creation. Is this not a sin that we commit? Are we to create disorder in human society in the name of a so-called victory, in the name of an idea that we have placed before ourselves calling it dharma or justice?
But, there is another difficulty, yet. Is it certain that we are going to win victory in this battle? The world is mighty enough, and human society is very complicated in its make. Are we sure that we are to be the winners, or can it be the other way round? We may be overpowered by the powers of Nature or we may be destroyed by the ethics of society. Considering all these aspects of the situation it appears to me that all these engagements of ours are a futile attempt. We have to think thrice before we take a step. To me, at least, it appears that there is a basic error in the entire outlook with which we have embarked upon this war.
“I shall do nothing,” says Arjuna, and throws down the weapon of all effort, enthusiasm and aspiration, and reverts to the level of the ordinary human being of sentiments and sense-ridden satisfaction.
The difficulties mentioned, in a few words, in the first chapter of the Bhagavadgita are not ordinary jokes or mere stories told to us for our cajolement. These things are the difficulties of human nature as such. It is not just my difficulty or your difficulty. Anyone who is human shall have to pass through these stages.
Who can ever gainsay that one does not think in terms of gains and losses, in the light of one’s relationship with the world outside and human society externally. We love and hate and have our ways in this complex of relationship in the world and in all human affairs. Where does God come in here into this picture? The notion of God has also been a frightening factor many a time in the history of human thought. And there have been as many ideas of God as there are people in this world. There are those who denied the very existence of such a thing as God, because of the fact that there are no proofs adequate enough to convince us of God’s existence: All our arguments are sensory in the end, the logic of philosophy is a phenomenal argument and it can not touch what we imagine to be the noumenon, or a transcendent Being, because the substantiation of the existence of anything transcendent cannot be achieved through the instrument of phenomenal reason.
There are people who have been totally agnostic. God may be, or may not be. Even if He is there, it is all something impossible for us to understand with the faculties with which we are endowed at present. But more serious difficulties are those which faced Arjuna’s mind, and which gradually creep into our own minds, and keep us inwardly insecure and anxious. The anxiety of a spiritual seeker is due to doubts as to the possibility of success in the spiritual path, doubts concerning the correctness of the approach which one has launched, doubts as regards the duties one owes to the world and to human society, and, finally, doubts even concerning what will happen to oneself, taking for granted that this realisation takes place. These doubts are not ordinary ones. They are present, perhaps, in every one of us, in some measure, in some proportion. And nothing can be more frightening to the ego of the human being than to be told that God is All-Power and the experience of God means an abolition of individuality. No one expects this, and one keeps that situation as far away from oneself as possible, postpones it to an indefinite future and closes one’s eyes to such a possibility at all. What can be a greater fear than that of losing oneself, even if it be in the ocean of God Himself. We would not want to be drowned even if it be in a sea of nectar.
Now, the sum and substance of the first chapter of the Bhagavadgita is this much — a relinquishment of all effort, which originally was the spring of action of the seeking state. After years of spiritual practice one may content oneself with being the very same person that one was many years back and lead the little life of the man of the street either due to incapacity or due to a total disillusionment here. There are several types of spiritual seekers who may have to face the same problems, no doubt, but who will be taken along different paths on account of the varying extent of the clarity of their spirits and the sincerity of purpose with which they have started the adventure of spiritual life. When our search is sincere and hundred percent genuine, notwithstanding the fact that we have not understood things entirely, we will be taken care of by the powers of the world and we will see light rising in the horizon, and a Guru, or a teacher, or a master like Krishna, will be there in front of us, and we will be placed in the context or juxtaposition of such a master by the nature of the universe, by the very law of creation, by the justice of God. In the earlier stages one may be reluctant even to receive the advice of the master fully. Even when one is face to face with a competent teacher, one may not be prepared to act upon the teaching entirely.
This happened to Arjuna also by a circumstance described in the very beginning of the second chapter. The great teacher told him, “This is an unworthy and unbecoming attitude on your part at this crucial moment of time.”
The retort of Arjuna was, “I am sorry; however, I have decided that I am not going to take up arms. What is the good of all this bloody warfare whereby everything is going to be destroyed! Everything is to be swallowed up by the gaping mouths of doom.”
Then a necessity arises for the teacher to take the disciple along the proper course and lead him up, stage by stage. A competent teacher understands the level of the mind of the student and takes his stand on that level, which is sometimes called the Socratic method of teaching. The teacher does not impose himself upon the student, because a flowering of the bud of the mind of the student is essential. We cannot forcefully open it, for, if it is done, there would not be a blossomed flower.
“All right,” says Krishna, “I understand what you say. You have a fear that you may not win victory. You may have other difficulties apart from this, namely, the social catastrophe that may follow the destruction.”
Any argument or logical approach should take into consideration what is called the ‘universe of discourse.’ One must know the field in which the reason is operating at any given moment of time. One cannot jump into another field altogether different from the one in which the reason operates. We argue as a citizen of the world, a unit in human society, or we argue on the basis of our being a metaphysical unit. A metaphysical argument should not be employed to solve problems which are purely social and personal, too intimate perhaps, material or physical. Similarly, purely social and economic arguments should not be used in the description or understanding of metaphysical realities. Everything has to be taken at the level in which it is. And Arjuna made a mistake of mixing up his arguments. He was on the one hand fear-struck with the possibility of death and destruction in the war, he might die and he might lose everything; and the question of success or victory in war does not arise if that predicament takes place. On the other hand, he had a fear from society, the fear of committing sin by way of destruction of values conducive to social solidarity. And he did not understand what would happen to him as a result of these errors that he might commit in the name of war.
The metaphysical side of human nature is in a peculiar manner connected with the empirical features. In the very beginning of the second chapter, Krishna resorts to the principle of the immortality of the soul. Do we die, really? The phenomenon of death is analysed threadbare. Who dies? And what is the meaning of death? Death is generally regarded as destruction. Does it stand to reason to say that anything can be totally destroyed? Is there a real destruction of anything? Now, destruction is the total negation of what is, and what is, is called the real. When some thing really exists, it cannot be called a phenomenon or a passing phase. A real thing cannot pass away, and that which passes away cannot be called the real. The real has to ‘be’, and, therefore, it is called the real. The unreal cannot be, and there is no necessity to entertain any kind of fear or doubt in regard to it. Either that which dies is real or unreal. We cannot have a third alternative to imagine. Something dies, or someone dies. Is that thing or that person real, or unreal? We have to be clear in our minds when we consider this process of arguing. If we say that the thing that has died was real, then we are contradicting ourselves, because, if it had been real, it could not be destroyed; there is no death for it. It is already declared that it is real, and the real cannot not be, and the unreal cannot be.
Thus, that which is, that which is real, cannot be regarded as destructible. If we say that the thing that has died is not real, that it is unreal, then there is no question of its death; it has already been dubbed as unreal. The destruction of a non-existent thing is unthinkable. And a destruction of an existent thing, also, is equally unthinkable; because, that which is existent cannot be destroyed, and that which can be destroyed cannot be regarded as existent. Then, what is it that dies? The phenomenon of death is visible before our eyes because of a mixing up of standpoints. This mixing up is called, in philosophic language, adhyasa, a superimposition of one thing on another thing. We read one meaning in another and that meaning in this, and so on. That which exists is not that which dies. And that which does not exist is not that which dies. Therefore, one cannot say what dies.
The process of death is one of transition, and is not a ‘destruction’ of anything. A change of condition is what we call death, which is a change that is required by the law of the evolution of the universe. In fact, we die every moment. Every cell of our body changes constantly, and it is opined by biologists that after every seven years we become entirely changed personalities, physically. All the cells of the body renew themselves in such a manner that we are new beings after many years. Not merely that; every day there is transformation as we grow. We have grown from baby-hood to this adulthood of today. But we have never seen how we have grown. This process of growing was imperceptible. And, if growth is nothing but change, how is it that it could not be perceived? We never knew that we are becoming something else every moment. All change is perceptible, visible, recognisable. But in our own case of growth, for instance, we never knew, we never recognised, we never felt that we are changing; all this because there is something in us which does not change. That character of this mysterious entity in us which does not change is the real reason behind the fear of death and the love of life.
Change is only a condition and not a substance; it is not a thing. It is, therefore, not a reality. But it appears as if some tremendous event takes place at the time of death, for all our practical purposes. We are horrified at the very name of death. The horrific nature of death is due to the identification of characters belonging to two levels of our being, the spiritual or the metaphysical getting transferred to the temporal or the transitional, and vice versa. We see two things at the same time imagining that it is one thing and that the experience is not constituted of two different things. There is a procession of events, a continuous change of process charged with a unitary invisibility of being which is our basic essentiality. We call it the Atman, the soul, the self, consciousness, etc. There is an indestructible element in us, and that has got mixed with the condition of change which infects every thing that is finite. We are imbued with the world of finites, of the bodily individuality of ours, and even the psychic isolation of ours is a character of our finitude. The finite struggles to align itself with the Infinite, to which it really belongs, and this struggle of the finite to move towards the Infinite is the whole story of evolution. Any change, any transformation, any movement whatsoever, anywhere in this world, at any time, is a consequence of this impulse from the finite in the direction of the Infinite; and no one can remain for ever as a finite, inasmuch as the finitude of being is an unnatural state of being. The unnatural cannot always be, it tries to overcome and transcend itself and expand itself into the higher stage which moves gradually towards an infinitude of realisation. This tendency of the finitude in us towards the Infinite that is really there is the reason behind transmigration, birth and death. What we call birth-and-death, or rebirth, transmigration, metempsychosis, etc., is a necessary obligation on the part of everything that is finite in the light of the all-comprehensiveness of the Infinite. We cannot maintain our individual personalities continuously intact. As a matter of fact, we cannot be the same individuals even for two seconds together. Every moment we change and move and urge in the direction of a larger achievement. But, because of the fact that our consciousness is tethered, somehow, to the finitude of body and mind, it appears as if the whole of our ‘being’ has changed. And when the change becomes so intense as to make it impossible for the mind to contain it within itself, when the change that is to take place for this purpose becomes marked in the sense of a total change in the form of this finitude, it appears as if our essential being itself has undergone a process of destruction.
There are two kinds of change; that particular series of changes which we pass through everyday as in the case of our growth, for instance, from babyhood to adulthood, etc., and the other one which we usually call death. While the constituents of our finitude change in the manner of a growth in a new form, we do not feel this transformation or change in a marked manner, because this complex we call the body in this space-time world somehow maintains its particular form of complexity, and as we are living in a world of senses, and the senses regard this body as the self, we do not feel that anything serious has taken place to us in this frame of space-time. As long as this form is maintained we feel ourselves intact, but when the conditions of the process of evolution require a change in the very form of this finitude, and we are to be shifted from one space-time order to another space-time realm, it appears that there is a total annihilation of personality.
Death is a transformation of ourselves from one space-time order to another space-time structure. We move from one continuum of space-time to another continuum. It does not mean that the universe is made up of one type of space-time only. The present system is one particular arrangement of space-time and this particular body of ours is in consonance with the requirements of the order of space-time in which we are at present. When the time-series and the spatial order changes in the higher ascent of ourselves, the whole physical form has to be shed completely and a new form has to be assumed for this purpose. But inasmuch as our consciousness, the soul, is connected with this particular bodily complex, we imagine that this transformation of ourselves from one space-time order to another is a destruction of ourselves, and as destruction is fearsome, we hate death. Now, therefore, the fear of death is due to a misconception in our minds on account of a lack of understanding of what the universe requires from us. We are not punished by death. We are only educated by it.
And the Bhagavadgita gives a simple analogy to explain what actually happens in the process of death. We cast off one garment when it is worn out and put on another which is new. When we throw off old clothes and put on new ones, we do not imagine that we have lost something valuable. Likewise is the change of body, and we should not imagine that there is a real loss in death, this process being a necessity, and also because of the fact that we are entering into a new life altogether in the direction of a personal transvaluation of values for the growth of our personalities, because the justice of God shall reign supreme finally, and the truth of the universe shall assert itself eternally. The assertions of the universe in experience are the various series of phenomena to be seen in the world. All change, whatever be its nature, throughout human history, is a requirement of the assertion of the cosmic justice, and birth and death are part of this requirement. So, “Arjuna, you are unnecessarily weeping over something in regard to which wise ones will not grieve. Birth and death do not become the causes of sorrow to people who are endowed with wisdom, who can see through things and not confine their vision merely to the outer form of the events of the universe. Your sorrow is because of the fact that your vision is limited to your senses merely, and you are unable to think in the light of the higher requirement of the law of the cosmos. Thus, your argument that death is an undesirable consequence that follows the battle of life is fallacious.” And the knowledge that is positive in the light of the ultimate reality of things will follow.
The Philosophy of the Bhagavadgita
by Swami Krishnananda
Chapter 10: Forms of Sacrifice and Concentration (Specific References to The Third, Fourth, Fifth and Sixth Chapters)
There is another important theme expounded in the Fourth Chapter, viz., sacrifice as a practice of yoga, in which context certain details of the variegated methods of the performance of this sacrifice as yoga are delineated. The adoration of the gods, the celestials, or the deities of religion is a sacrifice. And any sacrifice is also a yoga, because sacrifice means a parting of one’s own self in some measure in the direction of the achievement of a larger Self, so that in every form of sacrifice a lower form of self is surrendered or sacrificed to a higher form of Self.
Whenever the mind fixes its attention on something other than itself, which is supposed to be wider in its comprehension than the contemplating mind or the self, that process is to be regarded as a sacrifice. A lower principle has to be sacrificed for the sake of a higher principle. Contemplation on a Deity, as we conceive it, is the aim of religion, wherein the surrender of oneself in such a contemplation is implied. This is one kind of sacrifice, a religious performance, and it is yoga, because it is the union of the lower with the higher by means of adoration. The surrender of the lower self to the higher Self is regarded as brahma-yajna, jnana-yajna — sacrifice of knowledge, or sacrifice in knowledge, or through knowledge, for the sake of union with the larger Self which is a manifestation of Brahman, the Absolute.
When the senses are withdrawn and fixed inwardly, a sacrifice is performed, and this is also a part of the practice of yoga. When the senses are concentrated on objects which are regarded as helpful in the sublimation of desire, a kind of sacrifice is performed for the realisation of a higher good.
When the powers of the mind, the intellect and the senses, together, are centred in the Self; or the Consciousness within, a sacrifice is performed, and it is a yoga.
When the vital energy inside moving in the form of the breathing process is regulated, through systematised exhalation, inhalation and retention known usually as rechaka, puraka and kumbhaka, a sacrifice is performed. And that is also a way of yoga. Any act by which the propulsion of the mind and the senses outwardly is checked for the purpose of the utilisation of the whole of one’s consciousness for contemplation on a ‘being’ which includes one’s own self and is therefore larger than one’s self is a great sacrifice.
Whenever our joy is shared with another, we perform a sacrifice. And the great joy of everyone is to retain the ego. The maintenance intact of one’s own ego-sense is the greatest of satisfactions, and when we share this satisfaction a little of the ego is diminished in its intensity, thereby we part with a measure of our personality, we share a little bit of our being, the lower self, by which act we expand our consciousness in the direction of that which includes the so-called lower self of ours as well as that on which we are contemplating.
When we were discussing about the concept of the Deity we had touched upon this theme. All these are yajnas, or sacrifices, or a Tapas, and therefore they are yoga.
Study of scriptures with concentration and a holiness of spirit is also regarded as a sacrifice, because concentration is involved there. But we are admonished that sacrifices which require physical material are lower than those forms of sacrifice where the mind alone functions and any physical appurtenance is not necessary. A feeling of charitableness, for instance, is an act of the mind, which is superior to the physical expression of it by way of parting with any external material when the inward feeling is absent.
It is the feeling that counts, and it assumes a significance only when it is genuine, when it becomes a tendency to rise above one’s lower self to the higher Self which includes the person or persons towards which one expresses the charitable feelings. Any kind of austerity by which the senses are restrained and the ego is overcome in any percentage is superior to material sacrifices. And the highest sacrifice, or the loftiest concentration, the greatest form of yoga is the centering of consciousness in the Consciousness of a larger dimension.
“Dispelling all doubts by the awakening of knowledge, and converting or transforming every action into yoga, root yourself in your higher Consciousness,” are the concluding words of the Fourth Chapter, which message is continued in the Fifth and Sixth Chapters with certain other forms of detail.
Knowledge and action are not two different things. Samkhya and Yoga are like the obverse and reverse of the same coin. Therefore, renunciation of any kind is impossible unless the separatist tendency in one’s self is overcome to the extent necessary. We always feel that we are separate from the world and from creation as a whole. This tendency to the isolation of oneself from everything outside is the opposite of yoga, and if yoga is a gradual movement towards the affiliation of one’s self with all things, aiming at union with things finally, if yoga means that, renunciation of any kind is impossible without this yoga; because renunciation, at least in the spirit of the Bhagavadgita, does not mean a physical dissociation from objects or persons but a withdrawal of the consciousness of the externality of things, so that renunciation becomes a function of consciousness and not an activity of the body. Hence renunciation which is the essence of karma yoga cannot be dissociated from the forms of concentration and meditation which are normally known as yoga. Meditation and action are the same if they are to be defined in the way we have stated.
When the senses move among objects, a desire is not moving, that is the caution we have to exercise when we perform actions in the world. Mostly, when we cognise or perceive things, this process is charged with a desire, a motive within. When we gaze at things or look at objects or hear things or perform any sense-function, we would realise, if we are properly investigative, that there is some kind of impulsion from inside in the direction of a self-satisfaction in the lower self, and a desireless perception is unthinkable for us.
However, yoga is not the repression of sense-activity but the freeing of sense-activity from involvement in desires which usually propel the activity. All activities get infected with some desire concerned with the ego-sense. And yoga is a gradual freedom that is to be attained in this activity of the sense-organs by means of the dissociation of the same from this disease called desire. Activity is permissible, and the Bhagavadgita tells us that it is unavoidable, but it also insists at the same time that we have to be careful to see that desire is not going there side by side or parallelly with the activity of the senses. It is not necessary that activity should always be with some desire. In fact, the most noble form of action is desireless action. And a desireful action is really culpable, ultimately. When one realises that the impulsion of the senses in the direction of objects is a cosmic function, a thing that was explained in detail in the Third Chapter, one begins to be inwardly happy in a higher sense on account of the attunement of oneself with the great forces of the universe which are the real agents of actions and whose movement is the reason behind the movement of the senses towards the objects. As we have already noted, it is not the senses that move towards the objects; the gunas of prakriti move among the gunas of prakriti. Prakriti is moving towards prakriti.
The forces of Nature commingle with the forces of Nature, so that there are no sense-organs and there are no objects of the senses. There is a continuity of movement, which has neither a beginning nor an end, in the entire cyclic motion of cosmic activity, and we do not come into the picture there as individuals. We do not, rather, exist. What exists is the universal force. Prakriti-shakti manifests itself as sattva, rajas and tamas. We will not feel at that time that we are doing anything at all, just as when a vehicle is moving, in which we are seated, we do not feel that we have made any contribution to this movement. We are taken by the force of the movement of the vehicle. This is a hard thing for the mind to entertain, because no human being is accustomed to think in this manner. We have a stereotyped way of thinking which is the traditional outlook of life, which is essentially selfish, personal and materialistic, physical and rooted in the utter isolatedness of sense from the whole of the environment. The very quintessence of yoga practice is stated in two verses towards the end of the Fifth Chapter, which is detailed out in an expanded form in the Sixth Chapter.
The contact of the senses with objects outside has to be severed. This is the first instruction. Here we are likely to make a mistake in understanding the meaning of this statement. The objects have to be severed from their contact with the senses. Generally what we understand by this suggestion is that we should run away physically from the objects. Geographically there has to be a movement from place to place, from where the objects are located. We move to go to other places where these objects are not available. This is the crudest and the lowest form of renunciation. But we have been cautioned in one place, in the Second Chapter, that physical isolation need not necessarily mean absence of desire for things. The mind may not be dissociated from its contemplated objects, while physically there may be a distance between the body and the objects.
The severing of the senses from the objects of their perception means here, in this context, not merely a physical distance to be maintained between ourselves and the objects, but the extrication of our consciousness from the clutches of externality or objectivity and coming to a realisation or experience that the objects are not really externally placed. To come back to the theme of the Third Chapter, again, we have to be convinced at the bottom of our being that the objects are not placed externally in space and time. This is a mistaken view of the mind. If they are not really external to us, there cannot be any sensory contact with them, and, therefore, there is no question of a desire for them. The whole thing drops at one stroke. This is true renunciation, and this is abiding, and this is the significance of this admonition that there should be a severance of the senses from the objects of the senses.
The gaze or the attention is to be fixed in the centre where the mind is located. This is a little bit of psychic instruction. Esoteric psychology holds that the mind has a certain location. In the waking state it is supposed to be functioning through the brain, and its root is supposed to be the point between the two eyebrows. In the condition of dream, the mind is said to be moving through the nerve centre located in the throat, or the region of the neck, and in the condition of deep sleep the mind goes down into the heart, and that is the ultimate seat of the mind.
Here, in the verses referred to in the Fifth Chapter, we are told that the mind has to be concentrated on the point between the two eyebrows. The gaze has to be fixed on the ajna-chakra, as it is called, by which what is implied is that the mind has to concentrate itself on its own seat. Thereby it becomes easier to control the mind than when it is moving away from its centre.
Neither should we close the eyes completely nor should we open the eyes fully, which appears to be something like looking at the tip of the nose. The idea is not that we should actually concentrate on the tip of the nose, though that is one form of concentration people generally try sometimes. What is implied is that there should be a half closed posture of the eyes, by which we neither close them wholly and get induced into a mood of sleep or torpidity, nor do we open them completely and be distracted by the presence of objects outside.
Together with this function we begin to breathe slowly, leisurely, with a sense of freedom from engagements and obligations and duties of every kind at that time. The Prana moves calmly, harmoniously, beautifully, only when we have no commitments psychologically.
If we have any kind of engagement attracting our attention inwardly, towards that direction the Prana also will move. And the agitation of the Prana is due to distractedness caused by the desires of the mind, by commitment to activity. Hence, when we sit for meditation, there should be no preconceived background of obligations of any kind. Otherwise, a part of our mind, subconsciously or unconsciously, will be tying itself to the engagements towards which also it has to move, and which it has on its hands. When we sit for meditation, there should be no back ground of obligations of any kind, except the obligation to concentrate. It would be advisable for every person who is after the practice of meditation to see that immediate obligations are fulfilled before sitting for meditation. Well, we cannot be free from all obligations, of course; that is very clear. It does not mean that the entire commitments of the whole of life should be stopped. That is not possible. But there should not be any pressing need compelling our attention elsewhere immediately. At least for a few hours we are to be free, may be for half a day we have no engagements, and then we feel a little bit of rest, there is a leisure felt inwardly, then the Pranas automatically settle down of their own accord, for there is composure of mind. There is also, then, a spontaneous harmony of the movement of the Pranas. The whole attention should be on freedom of the self in the absorption of consciousness in God.
The senses, the mind and the intellect should stand together as if there is a single flame of life emerging from the self within. Usually the senses work somewhere, the mind is thinking something and the intellect is acquiescing in the activities of the mind and sense; they never work in harmony. We are agitated personalities on account of the lack of harmony among the senses, the mind and the intellect. Like three flames of light joining into a single flame,. the power of the senses and the power of the mind and the power of reason should stand together in unison. And the comparison given in the Sixth Chapter is that the flame should be unflickering like the glow of the lamp which is placed in a windless place. Such is the consciousness we attain to when there is no desire behind the working of the senses and there is no personal impulsion goading the mind towards anything outside, and the reason is satisfied. One’s only goal is moksha, salvation, and there is no other aim in life. We have to be a hundred-percent convinced that moksha is the goal of life, the liberation of the spirit is the aim of all our activities, all our studies, all our engagements, anything that we do, in any manner. Non-hatred, non-anger, non-greed follow automatically from this whole-souled attention of the consciousness on the ideal of the salvation of the spirit in the Absolute. This is yoga in essence, says
the Fifth Chapter.
All this is very inspiring no doubt, but when we actually take to the practice, we will find that the senses are not yielding so easily. They are like turbulent horses which drag the vehicle, or the chariot, in any way they like, and to maintain a control over these horses which pull the vehicle of this body, the personality, is a hard job, indeed. The whole process of the practice of yoga is a gradual one, not a sudden impulsive movement. We do not jump into action when we enter into yoga. We take one step at a time, even as the mason keeps only one brick at a time when he raises a wall for a building; he does not place a thousand bricks in a heap. There is a gradual raising of the building by the architect or the workman, there is a steadiness and fixity maintained right from the bottom or the foundation, and a lot of time is to be taken in seeing that the foundation is strong, that every brick is laid properly in position, and firmly, with the requisite cement. Otherwise, there is a chance of the crumbling of the edifice. There should be no break or haste in any successful action, whether it is in raising a building structure, printing a book, writing a text, listening to a lecture or contemplating on God. Everything has to be done with great caution, passivity, leisure, and composure inwardly, and we will not be losers if we take time in this, because it is wiser to take time to understand each step, than to rush up and lose everything that was gained. Therefore, in this connection, the Sixth Chapter, which is known as ‘The yoga of meditation’, tells us that nobody can be a Yogi who has not renounced the personal will or the mood of taking initiative for the satisfaction or the well-being of one s own lower self. When the senses have no desire for any objects and they have no impulsion whatsoever towards any personalistic action, and one has inwardly renounced all motives of every kind, then it is that one is established in yoga.
by Swami Krishnananda
Chapter 10: Forms of Sacrifice and Concentration (Specific References to The Third, Fourth, Fifth and Sixth Chapters)
There is another important theme expounded in the Fourth Chapter, viz., sacrifice as a practice of yoga, in which context certain details of the variegated methods of the performance of this sacrifice as yoga are delineated. The adoration of the gods, the celestials, or the deities of religion is a sacrifice. And any sacrifice is also a yoga, because sacrifice means a parting of one’s own self in some measure in the direction of the achievement of a larger Self, so that in every form of sacrifice a lower form of self is surrendered or sacrificed to a higher form of Self.
Whenever the mind fixes its attention on something other than itself, which is supposed to be wider in its comprehension than the contemplating mind or the self, that process is to be regarded as a sacrifice. A lower principle has to be sacrificed for the sake of a higher principle. Contemplation on a Deity, as we conceive it, is the aim of religion, wherein the surrender of oneself in such a contemplation is implied. This is one kind of sacrifice, a religious performance, and it is yoga, because it is the union of the lower with the higher by means of adoration. The surrender of the lower self to the higher Self is regarded as brahma-yajna, jnana-yajna — sacrifice of knowledge, or sacrifice in knowledge, or through knowledge, for the sake of union with the larger Self which is a manifestation of Brahman, the Absolute.
When the senses are withdrawn and fixed inwardly, a sacrifice is performed, and this is also a part of the practice of yoga. When the senses are concentrated on objects which are regarded as helpful in the sublimation of desire, a kind of sacrifice is performed for the realisation of a higher good.
When the powers of the mind, the intellect and the senses, together, are centred in the Self; or the Consciousness within, a sacrifice is performed, and it is a yoga.
When the vital energy inside moving in the form of the breathing process is regulated, through systematised exhalation, inhalation and retention known usually as rechaka, puraka and kumbhaka, a sacrifice is performed. And that is also a way of yoga. Any act by which the propulsion of the mind and the senses outwardly is checked for the purpose of the utilisation of the whole of one’s consciousness for contemplation on a ‘being’ which includes one’s own self and is therefore larger than one’s self is a great sacrifice.
Whenever our joy is shared with another, we perform a sacrifice. And the great joy of everyone is to retain the ego. The maintenance intact of one’s own ego-sense is the greatest of satisfactions, and when we share this satisfaction a little of the ego is diminished in its intensity, thereby we part with a measure of our personality, we share a little bit of our being, the lower self, by which act we expand our consciousness in the direction of that which includes the so-called lower self of ours as well as that on which we are contemplating.
When we were discussing about the concept of the Deity we had touched upon this theme. All these are yajnas, or sacrifices, or a Tapas, and therefore they are yoga.
Study of scriptures with concentration and a holiness of spirit is also regarded as a sacrifice, because concentration is involved there. But we are admonished that sacrifices which require physical material are lower than those forms of sacrifice where the mind alone functions and any physical appurtenance is not necessary. A feeling of charitableness, for instance, is an act of the mind, which is superior to the physical expression of it by way of parting with any external material when the inward feeling is absent.
It is the feeling that counts, and it assumes a significance only when it is genuine, when it becomes a tendency to rise above one’s lower self to the higher Self which includes the person or persons towards which one expresses the charitable feelings. Any kind of austerity by which the senses are restrained and the ego is overcome in any percentage is superior to material sacrifices. And the highest sacrifice, or the loftiest concentration, the greatest form of yoga is the centering of consciousness in the Consciousness of a larger dimension.
“Dispelling all doubts by the awakening of knowledge, and converting or transforming every action into yoga, root yourself in your higher Consciousness,” are the concluding words of the Fourth Chapter, which message is continued in the Fifth and Sixth Chapters with certain other forms of detail.
Knowledge and action are not two different things. Samkhya and Yoga are like the obverse and reverse of the same coin. Therefore, renunciation of any kind is impossible unless the separatist tendency in one’s self is overcome to the extent necessary. We always feel that we are separate from the world and from creation as a whole. This tendency to the isolation of oneself from everything outside is the opposite of yoga, and if yoga is a gradual movement towards the affiliation of one’s self with all things, aiming at union with things finally, if yoga means that, renunciation of any kind is impossible without this yoga; because renunciation, at least in the spirit of the Bhagavadgita, does not mean a physical dissociation from objects or persons but a withdrawal of the consciousness of the externality of things, so that renunciation becomes a function of consciousness and not an activity of the body. Hence renunciation which is the essence of karma yoga cannot be dissociated from the forms of concentration and meditation which are normally known as yoga. Meditation and action are the same if they are to be defined in the way we have stated.
When the senses move among objects, a desire is not moving, that is the caution we have to exercise when we perform actions in the world. Mostly, when we cognise or perceive things, this process is charged with a desire, a motive within. When we gaze at things or look at objects or hear things or perform any sense-function, we would realise, if we are properly investigative, that there is some kind of impulsion from inside in the direction of a self-satisfaction in the lower self, and a desireless perception is unthinkable for us.
However, yoga is not the repression of sense-activity but the freeing of sense-activity from involvement in desires which usually propel the activity. All activities get infected with some desire concerned with the ego-sense. And yoga is a gradual freedom that is to be attained in this activity of the sense-organs by means of the dissociation of the same from this disease called desire. Activity is permissible, and the Bhagavadgita tells us that it is unavoidable, but it also insists at the same time that we have to be careful to see that desire is not going there side by side or parallelly with the activity of the senses. It is not necessary that activity should always be with some desire. In fact, the most noble form of action is desireless action. And a desireful action is really culpable, ultimately. When one realises that the impulsion of the senses in the direction of objects is a cosmic function, a thing that was explained in detail in the Third Chapter, one begins to be inwardly happy in a higher sense on account of the attunement of oneself with the great forces of the universe which are the real agents of actions and whose movement is the reason behind the movement of the senses towards the objects. As we have already noted, it is not the senses that move towards the objects; the gunas of prakriti move among the gunas of prakriti. Prakriti is moving towards prakriti.
The forces of Nature commingle with the forces of Nature, so that there are no sense-organs and there are no objects of the senses. There is a continuity of movement, which has neither a beginning nor an end, in the entire cyclic motion of cosmic activity, and we do not come into the picture there as individuals. We do not, rather, exist. What exists is the universal force. Prakriti-shakti manifests itself as sattva, rajas and tamas. We will not feel at that time that we are doing anything at all, just as when a vehicle is moving, in which we are seated, we do not feel that we have made any contribution to this movement. We are taken by the force of the movement of the vehicle. This is a hard thing for the mind to entertain, because no human being is accustomed to think in this manner. We have a stereotyped way of thinking which is the traditional outlook of life, which is essentially selfish, personal and materialistic, physical and rooted in the utter isolatedness of sense from the whole of the environment. The very quintessence of yoga practice is stated in two verses towards the end of the Fifth Chapter, which is detailed out in an expanded form in the Sixth Chapter.
The contact of the senses with objects outside has to be severed. This is the first instruction. Here we are likely to make a mistake in understanding the meaning of this statement. The objects have to be severed from their contact with the senses. Generally what we understand by this suggestion is that we should run away physically from the objects. Geographically there has to be a movement from place to place, from where the objects are located. We move to go to other places where these objects are not available. This is the crudest and the lowest form of renunciation. But we have been cautioned in one place, in the Second Chapter, that physical isolation need not necessarily mean absence of desire for things. The mind may not be dissociated from its contemplated objects, while physically there may be a distance between the body and the objects.
The severing of the senses from the objects of their perception means here, in this context, not merely a physical distance to be maintained between ourselves and the objects, but the extrication of our consciousness from the clutches of externality or objectivity and coming to a realisation or experience that the objects are not really externally placed. To come back to the theme of the Third Chapter, again, we have to be convinced at the bottom of our being that the objects are not placed externally in space and time. This is a mistaken view of the mind. If they are not really external to us, there cannot be any sensory contact with them, and, therefore, there is no question of a desire for them. The whole thing drops at one stroke. This is true renunciation, and this is abiding, and this is the significance of this admonition that there should be a severance of the senses from the objects of the senses.
The gaze or the attention is to be fixed in the centre where the mind is located. This is a little bit of psychic instruction. Esoteric psychology holds that the mind has a certain location. In the waking state it is supposed to be functioning through the brain, and its root is supposed to be the point between the two eyebrows. In the condition of dream, the mind is said to be moving through the nerve centre located in the throat, or the region of the neck, and in the condition of deep sleep the mind goes down into the heart, and that is the ultimate seat of the mind.
Here, in the verses referred to in the Fifth Chapter, we are told that the mind has to be concentrated on the point between the two eyebrows. The gaze has to be fixed on the ajna-chakra, as it is called, by which what is implied is that the mind has to concentrate itself on its own seat. Thereby it becomes easier to control the mind than when it is moving away from its centre.
Neither should we close the eyes completely nor should we open the eyes fully, which appears to be something like looking at the tip of the nose. The idea is not that we should actually concentrate on the tip of the nose, though that is one form of concentration people generally try sometimes. What is implied is that there should be a half closed posture of the eyes, by which we neither close them wholly and get induced into a mood of sleep or torpidity, nor do we open them completely and be distracted by the presence of objects outside.
Together with this function we begin to breathe slowly, leisurely, with a sense of freedom from engagements and obligations and duties of every kind at that time. The Prana moves calmly, harmoniously, beautifully, only when we have no commitments psychologically.
If we have any kind of engagement attracting our attention inwardly, towards that direction the Prana also will move. And the agitation of the Prana is due to distractedness caused by the desires of the mind, by commitment to activity. Hence, when we sit for meditation, there should be no preconceived background of obligations of any kind. Otherwise, a part of our mind, subconsciously or unconsciously, will be tying itself to the engagements towards which also it has to move, and which it has on its hands. When we sit for meditation, there should be no back ground of obligations of any kind, except the obligation to concentrate. It would be advisable for every person who is after the practice of meditation to see that immediate obligations are fulfilled before sitting for meditation. Well, we cannot be free from all obligations, of course; that is very clear. It does not mean that the entire commitments of the whole of life should be stopped. That is not possible. But there should not be any pressing need compelling our attention elsewhere immediately. At least for a few hours we are to be free, may be for half a day we have no engagements, and then we feel a little bit of rest, there is a leisure felt inwardly, then the Pranas automatically settle down of their own accord, for there is composure of mind. There is also, then, a spontaneous harmony of the movement of the Pranas. The whole attention should be on freedom of the self in the absorption of consciousness in God.
The senses, the mind and the intellect should stand together as if there is a single flame of life emerging from the self within. Usually the senses work somewhere, the mind is thinking something and the intellect is acquiescing in the activities of the mind and sense; they never work in harmony. We are agitated personalities on account of the lack of harmony among the senses, the mind and the intellect. Like three flames of light joining into a single flame,. the power of the senses and the power of the mind and the power of reason should stand together in unison. And the comparison given in the Sixth Chapter is that the flame should be unflickering like the glow of the lamp which is placed in a windless place. Such is the consciousness we attain to when there is no desire behind the working of the senses and there is no personal impulsion goading the mind towards anything outside, and the reason is satisfied. One’s only goal is moksha, salvation, and there is no other aim in life. We have to be a hundred-percent convinced that moksha is the goal of life, the liberation of the spirit is the aim of all our activities, all our studies, all our engagements, anything that we do, in any manner. Non-hatred, non-anger, non-greed follow automatically from this whole-souled attention of the consciousness on the ideal of the salvation of the spirit in the Absolute. This is yoga in essence, says
the Fifth Chapter.
All this is very inspiring no doubt, but when we actually take to the practice, we will find that the senses are not yielding so easily. They are like turbulent horses which drag the vehicle, or the chariot, in any way they like, and to maintain a control over these horses which pull the vehicle of this body, the personality, is a hard job, indeed. The whole process of the practice of yoga is a gradual one, not a sudden impulsive movement. We do not jump into action when we enter into yoga. We take one step at a time, even as the mason keeps only one brick at a time when he raises a wall for a building; he does not place a thousand bricks in a heap. There is a gradual raising of the building by the architect or the workman, there is a steadiness and fixity maintained right from the bottom or the foundation, and a lot of time is to be taken in seeing that the foundation is strong, that every brick is laid properly in position, and firmly, with the requisite cement. Otherwise, there is a chance of the crumbling of the edifice. There should be no break or haste in any successful action, whether it is in raising a building structure, printing a book, writing a text, listening to a lecture or contemplating on God. Everything has to be done with great caution, passivity, leisure, and composure inwardly, and we will not be losers if we take time in this, because it is wiser to take time to understand each step, than to rush up and lose everything that was gained. Therefore, in this connection, the Sixth Chapter, which is known as ‘The yoga of meditation’, tells us that nobody can be a Yogi who has not renounced the personal will or the mood of taking initiative for the satisfaction or the well-being of one s own lower self. When the senses have no desire for any objects and they have no impulsion whatsoever towards any personalistic action, and one has inwardly renounced all motives of every kind, then it is that one is established in yoga.
The Philosophy of the Bhagavadgita (Part II)
by Swami Krishnananda
Chapter 10: Forms of Sacrifice and Concentration (Specific References to The Third, Fourth, Fifth and Sixth Chapters)
Yoga is a step that we take in the direction of establishment in impersonality, whatever be the degree of it. And every personalistic will or desire or action is a rootedness in personality. Impersonality is yoga, which is attained by the stages mentioned in the yoga scriptures. It is, again, mentioned that yoga is the concentration which the lower self practices on the immediately superior, higher Self. There are, various degrees of self and so we may say that the whole universe consists of only Self, and nothing but that. There are no objects; there are only selves, by which what is intended is that unless an element of selfhood is present even in the so-called objects of sense, there cannot be love for the objects.
Love is only the recognition of the presence of the self in that which we love; if the self is not there, love is unthinkable. All love is self-love in various connotations of the meaning of self. It is not without meaning that the metaphysicians of the Upanishads tell us that the whole universe is the Self, the Atman is all things. But one has to be careful, again, in understanding what the Upanishads mean, or the Bhagavadgita intends, or anyone connotes. When they say that the Self and the universe are identical, it is easy to misunderstand the statement and it is hard to make out the significance thereof. The self is that which we regard as our own psycho-physical individuality, the Mr. or Mrs., the “I” that we regard ourselves to be; this is the self for our practical purposes today. But if we analyse the motives behind the moods and activities of the so-called self of ours, we will realise that its intentions are selfish —’selfish’ in a particular interpretation of the meaning of the self. The urge of the senses towards the objects is the action of the self. It is the self that is propelling the senses towards the objects through the instrumentality of the reason and the mind, to come in union with the objects, under the impression that union with objects is the satisfaction of the self. So it is the satisfaction of the self that is the intention behind the coming in contact with the objects of the senses and it is not the love for the objects that is the prime motivation. There is no love for objects, absolutely. There is love only for the satisfaction of one’s self, which is impossible, we feel, in a sort of illusion, unless we come in contact with the objects. Various reasons are given as to why this situation supervenes, or takes place. How is it that we make this mistake?
There is a psychological explanation and a metaphysical one. Psychologically, the satisfaction that we feel at the time of coming in contact with the desired object is the result of the extinction of desire, the result not of the possession of the object or the enjoyment of the object but of the cessation of desire at the time of coming in contact with the object, which happens on account of the feeling in the mind that its purpose has been served. The purpose of the senses is to possess the object, make it their own, unite it with themselves and feel a non-separation of themselves from it, which purpose seems to be achieved when the object is possessed, made one’s own and there is no further need for the senses and the mind to contemplate the object. ‘It has already become mine’ and ‘it is I,’ in one sense. The senses have subsided into the mind, the mind has gone back to the reason and the reason is in the self. There is, then, a self-possessedness. Consciousness has rested itself temporarily, though only for the flash of a second, and we feel an exhilaration inside, a happiness and satisfaction that we have possessed and enjoyed and got what we want. This is a blunder on the very surface of it.
Metaphysically, the reason is something different. The Self is present everywhere, there is only One Self, the Universal Being, which exists in the objects. The objects pull us, we are pulled towards the objects, and conversely, we too pull the objects towards ourselves, on account of the Self beckoning its own Self in the form of a presence outwardly in space and time. The Infinite is summoning the Infinite in every act of desire, in every process of sense perception and what we ask for even in the least of our actions and desires is the Universal Self, and nothing short of it. But the senses do not know the purpose behind their activity, they are again in ignorance. When we ask for any thing, we are asking for this Universal Being, and we are not asking for anything else. This is the ontological explanation, the metaphysical interpretation or reason given behind the movement of the senses, mind and intellect towards objects. It is the higher Self which is the object of the lower self in every form of contemplation. And when the self which is lower tunes itself up to the higher Self, it is in a state of yoga. This higher Self has various degrees of manifestation, and the higher Self need not necessarily mean the Absolute at once. There is, to come back to the theme of yajna mentioned in the Third Chapter, a Deity that superintends over the circumstance of the relation between the subject and the object. This Deity is the higher Self for the time being, the synthesis between the subject and the object. This Deity, again, becomes an individual subject in the light of a higher realm of cognition which has its own objects. Difficult is all this for the mind to understand and we are not supposed to go too high when we are in a lower stage. We will know what is above us when we reach the stage that is immediately below. Each time we are given only the vision of one step ahead; we cannot have the total vision of all things at the stroke of a moment. Just now we can have an inkling of what is immediately above us, and further on we cannot know anything. When we reach that second step, or achieve the immediately higher level, we will have the vision of the next higher level. Nature reveals its secrets by degrees, and the whole secret cannot be given in one instant.
The Bhagavadgita, in its Sixth Chapter, tells us that the higher Self is the controlling principle of the lower self. The higher Self is the object of meditation by the lower self, and the higher is the aim of the lower. To the extent the lower is in union with the higher, to that extent we are successful in our endeavours. To the extent we are selfish and ignorant of even the presence of the higher, to that extent we are not going to be successful here. The higher Self becomes the friend of the lower when the lower is tuned up to the higher, and then it helps the lower. But the higher Self may appear even to be an enemy. Sometimes it appears to us that God Himself is setting aside all our motives and is not compassionate enough, all because we are not in tune with His purposes, His motives, and His Laws. So the Self is the friend of the self, and is the enemy also, which means to say that the higher Self is the friend and the benefactor of ourselves to the extent we are in tune with its purposes and laws and regulations, and to the extent we are dissonant in respect of its laws, we are a failure in life. With this caution, a friendly admonition, the Yoga of Meditation in the Sixth Chapter continues. This is a very important section which stresses the need for self-control in a scientific manner. The yoga, here described, is to an extent similar to the one propounded in the Sutras of Patanjali.
There should be a time for us to sit for meditation and the time should be such, as it was already pointed out, that we have no engagements otherwise, and we are free from all compulsive attention at that moment. We can take a deep sigh of relief, “I have done my duty today, now I am free.” It is only then that we can sit for meditation, not when we feel after half an hour, “I have a tremendous work, I have to run up to that place to do something.” Then meditation will not be possible, because, unconsciously, we are dragged in another direction quite different from the one on which we are supposed to be meditating. So, the time and the place are important in the sense that they should not cause any kind of distraction to the mind.
The posture we maintain in the body also should be such that there should not be any kind of ache or pain felt in the system. Suppose we are seated in padmasana, or sukhasana, or any such asana for the purpose of meditation, we should not feel pain in the knee, or the back, etc. Then that posture would not be suitable. One is a master of one’s own self, and we can choose our own posture. Patanjali is generous when he says that the posture to be maintained for the purpose of meditation is any one, provided it is comfortable. He does not speak of padmasana, siddhasana, and all that. Any comfortable posture — comfortable in the sense that it does not distract our attention and does not compel us to pin our attention on the body — is advised. The purpose of the maintenance of the posture in meditation is to gain freedom over the consciousness of the body and not to think of the body thereby. Suppose we feel pain somewhere, we will be thinking of the body, “here it is aching.” Hence, we choose our own posture, whatever it be. Here is entire freedom given to us. But the posture should be such that we are able to maintain a spontaneity of consciousness and do not allow the mind either to go into sleep or be aware of the pains of the body. Neither should we get distracted by the presence of the body or any kind of object of sense, nor should we tend towards sleep or moodiness due to an inappropriate posture that we have assumed. For instance, if we lie down on bed, we are likely to go to sleep. So, lying down is not a suitable posture. Any kind of aching posture is also not suitable. Standing also is not a suitable posture, because we may fall down when we are concentrating. We have to choose a convenient position of the body. That is called Asana in meditation.
And place and time have been mentioned. We have, then, to select the object of our meditation. All that has been told up to this time through the different Chapters is enough to indicate what that object should be. There is no need to expatiate on the theme further. We persuade our consciousness to concentrate itself on the great objective of yoga as described in the earlier chapters. If we cannot do this for any reason, we choose any other object which is to our satisfaction. The satisfaction here suggested is the absence of the necessity to think of anything else at that time — that is the meaning of satisfaction here in regard to concentration on an object. The object of meditation should be chosen in such a manner that there should be no need felt at that time to think of anything else. We should not be hungry,for example. Else, we will be thinking of a little breakfast or of going to a restaurant, etc., when we sit for meditation. Why should we sit for meditation when our stomach is pinching? Do not have any kind of agony. If you are thirsty, drink water and sit peacefully; if you are hungry, eat, to some extent; and if you are tired, go to bed for half an hour, and have some sleep — that does not matter. Why should you tire yourself? Yoga is not a painful discipline that you inflict upon yourself. It is not a torture that we are undergoing; it is not a medical treatment. It is a happy process spontaneously undertaken, joyfully, by the whole self, of its own accord, without any kind of external compulsion. We have to understand this. Yoga is a spontaneity of the movement of the lower self to the higher Self.
Read All Chapters from The Philosophy of the Bhagavadgita by Swami Krishnananda
www.sankaracharya.org/library/gita-phiilosophy.pdf
SEE ALSO
Srimad-Bhagavad Gita
p. 27
Second Chapter - The Way of Knowledge
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