Dictionary-Explanations-The Srimad Vers-& Bhagavad Gita-Ch 6
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Post by Anne Terri on Oct 26, 2013 13:03:59 GMT 1
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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 Mahabharata 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
p. 137
Sixth Chapter
The Way of Meditation
godslivingbible.proboards.com/post/3032
Alternate Translation:
BHAGAVADGÎTÂ.CHAPTER VI
KÂSHINÂTH TRIMBAK TELANG, M. A.
glbresearch.proboards.com/post/6494/thread
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
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HINDUISM
God and Brahman
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NAMES and CONCEPTS OF THE SRIMAD BHAGAVAD GITA - CHAPTER 6
The Blessed Lord
Krishna
O slayer of Madhu
the Supreme Self
Brahman-become - See Above
Arjuna-See Above
O Pandava
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.
Prana; Life force
Prithâ: One who is the son of Pritvi the earth, that is, one who is the representative of mankind. (Prithâ: Queen Kuntî, mother of Arjuna)
the satya and the rita: Truth
Sankalpa: resolve
Brahmacharya : literally means "going after Brahman (Supreme Reality, Self, God)".
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brahmacharya
Shastras
Rules in a general sense. The word is generally used as a suffix in the context of technical or specialized knowledge in a defined area of practice; e.g. Bhautika Shastra (physics), Rasayana Shastra (chemistry), Jeeva Shastra (biology), Vastu Shastra (architectural science), Shilpa Shastra (science of sculpture), Artha Shastra (economics), and Neeti Shastra (political science). In essence, the shaastra is the knowledge which is based on principles that are held to be timeless. Shastra means suffix 'logy' for the subjects; like in English language suffix word 'logy' (e.g. ecology, psychology etc.), 'Shastra' is suffix. it means scientific and basic knowledge on particular subject.
Shastra is also a by-word used when referring to a scripture. Extending this meaning, the shastra is commonly used to mean a treatise or text written in explanation of some idea, especially in matters involving religion. In Buddhism, a shastra is often a commentary written at a later date to explain an earlier scripture or sutra. For example, Dr. Yutang Lin says that a text written by him and not given by Buddha, cannot be called a "Sutra"; it is called a "Sastra". In Buddhism, Buddhists are allowed to offer their theses as long as they are consistent with the Sutras, and those are called "Sastras."[1][dead link]
In Hinduism sutra denotes a distinct type of literary composition, based on short aphoristic statements, generally using various technical terms. Sutra (literally "binding thread") is a Sanskrit term referring to an aphorism or group of aphorisms. It was originally applied to Hindu philosophy, and later to Buddhist canon scripture. Some scholars consider that the Buddhist use of s?tra is a mis-Sanskritization of Prakrit or Pali sutta, and that the latter represented Sanskrit s?kta, "well spoken", "good news" (as the Buddha himself refers to his speech in his first sermon; compare the original meaning of Gospel), which would also resolve as sutta in Pali.
Bibliography
Wikipedia
Read more en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shastra
Shraddha
"Shraddha" is a Sanskrit word which has no equivalent in English, at best it can be understood as faith with love and reverence. It means devotion or passion towards anything or god.
Shraddha may refer to:
Hindu ritual performed for one's ancestors, especially deceased parents.
the Sanskrit term for "faith", in Hinduism, Buddhism, and Jainism. Can be a girl's name in countries like India.
Bibliography
Wikipedia
Kusha-grass - Sacred Cushion
www.khandro.net/nature_plants_kusha.htm
* inimical: being adverse often by reason of hostility or malevolence
"Shraddha" is a Sanskrit word which has no equivalent in English, at best it can be understood as faith with love and reverence. It means devotion or passion towards anything or god.
Shraddha may refer to:
Hindu ritual performed for one's ancestors, especially deceased parents.
the Sanskrit term for "faith", in Hinduism, Buddhism, and Jainism. Can be a girl's name in countries like India.
Bibliography
Wikipedia
Kusha-grass - Sacred Cushion
www.khandro.net/nature_plants_kusha.htm
* inimical: being adverse often by reason of hostility or malevolence
Yoga:
Yoga is widely practiced throughout the world. The Hindu qrticles on this subject in Wikipedia are well researched:
YOGA
For the branch of yoga that explains and emphasizes the physical practices or disciplines, see Hatha Yoga.
For other uses, see Yoga (disambiguation).
Yogi
A yogi is a practitioner of yoga. Yogis may broadly refer to Siddhars. Naths, Ascetics, Sadhus, or Siddhas and vice versa because they all practice the S?dhan? concept.[1] The word is also used to refer to ascetic practitioners of meditation in a number of South Asian religions including Hinduism, Buddhism, and Jainism
Bibliography: Wikipedia
Yoga is widely practiced throughout the world. The Hindu qrticles on this subject in Wikipedia are well researched:
YOGA
For the branch of yoga that explains and emphasizes the physical practices or disciplines, see Hatha Yoga.
For other uses, see Yoga (disambiguation).
Yogi
A yogi is a practitioner of yoga. Yogis may broadly refer to Siddhars. Naths, Ascetics, Sadhus, or Siddhas and vice versa because they all practice the S?dhan? concept.[1] The word is also used to refer to ascetic practitioners of meditation in a number of South Asian religions including Hinduism, Buddhism, and Jainism
Bibliography: Wikipedia
Nirvana (Moksha)
In Indian religions moksha is the liberation from samsara, the cycle of death and rebirth.
Bibliography: Wikipedia
Nirvana
1: the final beatitude that transcends suffering, karma, and samsara and is sought especially in Buddhism through the extinction of desire and individual consciousness
2 : a place or state of oblivion to care, pain, or external reality; also : bliss, heaven
Merriam Webster
In Indian religions moksha is the liberation from samsara, the cycle of death and rebirth.
Bibliography: Wikipedia
Nirvana
1: the final beatitude that transcends suffering, karma, and samsara and is sought especially in Buddhism through the extinction of desire and individual consciousness
2 : a place or state of oblivion to care, pain, or external reality; also : bliss, heaven
Merriam Webster
The Philosophy of the Bhagavadgita
by Swami Krishnananda
Chapter 6: The Meaning of Duty
The reply of Sri Krishna to Arjuna’s questions comes from various levels — the social, the personal, the cosmical and, ultimately, the spiritual. A problem has to be tackled in every way, because our difficulties arise from the depths of our being. No difficulty belongs merely to one side of our life, just as a disease has a root in the layers which are beneath the mere physical. Interpreters of scriptures and students of philosophy are asked to take into consideration all the possible aspects of a particular situation, even if it be a commonplace event. A little event is a cosmical event; though it may be a very insignificant, meaningless something, for common perception. But a thing is not so redundant as it may appear on the surface. The universe is awake at the birth of every event. That is why we are told that there is no such thing as a secret in this world; everything is public, open and common. An event has to be viewed from various angles of vision. Mostly, we are inclined to study things in a one-sided manner; we study themes, for example, from the political context, and interpret them only from that viewpoint, as if there is nothing else about things. Students of sociology and psychology, again, think only from their points of view. There are others, who are the religious people, who interpret everything theologically, and so on.
There is an objective universe, no doubt. The world appears to be outside us, and the objectivity of the event is also something that has to be taken into consideration. But we, as subjects, take part in the event that appears to be objective. Inasmuch as we, as subjects, participate in the objectivity of the event, there is also a subjective aspect of the event. So, no event or circumstance is wholly objective, nor can it be said to be wholly subjective. There is an inter-mingling of the outer and the inner, the objective and the subjective in the occurrence of any event. There is also a transcendent meaning inherent in the occurrence of anything. It is not merely the world and the individual that react upon each other; there is a final deciding factor which requires the objective and the subjective aspects to react in that manner. Often, we call this transcendence the Will of God. There is also the social side of it, because an event occurs in a social atmosphere. By society we need not necessarily mean a group of human beings. Society, in general, is an organised order, whether it is human or otherwise. And an event that occurs in an organised atmosphere has the impact of this organisation, whatever that organisation be — it may be a family; an institution, or the entire mankind. There are many other aspects which will be gradually revealed through the course of the chapters of the Bhagavadgita.
Arjuna, as the representative man, the specimen of a disciple, is admonished by the great example of the teacher, Sri Krishna. It is, no doubt, true that every human individual, Arjuna or whoever it is, is in a social atmosphere and to argue on a basis which has absolutely no relevance to society would not be a completely valid procedure. Though it is true that a purely sociological argument is also not complete, because there are other aspects to it, yet, initially, we speak as social units. Rarely do we imagine that we belong to the vaster physical nature. Only in the philosophy classrooms may we be thinking in this manner, perhaps; but in our work-a-day life we imagine that we are human beings living in a human society concerned only with human relations. We are not so much bothered about the five elements.
The sociological argument is the primary argument, the initial step. Have we a duty to human society? One cannot say, “I have no duty; I am the soul, the Atman, a consciousness that is immortal, eternal, infinite.” This would be a fallacious argument, because here we are trying to inject a metaphysical level into a social atmosphere, which should not be done as long as one is obviously aware of the fact that the social atmosphere is a reality. When the reality of social relationship has vanished like mist before the sun, and we cannot see it with our eyes, then, may be, we need not take it into consideration in the judgement of anything. Anything that we are compelled to recognise as a reality cannot be ignored when any argument is put forth. And who, on earth, that is human, can affirm that one does not belong to human society and social laws do not operate?
Arjuna was certainly a social being and every human being, normally speaking, is a social unit. Inasmuch as we are conscious of our being in human society and there is a give-and-take attitude of co-operation in this atmosphere of human society, we must be sure that we have fulfilled our obligations in the form of a co-operative activity in respect of society. We cannot expect facilities from society and then feel that we have no obligations in return. Let anyone think for himself, or herself. Do you derive any benefit from social relations, from other human beings than yourself? If you are sure and honestly convinced that benefit accrues from outer society for your existence and continuance in this world, you have also to pay back the dues expected from you by society in return for the benefit that has been received by you from society.
In a religious enthusiasm we cannot abrogate human society, as long as we are sure that there is such a thing as society and we are in it. The other aspect is that we are an individual in a bodily encasement and we have a duty towards ourselves, also. We cannot kill ourselves in the name of society, nor can we kill society for our own personal advantage. These are important things which one has to bear in mind in tackling any question. There are martyrs who destroy themselves in the name of something other than themselves. And there are others who convert society into a martyr to fulfill the demands of their own egoism. History is an example before us. Neither can we exploit society for ourselves, nor is the society expected to exploit us. We are not a stooge in the hands of social laws, we are not a puppet or a slice of human society; nor can we regard society as a slave or a means to our personal advantage or satisfaction. The role of importance that society plays in the rule of co-operative living, and the importance we too have in the context of this relationship is all to be well considered.
But — a very important ‘but’ indeed — there is something more than all this. There is the universe which is not exhausted by human society. This world of Nature with its birds and beasts, rivers and mountains and the solar system is not unimportant. The adhibhautika jagat, or the world of Nature, externally visible to us, in which we are located, is not in any way less significant than human society or our own personal individuality. We are expected to co-operate and collaborate with the world of Nature in as efficient a manner and as dexterously as we are expected to perform the duty in respect of ourselves and human society.
There is a supreme duty that we owe to the Creator of the universe. The Atman within us is the symbol of the Absolute that is everywhere. So when people speak of atma-sakshi and regard the innermost-self as the witness of all things, they bring God into the picture of the judgement of all things, who sees everything with His millions of eyes. Just imagine how difficult it is to live in this world in a successful manner! All these aspects, of course, are to be borne in mind. These aspects mentioned are, as known in Sanskrit technical terminology, the adhiyajna level, the adhyatma level, the adhibhuta level and the adhidaiva level. *
There is a fifth aspect which is generally not mentioned in the commentaries on scriptures. This is what is known as the adhidharma —the Law, the Righteousness of the Kingdom of God, as we generally call it. The Kingdom of God is the adhidaiva, principal spiritual Reality. The righteousness thereof is the law that operates in the universe. The Vedas speak of this righteousness as the satya and the rita: the Absolute law and the cosmical operative law. As in the constitution of a democratic republic there is a super-departmental power vested with the President, while there is a departmental law operating through the Prime Minister, one not completely dissociated from the other and yet one having a significance of its own independent of the other; likewise, is the ‘Satya’ and the ‘Rita’ spoken of in the Vedas. The satya is the super departmental Absolute principle, we may call it the basis of all law, and the way in which it operates in a particular context of creation is the rita. And one has to abide by this law. ‘Law’ has a vast connotation, not easy to comprehend, because it has various degrees of manifestation and action.
Sri Krishna, in his reply to Arjuna, refers to all these aspects, so that the answer of Krishna is a complete encounter to life. He does not leave anything unsaid, because the problem of Arjuna was a total problem and not something that arose from a side of his personality. We would ask, what is meant by a ‘total’ problem: It is a difficulty that arises in the entirety of the personality — socially, physically, vitally, mentally and intellectually. Earlier we made mention of the difficulties Arjuna had in his mind in respect of his duty towards human society. He was doubting the consequence that would follow from his engagement in the war. It would be destructive of all, moral, social and ethical values; a sin, in a sense. But not merely that. Arjuna was in a worse condition, still. His whole personality was shattered. He was not thinking like a sane person at that moment. The organisation of the personality had given way completely; there was a tendency to disintegration of his individuality. He began to say, “Oh! my body is burning, the hands are trembling, the hair is standing on its end, the head is reeling, the mind is unable to think, my reason has failed me.” And what remains in a man, then! Everything is gone. He lost control over everything that he had within himself, and everything that he was. All the five layers of his personality, or the koshas — the annamaya, pranamaya, manomaya, vijnanamaya, anandamaya, the physical, vital, mental, intellectual and causal being — all things were shaken from their roots. It appeared that the very edifice was crumbling; and under those circumstances, what opinion could he express about anything? It was all a bungling, a fumbling and an erroneous viewpoint taken by him.
Such is the fate of a spiritual seeker, also. We are studying the Bhagavadgita as a spiritual gospel, a great torch-light before us in treading the path. It is intended principally for everyone as a seeker of God, for the salvation of spirit. It is not merely history that we are studying or a legend that we are recounting. It is clothed in imagery and mythology and epic magnificence, but its essence, the core and the kernel is pure impersonal spirituality. “So, Arjuna,” says Sri Krishna, “You have a duty towards human society, you have a duty to yourself, you have a duty to the world, you have a duty to the antaratman, the deepest Self within you which pervades the Cosmos. Now, human society is based on mutual co-operation. We have, what is known as the ‘Varna’, which is wrongly translated as ‘caste’ in modern times; it is not caste but a classification of society, the better translation would be ‘class’ and not ‘caste’. The classes of society do not imply the category of inferior and superior. They imply, on the other hand, a necessity for co-operation on the part of every unit of this classification. There is a necessity to maintain oneself materially, economically. We know very well the importance of one’s economic existence. There is no need of a commentary on this. But what is economic life except production and consumption? So there is a necessity to work for the production of material and economic values for the sake of the consumption thereof, by which human beings sustain themselves materially, physically. We will have to work hard for this, it means that. Now, again, it does not mean that everyone will have to do the same work. The entire mankind would otherwise be concerned only with production of material goods as if there is nothing else of value in life. That is also not true; that would be a wrong interpretation of human history and society.
There is an economic interpretation of human history nowadays which is a misplacement of values. We are not merely bodies, we are not merely food-consumers, we are not just money-holders; we are something more, as we know very well, each one of us. Apart from this necessity to live in an economic atmosphere so as to produce economic values, we have also the need for protection. The need for organisation and enactment of laws is the need we feel for a government of human society. At least the Contract Theory in political science accepts that the origin of government is in a mutual agreement and con tract of people for protection of themselves in a particular manner. We have organised a government; we wanted it and have created it in a particular way for our own welfare. The government exists for the people. This function requires another class of people, apart from these who are the producers of consumable goods. But, then, we cannot simply produce goods and keep them in a corner. There is a necessity to organise the transference of these economic values. In the beginning it was the barter system that prevailed in economic society; now we have currency, etc. Whatever it is, the principle behind exchange of money or goods implies the necessity for the movement of goods which requires a third class of society to operate it. And finally, and the most important thing which cannot be missed in our activity towards these obvious visible ends, the most important conditioning factor — the knowledge how to handle things — comes in. Whether it is the handling of administration, whether it is the handling of the atmosphere of production of material goods or the transference of goods, etc., we cannot have power without knowledge. One knows how dangerous it is to be vested with power and strength when one lacks in understanding, or knowledge.
So there are the four classes of people who have been specially endowed with this responsibility of conducting themselves in various levels of human society. And Arjuna belonged to one class; and every one of us belongs to some class or other. If we will not perform our duties expected of us in that particular atmosphere or class in which we are placed, we would be derelicts, renegades, selfish persons who exploit people for the benefit of ourselves, and that should not be an example that we can properly set before others — highly objectionable is this attitude. “So Arjuna, even from a sociological point of view, you are mistaken in your notion of “I shall not act.” “If everybody says, ‘I will not do,’ then what will happen? Is this the example you wish people to follow? Secondly, what has happened to your mind and intellect? How is it that you appear to be fumbling and falling of? Is this the way an integrated personality will speak? Are you healthy and sane in your personality? Will a wise person succumb to this catastrophic conclusion which you have arrived at just now, at this moment of crisis, here, in this battlefield of Kurukshetra? What a pity, and a tragedy! Does this become of a hero like you? You have lost your personality. And you take that as the basis for your argument which affects the human society also in which you are living. Society has sustained you, and you have a duty towards it.”
Now, we move further on. The world of Nature is that which highly conditions our experiences in life. Heat and cold, hunger and thirst are all processes which are engendered by the movements of the powers of Nature. We have to bear with fortitude the results that follow by our placement in an atmosphere of physical Nature. We should not say, “How horribly is it hot! How wretchedly is it cold! How stupidly is it raining,” etc. These are statements which convey no sense. Nature performs its duty regularly and perfectly, and our complaints arise because of our maladjustment with the way in which Nature works. Nature is an impersonal computer system. It does not go wrong. It appears to us that it is going wrong sometimes on account of our not understanding all that is behind its workings. The physical universe is also a reality which expects of us some duty.
The pancha-maha-yajnas, as they are called in the system of living, in India particularly, are the obligations that we owe to the various sides of life; to human beings, to our ancestors, to the gods in heaven, to the sages of wisdom, and even to the beasts and animals. Much more than that, we seem to be connected with still greater realities. We owe a duty even to the planets and the Sun and the Moon. Traditional systems require us to offer prayer to the Sun everyday. The Gayatri mantra, which every religious person in India chants with reverence, is an offering of prayer to the mighty Sun whose existence is our life.
If we study the cultural and religious history of India in all its facets, we will be wonderstruck that life is nothing but yajna, sacrifice, service, co-operation, and it is self-abandonment that is taught in the culture of this country. Perhaps this is to be the essence of every culture that is truly humane. We have duties; no rights in this world. This is something interesting. People fight for rights and do not think that they have duties, these days. “This I demand, and I owe nothing to you.” This is modern man’s argument. But true human culture tells that we have duties, but no rights. One will be wondering what this is all about. “I have no rights?” Dear friends! Rights will automatically follow without your asking for them. When you perform your duties, you need not demand your rights, they come spontaneously. “All these things shall be added unto you,” if you “first enter the Kingdom of God and His Righteousness.” Why do you cry for rights? Seek God and His righteousness, and then see if everything follows you or not. But we expect everything to follow us automatically without our doing anything for it. This is unbecoming. This is not going to lead us to success.
So, Sri Krishna speaks: “You have a duty towards all things, and you cannot simply throw your bow and arrows and say, ‘I do nothing, I perish.’ You have no right to perish even, you must know that. You cannot hurt others, yes; but you cannot hurt yourself, too. Just as you cannot kill others, you cannot also kill yourself. Just as you cannot attack anything in hatred, you cannot attack yourself. There is sacredness and sanctity present everywhere, and reverence for life is the insignia of true culture.”
Arjuna forgot every thing. He was completely down with fear, doubt and weakness of every type.
At a particular stage in our spiritual pursuits, we find ourselves in this dark night of the soul, as the mystics speak of this condition. We cannot see anything in front of us. This plight does not befall us in the earlier stages of spiritual life, when everything seems bright as day-light. In the earlier days of spiritual practice, we think that everything is clear to our minds, and we can go ahead. But when we go half-way, we see darkness ahead of us. It is all problem, difficulty and diffidence and we begin to grope in darkness, in which condition Arjuna finds himself in the first chapter of the Bhagavadgita. Inasmuch as this darkness is a precedent to illumination, a darkness that has risen on account of our persistence in the practice of true spiritual life, this specific condition of being in darkness and doubt is also called a ‘yoga’. The first chapter is called “Arjuna-Vishada-Yoga”, the yoga of the dejection of the spirit of the seeker. This is also a part of ‘yoga’. And everyone has to pass through this stage. But we should have the strength within us to realise that it is a transitory stage and it is not going to be an all-in-all; it shall pass away. So, from the first stage of darkness and oblivion, Arjuna is lifted up to the enlightening message of the ‘Samkhya’, to which we shall refer now.
Read All Chapters from The Philosophy of the Bhagavadgita by Swami Krishnananda
www.sankaracharya.org/library/gita-phiilosophy.pdf
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.
Read All Chapters from The Philosophy of the Bhagavadgita by Swami Krishnananda
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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.
Read All Chapters from The Philosophy of the Bhagavadgita by Swami Krishnananda
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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
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The Philosophy of the Bhagavadgita
by Swami Krishnananda
The Yoga of Meditation
The Yoga of Meditation is the subject of the Sixth Chapter of the Bhagavadgita—dhyana-yoga, as it is called. We have noticed that, for purposes of meditation, a convenient place, free from distractions, is necessary. The time that we choose for meditation, also, is to be such that it should not have the background of any engagement or activity which may distract the attention of the mind from the goal of meditation. A suitable place, a suitable time—these two are very important prerequisites. But more important, perhaps, than place and time is the preparedness of the mind. The mind should be eager to sit for meditation and it should not feel any kind of compulsion. We do not sit for meditation merely because in our daily routine it is the time allotted for meditation; that would be something like going for lunch at noon, even if we are not hungry, merely because noon is prescribed as the time for lunch. It is not the time, but the need that is important. If the mind does not feel the need for meditation, a mere prescription of place and time will not be of much benefit. Most people feel a difficulty in getting any kind of satisfactory result, because the mind is not prepared.
How is the mind to be prepared? Here a question arises, which can be answered by each one, independently, from one’s own point of view. Why do we feel the need for taking to yoga practice? If the need has not been felt, we would not have been resorting to yoga at all. Somehow, we have felt within our hearts that yoga is a solution to the problems of life. Everyone has difficulties and tensions and our conscience has somehow persuaded us to accept that the panacea for all problems in life is yoga, finally. We have accepted, of our own accord, that no one can help us in the end, except that great principle which yoga regards as the ultimate reality of life. We do not take to the yoga of meditation just because somebody has told us to do it, or some text book has eulogised it; just as we do not go to the dining hall for our lunch, or dinner, merely because somebody asked us to go there. We feel that it is necessary, and, therefore, we go. Now, this need that we feel for the practice of yoga should be a genuine one. The mind is a trickster. It always deceives us from moment to moment, because it does not have a continuity of moods. The moods of the mind change almost everyday. And it is not difficult for the mind to get dissatisfied with things. And it can be dissatisfied even with that which it once regarded as a very necessary item in its life. There is no more difficult thing to understand than our own mind. We ourselves are the greatest difficulties in life. Our mind, like a weathercock, moves from one state to another. So, while most of us may be honest and sincere in our resort to yoga practice, we are also in some way subject to the whims of the mind. “I do not feel like it;” this is what we often remark. But why should we not feel like it? What has happened? And we would only say, “I do not know what has happened.” That means to say that our mind is not under our control. Even our taking to the practice of yoga may be a mood of the mind and not be a real conviction born of understanding; this is important to remember. Even as there are umpteen moods of the mind, yoga also may be one of the moods, and it may be a very unreliable mood, for it may pass away. And the problems we feel when we sit for meditation are due to the unpreparedness of the mind basically, at its root, though on the surface it appears as if it has accepted the adventure. Many times we accept things only on the surface, and in our basic attitude we are not prepared to accept everything.
Now, the acceptance of yoga should be a whole-souled attitude of the seeker. It should not be merely a surface outlook which has somehow acquiesced in the situation. And, as the great goal of life is the wholeness of reality, our preparedness for its realisation should also be a wholeness from our side. Hence, a moody attitude and an acceptance which is partial cannot be satisfactory where our objective is such an important factor in life as yoga. All this has been touched upon in a concise manner in different places of the Chapters of the Bhagavadgita, which will give us a clue as to why we have varying moods and contradictory desires, which will surprise even our own selves. The answer to this question in the Sixth Chapter is that we are often likely to be extremists in our activities. We are not sober and harmonised in our engagements, in our relationships. When we like a thing, we sell ourselves, as it were, to that which we love. It is an extreme attitude of attachment. When we dislike a thing, we whole-heartedly condemn the thing, and go to the other extreme. We have found that it is very hard to maintain a balanced mood of equanimity of attitude. And it is easy to be an extremist, while it is hard to be a person of sobriety of perspective. Either we eat too much, or we do not eat at all. Both these things are very easy. We suddenly declare, “I shall not eat; for one week I shall observe fast.” But to control the appetite in a way that does not affect either the body or the mind, or even our relationships and activities, is a little difficult.
While the Gita has emphasised the factor of harmony in yoga, it has not confined this harmony merely to the ultimate union of the Self with the Absolute, in a transcendent sense. Again and again it has been driven into our minds, in various places, that yoga as harmony has to be applied in its relevance at every level of life, even in our kitchen and bathroom, our social relationships, our personal vocations, and the like. Even in our eating and sleeping and our recreation there should be a harmony, and there should not be any extreme mood, not that we indulge in eating and sleeping too much, not also that we completely abstain ourselves from the needs of the body and mind. The golden mean is supposed to be the essence of the ethical attitude—the golden mean—and it is so subtle as a hair’s breadth; it is an imperceptible reality. The arrangement of factors in a harmonious manner is an imperceptible truth, not visible to the organs of the senses. But we have to conceive it in our minds; with some effort. Yoga is not for that person who eats too much, or does not eat at all; sleeps too much, or does not sleep at all; works too much, or does not work at all; plays too much, or does not play at all, etc. These are common statements but very important ones.
The great Masters of yoga are most normal persons. They are not queer individuals looking like other-worldly ascetics, making themselves conspicuous. There is no conspicuity about yoga practice. It is not an unnatural way of living making oneself an exhibit in the social atmosphere. When we are a real Yogi we will not appear as a Yogi at all. The moment we start appearing as a Yogi, there is to be sensed some unnaturalness in the practice. Why should we “appear”? There is no need to put on countenances. Normalcy of behaviour is a spontaneous consequence that follows from an understanding of the wholeness of life, which is, basically, yoga. With this preparedness of the mind in a healthy manner towards all things, one has to sit for meditation on the degrees of Reality; the particular degree that has to be chosen is the Ishta-Devata. We have already referred to the Deity, or Devata, on an earlier occasion. And our soul-filled absorption in it with affection, with love, and with utmost regard, is our yoga in respect of it. The mind is steady absolutely, when it is in the presence of that which it likes immensely. When we have something highly valuable as our possession, we get wholly absorbed, and we are in a state of rapture, as it were, by the very presence of it, because it is the Deity that we like, and the only thing that we want. Then it is impossible for the mind to think anything else at that time.
Is there anything in the world which we like so much that we cannot think anything else at the moment of being in its presence? Here is the significance of what is called initiation into the technique of meditation. The choosing of the objective, or the ideal of meditation, is very important. It is done with the guidance of a preceptor, a teacher, a superior, a Guru. Most of us are incapable of choosing our ideal, we drift from one point to another, today one thing looking all right and tomorrow another thing. A superior mind which has passed through certain stages of psychological development would be a good guide to people who are in the initial stages; such a person is a Guru, or a teacher. If one has already passed through some stages which another has not come across, the former can tell the latter what are the things which have to be expected on the path. Initiation into yoga is the introduction of the mind to that particular ideal or concept of the objective which can engage the attention wholly, so that it becomes the only reality for the practitioner. The mind can concentrate itself entirely only on that from which it can expect everything that it needs. If we are sure that a thing is going to satisfy every one of our needs, and there is nothing else left out, then there would be no need for us to think anything else. But there is a suspicion in the mind, a doubt that, perhaps, it is not the only thing that is needed in life, that there are other things also which are equally important, or, at least necessary in some way. This would be another way of saying that one has not chosen the ideal properly; has no faith in the glorious object which has been chosen as the target of meditation.
The Ishta, or the object of meditation, is God-incarnate in that particular form, and if one has no trust in God himself, what else can one be expected to believe in? There is a basic error in the very choice of the object, on account of which the mind distracts itself from the point chosen and flits from that thing to another thing, searching for that which it needs, or requires. Really, it does not know what it wants. The psychology of meditation is to be, mastered before one actually sits for meditation. The Supreme Being is present in every object. God is everywhere. And it will be quite in the fitness of things for a person to choose any particular form, or concept, for the purpose of meditation, because God is present even there. But what is important is not the presence of God in a theoretical sense; rather it is the recognition of it and the acceptance of it from one’s heart, for which a little bit of understanding is necessary. The all-pervading nature of God excludes nothing from its purview and inclusiveness, and that which we regard as the best thing in our life may be regarded as our object of meditation. Anything and everything can be a suitable object, provided we believe in its capacity.
The purpose of meditation is to break through the fort of the mind which has guarded itself very securely in the prison-house of this body. It is tremendously attached to the particular things in the world. And the existence of the mind as an isolated unit of thought consists in its desires for the varieties of phenomena. To make the mind cease to exist as an isolated unit would be to cease from thinking of the particular, isolated objects. The concentration of the mind on any particular thing, or object, continuously, without thought of anything else, will break the mind to pieces; the bubble will burst. A continuous hammering of a single idea upon the mind will see that the mind transcends itself, and one wakes up as if from a dream into a new perspective and awareness. The rising of the mind from phenomena to Reality is something like the rise of our mind from dream to waking. There is a difference in that which we experience, as there is a difference between dream experience and waking experience. We have to be sure that pure meditation is the state when the mind does not think of two objects, or does not entertain two ideas. When the mind is moving from idea to idea and is flowing with a series or current of thoughts, we may be sure that our meditation is not complete and the object chosen has not been properly considered. The only solution here is to go to the teacher, the Guru. There is some mistake. We have some unfulfilled desires.
It does not mean that there are people in the world with no desires at all. Everyone has some desire; yes. But it is the duty of the seeker on the spiritual path to sublimate his desires in a positive way. And how one is to sublimate impulses is to be known only from the teacher, because people do not have uniform desires; each one has a particular type of desire and that particular desire has to be tackled in a manner that is befitting the condition in which it has arisen. Hence there is no such thing as a wholesale initiation of the masses. We cannot shout in the streets and initiate people in thousands. Each individual case is like a patient treated by a physician. We cannot have a mass treatment of diseases by uniform injections or capsules. Each disciple, each student, is a unique item by himself, or herself, and the Guru has to pay particular attention to the condition of the mind or the state of the disciple concerned, from the point of view of the state in which that person is. When a serious problem arises, we cannot solve it ourselves, at least when it is apparently beyond our understanding. We cannot know the mystery of our own desires, and the obstacles in meditation are only desires which have not been fulfilled. Now, the fulfilment of desires need not mean indulgence in satisfactions, though some of the desires have to be satisfied in a manner when it is necessary to adopt that method. But, otherwise, they are to be absorbed and melted away by other techniques which are followed in yoga.
All this is a subject one cannot read in books. They are secrets and esoteric approaches, and connected with the idiosyncrasy of the particular individual concerned. Thus, the preparation for yoga is, perhaps, going to take more time than the actual concentration of the mind on the chosen object. It is no use suddenly saying, “I will go for meditation.” The point is not that. What is important is: are we ready for it? Is it possible for the mind to accept it completely, or are we suppressing certain needs and demands of the mind brushing them aside in the subconscious, giving them a ‘no’, when they ask? If that is the case, we have to be thrice cautious in our approach. When we succeed in understanding ourselves and the nature of our desires, fulfilled or otherwise, the mind will stand un flickering like a flame placed in an atmosphere where there is no breeze of any kind. There is no flickering. And such an attitude, such a mood, is hard for most of us. The Bhagavadgita here tells us that we shall feel such a joy, such a satisfaction, such a delight when the mind is wholly absorbed in this manner, that even the worst sorrow of our life will not be able to shake our minds. There is no sorrow at all for us at that time. Everything will look beautiful and we will be able to adjust ourselves with every blessed thing in life. We, at that time, become friends of all, and all become our friends. We get severed from the sources of all pain and we stand independent in a unique sense, in a superb expandedness of being, where the cause of sorrow which is the ego is overcome to the maximum extent. But it is doubtful if everyone will be able to achieve the goal of life in one life, because of the various difficulties and weaknesses which are part and parcel of bodily existences here. Can anyone be sure that the goal of yoga, the purpose of life, can be realised in one existence, physically? A doubt occurs to the mind: ‘Is it possible, or, perhaps, it is not for me?’ Arjuna put the question to the great Teacher.
Take for granted that there is a sincere student, honestly practicing yoga throughout his life, yet does not realise the goal of yoga, and his life is cut off by death, having not achieved the supreme purpose. What happens to that person? Imagine, we have endeavoured to our best in the practice of meditation, in taking to yoga. Yes, wonderful. With all our efforts we have not succeeded, and we have been forced by the karmas that determine our life to leave this body. What happens, then? What is going to be the fate of that person in the future existence, is the question of Arjuna. The answer is very satisfying and solacing. Krishna says, “Whoever does good in this world, even in the least measure, cannot go to ruin.” That is the beautiful side of karma, or the law of action and reaction. While we are always afraid of the word karma, as if it is a binding chain, we are likely to forget the positive side of its being capable of giving credit also, when we follow it according to the system of its operation. Our efforts towards the practice of yoga are praiseworthy attempts that we have undertaken in life—whether or not we succeed is a different matter. As a matter of fact, the yoga of the Bhagavadgita is not concerned with success or failure; it is rooted in the attitude that we adopt throughout our life, the sincerity with which we have taken to it and the honesty of purpose that was backing us up. For God values our honesty and sincerity and not the ulterior success that one may expect but should not expect. The whole of the conditions is in us and not outside. A person who leaves the body before the achievement of the goal of yoga will be reborn—but under favourable circumstances. He will be born under those conditions where the earlier practices can be accelerated. He will be born again in a condition where he will be finding conducive circumstances around him, not obstructing his practice. The memory of the past will work its own way. This memory may not always be a conscious operation of the mind. Many of us cannot have a memory of our previous lives, but every one of us feels an urge towards a particular end, though this urge is not intelligible on the conscious level of the mind. This deeper longing that we feel within ourselves is the propulsion of our previous practices and aspirations.
The mind is not merely the conscious manifestation of it; it is deeper still in the subconscious, and further deeper in the unconscious, and so on. So a person reborn in this manner is impelled to move in the direction of the very same practice which was not completed in the earlier life, and everything that is necessary for the practice will be provided to him by the very law of things. And no pain will be felt on account of the blessedness that accrues from the merits of the earlier life. We have been very sincere and honest in our efforts in the direction of yoga, and it shall take care of us, it cannot desert us. And yoga is a more loving mother than all the mothers that we can think of in the world. Or, the great Teacher, Krishna, tells us that one may be born as a child of a Yogi himself, and what can be a greater blessedness than that to a seeking soul? There is no fear of destruction or loss of effort. The Fifth Chapter concludes by saying that God is the Friend and Protector of all. We shall achieve peace of mind only when we realise that God is our Friend, and the only Friend, and the most real of all friends. When we turn to Him for succour, how could He desert us, leave us, and forget us? We can forget Him, but he cannot forget us, because the Real is more powerful than the apparent, or the unreal. Our distractions are movements of the mind towards shadows and not realities. But when there is a sincere movement towards Reality, though without a proper conception of it, it shall work in its own way in a miraculous manner.
The ways of God are mysterious in themselves and, therefore, the sincerity, in whatever measure, that we exercise towards God, whatever our concept of God, whole-hearted like a child’s, that shall be our saviour in our future life. Not merely that, here in this life itself, we shall be taken care of. Krishna says that neither here nor hereafter will there be any trouble for that person. The difficulties are only in the beginning when one feels as if one is in hell itself. But, later on, one will see the rays of the supernal light flashing upon one’s face. Everything is difficult and hard and unpleasant in the beginning. The Gita will tell us sometime afterwards that things which are good ultimately look very unpleasant in the beginning, but they yield the fruit of the greatest satisfaction and delight later on. The pains of life, the sufferings through yoga, are inevitable in the face of every kind of spiritual practice. When we practice meditation, we are clearing the debris of our personality. It is as if we are sweeping our room which has not been dusted for years, clearing the cobwebs, etc. And when we clear the room of the dirt, there we will find the dust rising up and blinding our eyes, and it may look as if things have become worse than what they were earlier. But afterwards the dust goes, it has been swept completely, and we are happy. So, these problems and difficulties, pains and sorrows and doubts, the agonies that appear in the course of the practice of yoga are the inevitable consequences of our effort in cleansing the mind of all the dirt that is deposited there since years and incarnations. But a glorious day is to come, we shall become happy, expecting a blessedness that is supremely divine. One who believes in God and trusts in God wholly, taking refuge in God, shall be taken care of by God. “He shall not lose Me, and I shall not lose him,” says the great Master. One who has taken shelter in God cannot be deserted by God under any circumstance, and peace, protection and satisfaction of every kind shall be the fruits of sincerity and honesty. What we are called upon to be sure of is that we are honest at the core and there is no duplicity of attitude even in the least. We are not gambling with God, and we are not testing Him, and we are not expecting anything from Him with a personal motive. Let these things be clear to us, and we shall receive the flood of His Grace descending upon us instantaneously, because God is Spaceless and Timeless. “He sees the Self abiding in all beings and all beings in the Self, whose self has been made steadfast by yoga, who everywhere sees the same.” “He who sees Me everywhere and sees everything in Me, to him I cease not, nor to Me does he cease.” “Whoso, rooted in oneness, worships Me who abide in all beings, that Yogi dwells in Me, whatever be his mode of life.” “Whoso, by comparison with his own self, sees the same everywhere (as his own self), O Arjuna, be it pleasure or pain, he is deemed the highest Yogi.”
Read All Chapters from The Philosophy of the Bhagavadgita by Swami Krishnananda
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* See Also Srimad Bhagavad Gita
p. 179
Eighth Chapter
The Way to the Imperishable Brahman
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Bibliography:
Swami Krishnananda - The Divine Life Society
www.swami-krishnananda.org/gita/gita_02a.html
Based on the Divine Discourses of Bhagavân S'rî Sathya Sai Baba
www.vahini.org/Discourses/d8-bhagavadgita.html