The Philosophy of the Bhagavadgita - 8.9 Swami Krishnananda.

 

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Sunday, February 07, 2021. 10:01. AM.
Chapter 8: The Yoga of Action-9.

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Mainly, it appears that our problem is lack of sufficient understanding. We rush towards the objects of the senses with a wrong intention, a wrong view about the objects. It has been observed earlier that the properties of prakriti are pulled towards the properties of prakriti. It is a kind of balance that the properties of prakriti are trying to maintain among themselves, in which process the movement of the properties within the individual towards the presence of the very same properties in the object appears to be a desireful action on the part of the individual. An understanding of this truth has not been driven properly into the perceptive and cognitive faculties of the individual.

Hence, a deepening of the understanding, the samkhya, that we have referred to, is necessary. Meditation is this effort of ourselves to resort to our higher levels in order that the lower may be absorbed into the higher, which process is called sublimation. The senses are, in a way, the functions of the mind itself, which forcefully ejects its tentacles through the apertures of the sense organs, as a heavily filled pot with the holes at the bottom may permit the flow of the liquid inside it with a force equal to the volume of its content. The mind is tremendously energetic, and the energy of the mind cannot be bottled up. It has to express itself either by way of sublimation in the process of its ascent to the larger dimensions of its being, or it has to exhaust itself by moving horizontally towards objects outside, but it cannot rest quiet without doing anything. The movement of this energy towards external objects is not the proper utilisation of this force. We become weaker by sense activities by way of contact with objects, by indulgence in enjoyment. But we become strengthened by the sublimation of the force; and the higher we go, the stronger do we become.

The instruction of the Teacher is that the senses have to be sublimated in the mind, the mind has to be drawn back to the intellect, or the reason, and the reason is to be rooted in the Atman, finally. The rootedness of ourselves in the  Atman, which is the Spirit of the Cosmos, is the ultimate panacea for this malady of sense activity, desire, anger, and the like. We come to this conclusion that we have to take refuge in the ultimate Reality of things. The Spirit of the Cosmos, which is also the Spirit within us, known as the Atman, is the remedy for the ills of the senses, the mind and the intellect. The Third Chapter concludes with this message to us.

But we are still highly dissatisfied. We are not consoled adequately. All this is a terrible process, indeed. We felt that it is not easy for us to feel our unitedness with the cosmos outside, the internal relationship that we bear to things externally. Now we are told something more difficult, still.

End.

NEXT- Chapter - 9. : The Divine Incarnation and God-oriented Activity

To be continued ....

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