A Study of the Bhagavadgita - Chapter 7.7. Swami Krishnananda.

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Saturday, August 8, 2021. 10:01.PM.
Chapter 7:The Entry of the Absolute into the Relative - 7.
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The method of meditation is very briefly discussed towards the end of the Third Chapter in two verses, but it is the essence of the whole matter: it is possible to overcome longing, desire for objects of sense, only by intense meditation through a gradational process. 

This is also described in detail in the Sixth Chapter. 

"Indriyāṇi parāṇy āhur indriyebhyaḥ paraṁ manaḥ, manasas tu parā buddhir yo buddheḥ paratas tu saḥ (Gita 3.42); evaṁ buddheḥ paraṁ buddhvā saṁstabhyātmānam ātmanā, jahi śatruṁ mahābāho kāmarūpaṁ durāsadam." (Gita 3.43). 

This is a brief statement of a longer, more detailed enunciation of the very same thing in the Katha Upanishad. Indriyas, sense organs, are very powerful. Impetuous are the sense organs. Like a wild tornado, they will dash the ship of your life.

But the mind is superior to the sense organs. The mind has the capacity to know that the indriyas, or the senses, are impetuous in their nature. This is the superiority of the mind. The senses do not know that they are impetuous. They are just impetuous. They are wild movement. This wild movement of the senses is identical with the senses themselves. They cannot know that they are wild. If you are angry, you do not know that you are angry. Anger consumes you to such an extent that an angry person does not know that he is angry. If you know that you are angry, it will not be real anger. So the mind has the capacity to subdue the impetuosity of the senses by a little bit of deliberation. The mind knows that the senses have to be restrained, but the mind cannot easily take a decision. The mind has an indeterminate perceptional capacity of knowing the difficulty produced by the sense organs, but the decision has to be taken: this must be done. The senses have to be subdued.

It is buddhi, reason, that tells you of the higher aspirations that are embedded in you. The ambassador of God, as it were, is working through the reason of your personality. An ambassador is a link between two governments. He communicates the messages of his government to the other government that he is connected with. He brings about a rapprochement and a kind of harmonious relationship between two governments. That is the reason why embassies are established in the world. Reason is a kind of ambassador between God and the world of creation. Because of the position it occupies as an ambassador of God, the reason also tells you that you are above this world and cannot be satisfied with anything in this world. 

The reason says it is incumbent on you to control the sense organs so that you may become a Super-person and not be under the subjection of the sense organs. But it is also situated in a world of sensation and mentation. It is a relationship with two governments, as I mentioned to you – the world of senses and the world of divinity. So while the mind is conscious of the impetuosity of the sense organs, the reason gives you the additional strength to actually work on this consciousness of it being necessary to control the sense organs, because while it is aware of the modus operandi that you have used in the control of the sense organs, it also has the power descending on it from the higher order of things. With the power of divinity which is scintillating in it, it can charge upon the sense organs through the mind and bring their strength down to a mellowed condition.

Yo buddheḥ paratas tu saḥ: There is something above the intellect or the reason, which is the central universality of power. And because of it being possible for you to connect your reason with the universal centrality, you will be able to succeed in your spiritual practice. If reason is absent, you will be like an animal with a merely instinctive mind controlled by the sense organs. Yo buddheḥ paratas tu saḥ: The Atma-shakti, which is above the buddhi, or the intellect, should guide you here. 

You will be asking, “How it is done? The Atman-consciousness is not in me, my intellect is oscillating, my mind is very indecisive, and my senses are very powerful. What is the process?”

To be continued ...

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