The Relevance of the Bhagavadgita to Humanity : 12.7. Swami Krishnananda.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Wednesday, August 4, 2021. 9:12. PM.
The First Six Chapters of the Bhagavadgita
Chapter-12. Control of the Senses : 7.
(Spoken on Bhagavadgita Jayanti)
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

So yoga, according to the Bhagavadgita, is not killing the senses. It is also not indulging in the senses. It is harmony that the Bhagavadgita teaches. You are not over-friendly with your sensory irrational instincts, nor are you inimical to them. You are a good teacher, a schoolmaster, as it were, a medical man, a psychologist who is not angry with the patient but understands the condition of the patient.

So here you have to be very cautious in applying a harmonious yardstick of measuring the present condition of your irrational behaviour, potential or otherwise, and your higher reason has to be applied even to subjugate the mind which supplies the energy to the senses. The manas is superior to the indriyas, or the senses, and the buddhi is superior to the manas.

How are you going to use the rationality in you? You know how you can live a life of reason. Your friendship with people, the company that you keep, the books that you read, the atmosphere in which you live, will also tell you the kind of rationality that is permitted in your daily behaviour. 

Who are your friends? Make a list of all these people. What kind of people are they? Sanga, company is a very important determining factor in our behaviour, conduct and inner operations. While satsanga is good, dissanga is not good. 

While we condition the behaviour of other people by the emanation of forces from us, we also may be conditioned by such emanations from other people. Hence it is said that your company should always be good. Always keep company of people who are helpful to you spiritually, at least rationally. Do not be friendly with irrational minds who are instinct-ridden and brute in behaviour, who are physically oriented rather than rationally oriented. 

And study elevating literature which will rouse up the higher potentiality in you. Do not read trash, rubbish, journals, magazines, etc., which will distract your attention and make you earth-earthly, more and more bound. And, finally, inwardly offer prayers to the Almighty Himself, like the prayer that is given to us in the Gayatri mantra: May my intellect be directed properly. You summon the rays; you will draw sustenance from the higher powers. Finally, the great God of the universe is with you. 

Believe in this, and His support is always with you. “You shall succeed, my dear friend Arjuna. Don’t cry,” says Bhagwan Sri Krishna to Arjuna, and to every one of us.

END.

NEXT- CHAPTER-13. The Supremely Friendly Power.

To be continued ....

=======================================================================