A Study of the Bhagavadgita : 9 - 5. Swami Krishnananda.

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Tuesday, January 18, 2022.7:00. PM.

Chapter : 9. The Yoga of Meditation.5.

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The higher Self is an integrated consciousness; the lower self is dissipated, distracted, conditioned. The higher Self is an unconditioned reality; the lower self is a conditioned reality. The Self, as I mentioned, is essentially consciousness in its nature, and therefore it cannot be connected to any object outside. So to the extent the Self, which is consciousness, wants to be connected with something outside which is not consciousness – objects and materials – to that extent the self is not really the Self. It is a conditioned, materialised self, contaminated by tamas and the gunas of Prakriti.

Hence, the Gita's instruction is to raise your lower self with the power of the higher Self, aspiring for a larger inclusiveness of your personality. Do you not think if your dimension of personality increases, you will be happier? If you can find yourself in a larger atmosphere, you will see that the atmosphere somehow also gets adjusted to you. To the extent it is not possible – you seem to be facing a difficulty of adjustment of yourself with the outer atmosphere – problems will sometimes harass to such an extent that they do not seem to be tolerable at all. You do not seem to be having any kind of solution to your difficulties. Everywhere there are problems, one after the other. This is because the lower self is somehow or other struggling to get out of its difficulties by its own instruments and appurtenances, without resorting to the power of the higher Self.

You should never be despondent and regard yourself as incapable. One of the conditions of success in meditation is confidence in oneself, not diffidence. You should never sit for meditation with the feeling that perhaps nothing will come. If you have already decided that, then really nothing will come. What you think you are, you really are. Why should you be despondent? You should not go to the examination hall with the feeling that you are not going to succeed. What is the good of going, then? You are going to succeed. That is why you take the exam.

In a similar way, sit for meditation with the feeling that tomorrow all shall be well, and all requirements of meditation should be at your fingertips. If there is any frustration in the mind, emotional disturbance, sorrow that is gnawing into your vitals, you should not sit for meditation at that time. The lower self, of course, is raised by the higher Self, it is true; but if the lower self is in agony, if it is sick or diseased, at that time you cannot bring the force of impact of the higher Self upon it. The disease has to be cured, first of all, as a patient has to follow a certain regimentation when treated in a hospital. You do not thrust medicine into his body immediately, it is given later on; and so the lower self has to be treated.

To be continued ......

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