The Teachings of the Bhagavadgita : 7.3 - Swami Krishnananda.

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Thursday, 22 Jun, 2023. 06:15.

Chapter 7: Meditation – A Discipline of Self-Integration - 3.

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The grossest manifestation of reality may be said to be the five elements in the cosmological process; and until we reach this stage of vital contact with the five elements, we are cut off from reality in a very significant manner. At present, we are out of touch with reality. That explains our misery in life, our sorrows, and our difficulties even in understanding what the world is made of. Scientific analysis, even logical approaches, will not serve any purpose finally when the world of five elements, or the world as such, is considered to be a total alien to us from the way in which we are encountering the world at present. To us, all people around us are aliens – the world is a foreigner, and it is an object of the senses. It is an object in such a way that it bears no organic connection with ourselves; and we study it, try to understand it, experiment upon it and observe it as something totally different from us, which is the error of pure, classical approach of science. There is a vital, basic organic connection between ourselves and the world of nature which is not available to us when we live in the world of pure sensory operations or are cut off totally from this contact with reality due to our involvement in this extreme, externalising feature called space-time.

Thus, when we are seated for the purpose of this great objective of human life – encounter with Reality – in the earlier stages we guard ourselves, as we put up a fence around our field when we want to grow a harvest, or tend a garden, or grow fruits or vegetables, a fencing, a protection is necessary. We put up a protective fencing around ourselves by means of a dual action on our part – namely, the withdrawal of consciousness from sensory contact with distracting objects, and, at the same time, a focusing of this enriched consciousness upon the chosen ideal of meditation, which perhaps is the essence of vairagya and abhyasa.

In the process of pratyahara, the earlier or earliest stage of meditation, there is a need, first of all, to be conscious of what things there are which will distract your attention. What are your loves and hatreds? What are your inner tensions or frustrations, longings? They have to be dealt with very carefully, as we deal with wild beasts when they are tamed in a circus, or as carefully as a physician will diagnose a chronic illness. Here you should not be in a hurry; it is better to go slow – slow and steady wins the race. You should not be too anxious and emotional or enthusiastic about it. Every step has to be a firm step, a reinforced step, such that you need not have to retrace your steps due to any over-enthusiastic movement in this direction. You have to know your strengths and you have to know your weaknesses also. Here you have to be your own judge, unless of course you have a very competent Guru who may be your judge. Where such a Guru is not easily available you have to be your own intelligent judge; and here you should not be, in any way, over-compassionate in regard to your own self. You should be a physician of your own soul, a judge of your own self, and no hypocrisy is permitted where it is a question of your own welfare and it is not a demonstration before others.

This meditational technique is not an advertisement in society. It is a healing process that you are trying to undergo inwardly for your own ultimate blessedness, so you are concerned here with yourself and not with anything else. Here is the point where you are required to be totally dispassionate in judging your own self. You should make a list of all your weaknesses also together with your capacities, endowments, and know where you stand. "This is my strength, but this is also my weakness." And, so far as your strength goes – so far, so good. Be happy. God bless you. But as far as your weaknesses are concerned, they have to be got rid of with an intelligent psychoanalytic technique of positive induction of a new understanding which you have to receive either from your Guru or, if God has blessed you with enough understanding, to the strength of your own self. Generally your weaknesses are your desires which, somehow or other, seek fulfilment by hook or crook – by any means, fair and foul. This word 'desire' has a vast connotation. It covers a large area; it touches anything and everything in the world. It is a desire for any blessed thing.

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To be continued

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