The Philosophy of the Bhagavadgita : 10.6 - Swami Krishnananda.

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Wednesday,  12  Jul  2023 07:00.

Chapter 10: Forms of Sacrifice and Concentration-6.

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There is a psychological explanation and a metaphysical one. Psychologically, the satisfaction that we feel at the time of coming in contact with the desired object is the result of the extinction of desire, the result not of the possession of the object or the enjoyment of the object but of the cessation of desire at the time of coming in contact with the object, which happens on account of the feeling in the mind that its purpose has been served. The purpose of the senses is to possess the object, make it their own, unite it with themselves and feel a non-separation of themselves from it, which purpose seems to be achieved when the object is possessed, made one's own and there is no further need for the senses and the mind to contemplate the object. “It has already become mine, and it is I, in one sense.” The senses have subsided into the mind, the mind has gone back to the reason, and the reason is in the self. There is, then, a self-possessedness. Consciousness has rested itself temporarily, though only for the flash of a second, and we feel an exhilaration inside, a happiness and satisfaction that we have possessed and enjoyed and got what we want. This is a blunder on the very surface of it.

Metaphysically, the reason is something different. The Self is present everywhere, there is only One Self, the Universal Being, which exists in us and which exists in the objects. The objects pull us, we are pulled towards the objects, and conversely, we too pull the objects towards ourselves, on account of the Self beckoning its own Self in the form of a presence outwardly in space and time. The Infinite is summoning the Infinite in every act of desire, in every process of sense perception, and what we ask for even in the least of our actions and desires is the Universal Self, and nothing short of it. But the senses do not know the purpose behind their activity; they are again in ignorance. When we ask for anything, we are asking for this Universal Being, and we are not asking for anything else. This is the ontological explanation, the metaphysical interpretation or reason given behind the movement of the senses, mind and intellect towards objects. It is the higher Self which is the object of the lower self in every form of contemplation. And when the self which is lower tunes itself up to the higher Self, it is in a state of Yoga.

This higher Self has various degrees of manifestation, and the higher Self need not necessarily mean the Absolute at once. There is, to come back to the theme of yajna mentioned in the Third Chapter, a Deity that superintends over the circumstance of the relation between the subject and the object. This Deity is the higher Self for the time being, the synthesis between the subject and the object. This Deity, again, becomes an individual subject in the sense of a higher realm of cognition which has its own objects.

Difficult is all this for the mind to understand, and we are not supposed to go too high when we are in a lower stage. We will know what is above us when we reach the stage that is immediately below. Each time we are given only the vision of one step ahead; we cannot have the total vision of all things at the stroke of a moment. Just now we can have an inkling of what is immediately above us, and further on we cannot know anything. When we reach that second step, or achieve the immediately higher level, we will have the vision of the next higher level. Nature reveals its secrets by degrees, and the whole secret cannot be given in one instant.

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To be continued

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