The Philosophy of the Bhagavadgita : 11.3. - Swami Krishnananda.

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

Wednesday, 02 Aug 2023 06:55.

Chapter 11: The Yoga of Meditation - 3.

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

The great Masters of Yoga are most normal persons. They are not queer individuals looking like otherworldly ascetics, making themselves conspicuous. There is no conspicuity about Yoga practice. It is not an unnatural way of living, making oneself an exhibit in the social atmosphere. When we are a real Yogi, we will not appear as a Yogi at all. The moment we start appearing as a Yogi, there is to be sensed some unnaturalness in the practice. Why should we ‘appear'? There is no need to put on countenances. Normalcy of behaviour is a spontaneous consequence that follows from an understanding of the wholeness of life, which is, basically, Yoga.

With this preparedness of the mind in a healthy manner towards all things, one has to sit for meditation on the degrees of Reality, the particular degree that has to be chosen is the Ishta-Devata. We have already referred to the Deity, or Devata, on an earlier occasion. And our soul-filled absorption in it with affection, with love, and with utmost regard, is our Yoga in respect of it. The mind is steady absolutely, when it is in the presence of that which it likes immensely. When we have something highly valuable as our possession, we get wholly absorbed, and we are in a state of rapture, as it were, by the very presence of it, because it is the Deity that we like, and the only thing that we want. Then it is impossible for the mind to think anything else at that time.

Is there anything in the world which we like so much that we cannot think anything else at the moment of being in its presence? Here is the significance of what is called initiation into the technique of meditation. The choosing of the objective, or the ideal of meditation, is very important. It is done with the guidance of a preceptor, a teacher, a superior, a Guru. Most of us are incapable of choosing our ideal. We drift from one point to another, today one thing looking all right and tomorrow another thing. A superior mind which has passed through certain stages of psychological development would be a good guide to people who are in the initial stages; such a person is a  Guru, or a teacher. If one has already passed through some stages which another has not come across, the former can tell the latter what are the things which have to be expected on the path.

Initiation into Yoga is the introduction of the mind to that particular ideal or concept of the objective which can engage the attention wholly, so that it becomes the only reality for the practitioner. The mind can concentrate itself entirely only on that from which it can expect everything that it needs. If we are sure that a thing is going to satisfy every one of our needs, and there is nothing else left out, then there would be no need for us to think anything else. But there is a suspicion in the mind, a doubt that, perhaps, it is not the only thing that is needed in life, that there are other things also which are equally important or, at least necessary in some way. This would be another way of saying that one has not chosen the ideal properly, has no faith in the glorious object which has been chosen as the target of meditation.

*****

To be continued

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