Stabilising the Mind in God: The Twelfth Chapter of the Bhagavadgita: 2. Swami Krishnananda.
Friday 24, October 2025, 19:25.
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Stabilising the Mind in God: The Twelfth Chapter of the - Bhagavadgita: 2.
Swami Krishnananda
(Spoken on June 26, 1983)
Post-2.
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Atha cittaṁ samādhātuṁ na śaknoṣi: If you cannot practise the stabilising of your mind in the manner mentioned, what shall you do? Abhyāsayogena tato mām ichāptuṁ: Habituate yourself to a continuous practice of concentrating on something, which method is called ekatattva abhyasa in the language of the Yoga Sutra of Patanjali. Tatpratiṣedhārtham ekatattva abhyāsaḥ (Y.S. 1.32): The vacillation of the mind can be subdued by ekatattva abhyāsaḥ. Though practically the instruction amounts to the same thing that was said earlier, there is this little distinction. It appears that in the earlier teaching we were called upon to perform the complete and utter sacrifice of our very existence in the ultimacy of God's universality. Well, that is all right. That is good enough. Now the second, a slightly lower step, though equally potent, is comparably easier in the sense that you are not asked to conceive of the supremacy or the universality of God at one stroke in the beginning. You choose any concept. Yathābhimata dhyānāt vā (Y.S. 1.39) says Patanjali: As you like, so you choose.
When we contemplate or even think of God in our prayers, rarely do we feel that God is omnipresence or nonrelative ultimacy. We have our own notion of God. Let each one stick to that notion only; that is quite all right. Do you believe that God is ultimate? Yes, no one can gainsay this great requirement. You have your own concept, notion and idea of the Creator of the universe. Adhere your mind to that notion only. We are one hundred people sitting here and we may have one hundred ideas of the Creator of the cosmos. Let each one stick to that idea only, whether or not there is concurrence of this idea. There is no harm if your idea or notion of the Ultimate varies from others' notions, provided that – a very important provision is to be underlined – provided that you will not allow your mind to think of any other reality even here. You are permitted to have your own notion of God. You are not forced to enter into the ultimacy of God as He is in Himself. Let there be a freedom of choice. Choose your own notion of the ultimacy of the Creatorship of the universe. But inasmuch as you are sure that God is the Ultimate Reality and nothing else can be beyond Him, you are also to convince and persuade yourself that you are not required to think anything else.
If you feel the necessity to think something else also at the same time, you are not fully convinced that God is the Ultimate Reality. He is one among the many other equally good realities, perhaps. The secondary importance that we may sometimes give to God in the midst of many other relative realities which also impinge on our mind or attract our attention is a failure.
Therefore, the teaching says: Do this practice again and again. 'Practice' means the habituation of the mind to a single thinking continuously for a protracted period. Sa tu dīrghakāla nairantarya satkāra āsevitaḥ dṛḍhabhūmiḥ (Y.S. 1.14) says Patanjali. The definition of practice is given by Patanjali. Abhyasa and practice mean the same thing. Dīrghakāla: A very long time is necessary. Even to digest a meal you require four hours, and for a sapling to grow into a powerful tree takes years. Likewise, the mind takes its own time to accustom itself to this thought of its own notion of the ultimacy of God. So sit every day at a particular time, as you sit for your breakfast, lunch or dinner. Select a particular time of the day, every day, every day, every day. Do not miss it even a single day. If you miss a single day in sitting for this purpose, tell your mind, “I shall also miss a meal this day.” Because of this punishment that you are threatening it with; you may not miss that sitting.
Be seated in a single posture, whatever be your comfortable posture. Sit, if possible, at the same time. If not, if you are a busy person, sit at any other time also when it is convenient, but for a uniform duration. If it is half an hour, let it be half an hour every day. If it is more, whatever the time be, stick to that duration. And tell the mind that now you are going to unite yourself, commune yourself with what is finally meaningful in this world. All meaning and all value, whatever is of any worth and significance in this world, is summed up and concentrated in this thing that you are now going to meditate upon: “Thus, my dear mind, do not hop like a grasshopper here and there because of recognition of meaning, value, or significance in things in the world. I am telling you that all these are present here. That is the focus point, the concentrated centre of all the values that you can imagine as worthwhile in this world. It is the seabed of the ocean and of all the rivers of value that you can think of in the world. Therefore, stupid mind, go not hither and thither. If you think there are values in the world, okay, granted, there are also values in the world. But they are originally present in that with which you are now trying to commune yourself. Even these values and meanings and significances in life are reflections of that original value. Stupid mind, these beauties and joys, glamours and perfections of life in the world which attract you so much are shadows cast by the original, and if the shadows can pull you to such an extent, with such force, what is the power of the original if you contact it? If the shadow is so beautiful, attractive and tasty a dish to the senses, what will be the taste of that original which casts this dark shadow of the world?”
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