Stabilising the Mind in God -7. Swami Krishnananda.

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31/01/2020.
The Twelfth Chapter of the Bhagavadgita.
(Spoken on June 26, 1983)
POST-7.
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1.

#Tell this to the mind every day. Go on harping this tune again and again :

##“You are going to commune yourself with that in which you will find the whole world concentrated. The whole world is concentrated there.”

###When you go on telling this again and again, you are doing abhyasa. This is practice. Do this every day, and think nothing else.

####This is called ananya chintana, brahma abhyasa. Practise the presence of God in a manner convenient to you according to your own predilection and in accordance with the choice you have made of your notion of God the Almighty.
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2.

# “Even this is difficult,” says the mind.

So the great teacher Sri Krishna says,

##"abhyasepy asamarthosi matkarmaparamo bhava, madartham api karmani kurvan siddhim avapsyasi" :

###“If this also is not possible, take to other ways which are concerned with Me.”

Interpreters of the Bhagavadgita vary in their opinion of the meaning of these words matkarma, etc.

####Madhusudana Saraswati, one of the greatest exponents of the Bhagavadgita, is of the opinion that here matkarma should be understood as ‘devotion to God’. The first way he considers as a prescription of jnana yoga, and the second way as the yoga of the will, identified sometimes with the raja yoga of Patanjali. The third way, says Madhusudana in his commentary, is an indication towards devotion.
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3.

#According to this commentator on the Bhagavadgita, Madhusudana Saraswati, matkarma is sravanam, kirtanam, vishnoh, smaranam, padha-sevanam, archanam, vandanam, dasyam, sakhyam, atma-nivedanam (Bhagavata 7.5.23).

*Sravanam : Hearing the glories of God.

##Wherever satsanga is held, go and listen to these upadeshas of Mahatmas, listen to the Bhagavata Katha, and listen to the glories of God wherever they are sung, in whatever way.

*And kirtanam is singing names by means of musical accompaniments or even otherwise.

*Smararam is something like japa, going on reciting His mantra, His formula, His name inwardly, rotating His name in the mind again and again as remembrance of God.

*Padha-sevanam, *Archanam are some special ways of adoration of God which also have been understood in different ways.

Some feel that pada-sevanam is attending to the feet of God Himself.

###Who can touch the feet of God?

####People say only Mahalakshmi can serve the feet of Narayana, Durga Bhagavati Ma can serve Lord Siva, etc. Mankind cannot practise this method.

This is one way of understanding this method of worship, pada-sevanam.

But others are of the opinion as all the heads in the universe are the heads of the Mahapurusha only, and all the feet are his only. Sahasrapat (P.S. 1) says the Purusha Sukta :

#####Service of humanity also is service of God. Service of the feet of all humanity. That means to say, the dedication of yourself for the welfare of all is also understood as equivalent to pada-sevanam, though in a highly orthodox, mystical sense people think it is adoration of Narayana in Vaikuntha only.
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To be continued ...

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