The Teachings of the Bhagavadgita - 7.3. Swami Krishnananda

 

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Tuesday, February 23, 2021. 10:14. AM.

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

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But these are minor things compared to the more powerful ones – namely, the elemental forces, which cannot easily be roused by a little of meditation. A huge lion, very strong and confident of his strength, will not wake up even if we pelt a stone at it. Only a little puppy will wake up; it will bark at us even if we look at it. But a mighty lion or even an elephant, which knows its own strength, will not in any way be affected by our gazing at it or even with our interfering with it in a mild manner. So our little meditations may not even be felt by this mighty lion of the physical universe. It may be like scratching a rock with a little needle; the effect is so little and imperceptible that it is practically not there. But if it is strong enough, if we are attacking it with sufficient force and it is aware that it is facing a power almost equal to itself, then it wakes up. This is the waking up of the powers which constitute what we may call, in ordinary language, the five elements – earth, water, fire, air, ether. If the powers of the elements wake up, then we are really in a state where we have to reinforce our energies to effectively take up this task on hand.

We are mostly in a state of irreconcilability with the powers of nature. The elements are not in harmony with the structure of our individuality. We can be seriously affected by physical forces – we can be drowned by water, burned by fire, blown by wind, and become destroyed by anything that is material or physical. Hunger and thirst, to mention only the least among them, are some of the consequences that follow from the weakness of the physical personality in its relation to the five elements. These energies do not make themselves felt ordinarily; most of us will not feel this difficulty at all. For us, all is a theory only, because our meditation may not be so strong as to wake up the five elements. But, until we are able to touch the borderland of this novel experience where we are able to face the five elements and become cognisant of their existence as vital elements involving our own lives, until this state is reached, we may be said to be a little novice only in meditation, just a 'kindergarten meditator'. But, according to great teachers of yoga such as Patanjali, for instance, true meditation begins only when we contact reality, at least in one of its degrees.

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.

To be continued....

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