A Study of the Bhagavadgita : 9 - 1. Swami Krishnananda.

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Wednesday, December 29, 2021.6:00. PM.

A Study of the Bhagavadgita : 9-1.

Chapter : 9. The Yoga of Meditation.1.

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#The Yoga of meditation is the subject of the Sixth Chapter of the Gita. 

At the very beginning, the Lord tells us that the art of Yoga is a system of raising oneself by oneself. In meditation you qualitatively improve yourself and do not merely carry on a quantitative process for a long time. Many days, several months, are occupied with the act of meditation, but it is not just that you have been doing something for a long time. Also you have improved yourself; you have become a better person through meditation. 

The betterment is the qualitative aspect of it.

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We have a Self; everybody has a Self, usually called the Atman. 

“My self has been engaged in the work of meditation.” This is what you generally say. 

This self of yours is one kind of self. It is one layer of a possible long series of different layers of the same self. These layers of self are the determining factors of the quality of your being. What sort of person you are as far as your quality of existence is concerned will be decided by the level of self hood that you are rooted in.

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There is, for instance, the instinctive self, the sensory self, the physical self, the involved self, the social self, and so on, all which mean that the self of the person – the you, the I, or whatever it is – is not existing for itself independently but is conditioned by certain associations such as sensation, instinctive desire, social relation, and the like. Mr. so-and-so is a particular kind of self. That self is decided upon qualitatively by the kind of social relation that the self is maintaining, and you know what the social relation is.

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You are something in human society – something important, something unimportant, something responsible, something not responsible, something recognised, something unrecognised. The society has something to say about you, and that depends upon what kind of position you occupy in the social setup. Your social position very much influences what you are. 

When you think about yourself, you will also think – and perhaps only think – in the sense of your involvement in society. Suppose you are an official in the government; you will be thinking only that you are a magistrate. You will not think that you are the son of your mother. Though you are perhaps that, you will never forget that you are a magistrate self. The magistrate self has become so much involved in your being that you are only that. 

This is an example of the social self, which everyone is, in some way or the other.–Your involvement in external society in any manner whatsoever will condition you and make you a social self.

To be continued ....

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