A Study of the Bhagavadgita : 9 - 6. Swami Krishnananda.

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Monday, January 24, 2022.  21:00. 

Chapter : 9. The Yoga of Meditation.6.

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Everyone has to judge oneself. A check-up of personality is to be maintained with a spiritual diary. It is necessary to check up: “How far have I progressed? Are there any obstacles which are emotionally disturbing me, or am I intellectually in a state of doubt?” Intellectual restlessness and emotional tension is instinctive if there are frustrations of any kind. Do you want something that you cannot get, or are you getting something that you do not want? These are the causes of difficulties.

Many of the difficulties of a spiritual seeker will not be visible in the beginning. You may look as though everything is all right, that nothing is wrong. You sit for meditation. But if you continue to do it for some two or three months, you will see that it is not as simple as it appeared in the beginning. You will find it very hard. You do not know what problems will arise. Nine kinds of obstacles are mentioned in Patanjali's Sutras, and there may be more also.

A sincere, honest and realistic spiritual seeker should have a spiritual guide, because after two or three months you will find a dark wall in front of you. You cannot pierce through it, as it is like a kind of iron curtain. In the beginning everything looks fine, but afterwards you will find emotions arise, and your physical ailments will slowly start showing their heads in all kinds of ways. You are unable to eat anything, or you start sneezing, or have neck pain. You will say, “It is very difficult. I cannot carry on the practice.” This is a symptom which is very expertly enunciated in the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali, which also gives suggestions of how to overcome them gradually.

So have confidence in yourself, but do not overestimate yourself. Do not think that everything is fine with you, because you may have some difficulty which is very minor, but that minor thing will become like a big mountain when it is ignored – like a disease which looks like a very small ache but afterwards it will expand itself into agony. That should not be allowed. Illness should be nipped in the bud, like all problems.

Hence, the spiritual seeker should, first of all, check up his personality, and then see that there are no other desires, hankerings or frustrated feelings of any kind. “It would have been very good if I had some money in my hand. I am a pauper.” If you have this kind of feeling, it is good that you have some money. Do not be unnecessarily dejected with this sorrow, thinking, “God will give me everything.” Maybe God will give you everything, but at the same time you have a feeling that you are a pauper. You have double feelings, and that should not be. If you want something that is permissible, well, have it, but abnormal desires may have to be transmuted by the power of suggestions that you receive from your Guru.

Thus, here is something interesting for you in a single verse of the Gita: Uddhared ?tman?tm?na?: raise the self by the Self; n?tm?nam avas?dayet: never deprecate yourself; ?tmaiva hy ?tmano bandhur: the Self is the friend of the self; ?tmaiva ripur ?tmana?: the Self is also the enemy of the self. The Self is the friend of the self because the lower self has surrendered itself completely to the requirements of the higher Self. It will certainly take care of you. God never ignores any person, provided there is real surrender. Otherwise, it will look as if the higher Self is not cooperating with you. How will it cooperate with you when your self is conditioned by so many physical and social associations? Therefore, be brave – vira, as the Upanishad puts it.

To be continued ...

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