Relevance of the Bhagavadgita to Humanity : 27-4. Swami Krishnananda.

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Sunday, October 23, 2022. 07:00.

Chapter 27: The Practice of Meditation-4.

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The mind is not a solid substance. It is a fabric of interconnected associations, relations. We are not just moving inside the skull of an individual person. The whole structure of the mind is very intriguing because while it appears to be a little personal property of any given individual, we will find that it is not like that. It has connections with every blessed thing in the world. Modern scientists have coined a word to describe the subtle invisible activities of the human mind, not the visible conscious activities, the unknown hidden background behind the screen activities of the mind, which are stronger operations, more forceful activities than the waking activities. The word coined by modern psychological science is ‘prehension' instead of ‘apprehension'. They make a distinction between apprehension and prehension. The word was coined specifically to distinguish between ordinary mental action and unknown activities going on in the labyrinths of our deeper unconscious personality.

Apprehension is a subtle connection that a person maintains with his own coterie, though outwardly he may look independent and unrelated to people. Even in human society there are people who look fine outside, very cultured and civilised, but inwardly they are a part of a large brood. A subtle subterranean activity is the occupation of the so-called cultured individual on the surface, and this subterranean treasure of his belonging to something undesirable will not be made visible outside due to the subtle manoeuvring of conscious operations. This is seen in society and everywhere in various subtle operations of human groups. And what is a human group? It is nothing but a mental group. When we speak of human society or political organisations, etc., we are not actually speaking of physical bodies. We are speaking of minds operating in subtle ways.

So the mind, which is accustomed to live this kind of life merely on the surface – sometimes deliberately hiding the bottom of it and many a time not even being conscious that there is a bottom at all – such a mind is unfit for yoga meditation because it is already a member of a group of relations which tries to maintain its empirical immortality, which means the immortality of the individual personality as a social unit of sentiments, passions, greed, and all sorts of instinctive relations which are the demands of the physical existence of a person. Such a mind involved in such relations consciously or unconsciously, knowingly or unknowingly, will not be fit for meditation. 

If such a mind begins to concentrate under the impression that it is practising yoga, one will find that the whole brood of hounds will start attacking it as a renegade, and it will not be able to think even for a moment without getting disturbed. After a few minutes of sitting we will get agitated and we will like to get up. I have seen this in certain meditation sessions where people get up in a few minutes and walk out on the veranda because it is so disturbing. Meditation is very disturbing because it is a process of heart searching, the way of searching for dacoits, thieves and undesirable activities. Therefore, they somehow or other sneak beneath the possible atmospheres of detection and get out of the clutches of this detective activity. Meditation is a detective activity in one way. It is a very, very subtle and well-organised method of discovering the activities of the mind, not only as it is available on the surface, but also at its back.

Now, why we should concentrate the mind on one object was a question to be answered. The mind, in spite of it being such a terrific involvement of this nature described now, is a flimsy arrangement of relations which are undesirable, and so they cannot have real strength because they have no moral force behind them. Any kind of organisation which does not have the support of moral sanction cannot last for long. Hence, the very art of meditation is frightening to the wavering mind of instinctive longings.

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To be continued 

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