Relevance of the Bhagavadgita to Humanity : 27-6. Swami Krishnananda.

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Tuesday, November 01, 2022. 06:30.

Chapter 27: The Practice of Meditation-6.

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We are accustomed to social thinking, mostly. Philosophical thinking is very strange. We do not think philosophically in our daily life, much less metaphysically. We are social beings. The society in which we live is a psychological society, and it is made to appear that the very existence of a person depends upon the relation that the mind maintains with other minds, as if one person cannot be alive if another is not there. By ‘another', I mean a person or any object of sense. If they are not there, it will look like the life itself of the person is at stake. This is an illusion, this is a deception, this is Mara or Satan working and telling us the wrong thing: “If your relations outwardly maintained with objects of sense are to be snapped, you shall not live.” This will be told us from inside, but the opposite is the truth. We shall live much better than we lived earlier because earlier we lived like a slave of the objects; now we are living with great freedom born of the strength of our own self. While working as a slave under a master may look like a life of great protection from a master, and to be without a master will look like a precarious life of insecurity, don't we believe it is better to be a free person than to be a slave of a master who is guarding us? Yet we think along this line only, that we require protection by a master outside. The master is the world of senses, and if the master is not to guard us we are unprotected. So there is a fear. We have a fear that we shall lose all things, but this fear is unfounded. It is the fear of losing ill health and the fear that health will supervene.

So in this little instruction that the mind should be concentrated on one point only there is a wealth of suggestiveness, namely, that all the underground activities of the subconscious and the unconscious mind should be completely taken possession of under a central government authority, as it were, and no independence should be given to these varied and abandoned particular sentimental activities of the mind. Generally we live according to our instincts, according to our sentiments, whims and fancies. We are just automatons moving according to the dictates of the sentiments and the instincts within. We are not masters of our own selves. While we are slaves of others, we are slaves of our minds also. Yet, this double slavery has to be noticed, detected, and its meaning should be known.

When this kind of engagement becomes the sole responsibility of the yogi seated in meditation, it will appear in the beginning that the whole world is up in arms against this yogin. It will appear that we cannot be here at all. “Get out from this place. You are not for us. You are a renegade; you are leaving us.” This was told to the Buddha and all the saints. A little suggestion of this kind is made even to the Christ. The world which was our very dear, beloved friend will now tell us, “Get out, I shall have nothing to do with you, because up to this time you were my friend, and today you are trying to assume independence. I shall see to it.” When this frightening threat is dealt by the world of relative operations, attachments and longings, the little spark of aspiration is likely to get extinguished by the mere fear of a possible tragedy that may descend upon oneself.

All these are not the concern of the Bhagavadgita here. It is a lofty teaching which assumes that the student is suitably educated in self-discipline and self-control, and the Bhagavadgita is really a teaching for an illumined, cultured and elevated mind. A lay mind will not be able to grasp its actual intentions by a mere cursory glance.

The connections of the mind in relation to objects of sense get automatically broken the moment it is forced to concentrate on any particular thing. It may be even a dot on the wall. Now, it does not matter what object is chosen for concentration, because every object is a part of the whole cosmic structure, and therefore whatever we touch is nothing but the world and the concentrated form of the properties of prakriti – sattva, rajas, tamas. Any object is as good as any other for purpose of meditation because everything in the world is connected to everything else.

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Next -Chapter 28: Sitting for Meditation

To be continued

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