Relevance of the Bhagavadgita to Humanity :30.3. Swami Krishnananda.

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Saturday, December 24, 2022. 07:30.

The First Six Chapters of the Bhagavadgita

Chapter 30: Communion with Eternity-3.

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When the mind that is controlled returns to the Atman, it enjoys a bliss which is unthinkable – unthinkable because it is not an object of the senses. It also cannot be cognised by the mind. This bliss of the Atman, this experience in yoga which is a merger into the universal bosom of all things, cannot be thought by the mind because it is not outside the mind. It is prior to the very origin of all thinking process. It cannot be seen with the eyes, it cannot be touched by the hand, and it cannot be sensed by any means we have because this bliss is non-spatial, non-temporal. It is not in the world of spatial distance and temporal succession. Therefore, it is unimaginable. Because it is unreachable by the powers of the mind and the senses, we are not attracted by its presence. The mind can be pulled only by that which it can conceive. The senses can move only to that which they can cognise, perceive, contact. But here is something which the mind cannot think, the senses cannot contact. Therefore, we cannot even believe that it can exist. We doubt even the existence of it. Such is the tragedy that has befallen mortal man.

But when the consciousness stands steady, unmoving like the flame of a lamp in a windless place, there is a universal communication being received from all the corners of creation. Tributes follow from every direction, as it were. Sarvā diśo balim asmai haranti (CU 2.21.4), says the Chhandogya Upanishad. When you are placed in this uniformity of communion with every particle of creation in yoga meditation, tribute follows from every corner of the earth. As vassals come with offerings to their master who is the king, directions, which are the quarters of the whole of creation, bend down before this emperor, as it were, offering their tribute, and unimaginable miracles take place. Non-living so-called entities, which we call matter, inorganic substances, assume life. Stones will speak, trees will bend, as it happened, they say, when the great master Suka moved. Trees shook in obeisance to the great yogin, the son of Vyasa, and the leaves of the trees began to communicate messages, indicating his presence in every leaf. Vyasa summoned his son, “My dear boy, where are you?”

“Here am I, Father,” is the response that came from every leaf of the trees around, because he was not anybody's son and he was not living in a particular place. So friendly did even the leaves of the trees become.

The world may look like a vanishing phenomenon, as we do not know what happens to night when the sun has risen, where night has gone. Such a terrific dark spectre, which is the blinding night through which we pass, vanishes when the sun rises; so shall the world vanish before this vision that is spiritual. But where has the night gone? Where is it sitting now when the sun has risen? No one knows where the night is sitting. It shall come after some time. From where does it come? And where has it gone now during the coming of the sun in the day? As the night shall vanish to a place which is nowhere, the world shall also vanish to a place which is nowhere because it never existed, and therefore there is no question of its coming and going. There is no such thing as darkness; it is not an existent substance. It is a negation of light. It is an abstraction. It is not an entity, and therefore its going and coming are unimaginable to us. Yet the night looks intensely blinding, solidly real before our eyes. Such a solid earth shall melt into liquid when the mind returns to the Atman.

When the mind has settled itself in this condition of union with the Atman, there shall be no further effort of meditation because here all effort spontaneously receives its fructification, its fulfilment. All movement, all project, all adventure finds its culmination here. All the rivers of human aspiration commingle in this sea of fulfilment. Therefore, there is calmness, quietude, the prasanta state. The stability of this existence can be compared only to the width of the universe.

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To be continued

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