Relevance of the Bhagavadgita to Humanity :30.5. Swami Krishnananda.

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Sunday, January 01, 2023. 07:30.

The First Six Chapters of the Bhagavadgita

Chapter 30: Communion with Eternity-5.

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After a temporary bathing in this nectar of experience, it is possible for the mind to cool down in its ecstasy because it cannot be said that one can be always in this state throughout the day and the night. The condition of yoga comes and goes. These ecstasies are not perennial and permanent accompaniments of our life. There are moments of sudden exaltation into the spirit of experience, as mentioned here, but sometimes it becomes an intolerable experience for the mind, as in epic language we are told that it was not tolerated even by Arjuna himself when it became possible for him to have that blissful cosmic experience. But the mind has to be brought back once again to that source which it experienced, but from which it may get separated gradually by the pressure of old karmas. Therefore, the mind has to gradually be brought back, with great effort. How will you bring it back? By bringing to memory the delight, the nectarine joy, the sweetness of this experience which it tasted once. If we remember the taste of a past experience, we shall try to have it again.

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So śanaiḥ śanair uparamed buddhyā dhṛtigṛhītayā, ātmasaṃsthaṃ manaḥ kṛtvā na kiṃcid api cintayet: 

By the effort of understanding, the mind has to be subdued and fixed in the Self. Then there is nothing for you to do afterwards. There is no question of doing anything afterwards, because all doing is fulfilled here in its attaining all value and all meaning, all significance, eternity itself. Again, human thought, which is accustomed to think in no other way than the acquisition of property and the living of a cosy individual life, will not be able to even remember this. Even the memory fades. Even if we gorged ourselves on a very delicious dish some days back, we may not be able to remember every detail of it today. The memory fades. Even happy experiences in this little life cannot be remembered always, because memory becomes feeble as time passes. Hence, even such exaltations may not always remain with us.

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Whenever the mind moves, let it be brought back to its source. 

Yato yato niścarati manaś cañcalam asthiram, tatas tato niyamyaitad ātmany eva vaśaṃ nayet: 

As and when the mind moves outwardly, bring it back from that place immediately.

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Chinmaya Mission UK.

In one of the minor Upanishads we have a suggestion, an instruction how we can bring the mind back to the Self. Let the mind move, but the mind moves to the Self only. It does not, and it cannot, move to any other place. Wherever you cast your eyes in the middle of the ocean, you will see water and water, and nothing but that. Let the eye be cast long distances ranging beyond the conceivable limit. It will see a mass of water everywhere. Let the mind soar higher and higher. It will see space and more space, nothing but empty space everywhere. It is space everywhere; it is water everywhere. So may the mind move anywhere. Do not control the mind. Let it not be restrained. Let it be given a long rope to meander and graze in the garden of this creation of God, because it will see nothing but the face of God everywhere. It will not be able to find anything else except the Self, or the Atman, because all things, even the grass in the meadow, has a selfhood of its own.

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Every tree, every stone, every pebble, every sand particle, every atom is a self by itself. So when the mind moves, where does it move? It moves to the Self. It does not move to an object. There are no objects in this world. They are little selves. Why do you call them objects? Where are the objects? Are you an object? If you are not an object, how does it follow that another is an object? There are no objects, no sensorily contactable things in the world. Everything maintains a status of its own. Everything is a self by itself. Everything is an ‘I am I'; everything is an ‘I am what I am'. Therefore, if the mind moves, it moves to the selfhood of all things. The mind moves to the I in all things. Therefore, even when the mind apparently moves to a so-called object, earlier called a sense object, really it is moving among the selves of the cosmos. This is a higher form of meditation where restraint of the mind is not at all required, because from what will you restrain the mind? There are no things in the world from which the mind has to be withdrawn. It need not be withdrawn; let it go anywhere. But that everywhereness and everyoneness of the movement of the Atman is wrongly imagined as the movement of the mind. The mind is nothing but a concentrated point of the Atman itself. Therefore, even when the mind moves among the so-called sense objects, the Atman is moving in the Atman. The infinite is moving in the infinite. All desires are the summoning of the infinite for the infinite. That is why desires are insatiable, cannot be satisfied. Who can satisfy the infinite? Therefore, endless is the longing for the endless that is the infinite. Even the desires of the mortal individual are propelled, finally, by the infinitude that is at the back, and also this infinitude of longing is for the infinitude of possession. So in all desires again, the infinite is asking for the infinite.

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The whole world, the entire creation, looks like a dance of the Atman within itself. Therefore, let the Atman dance in this world which it has created for its own pleasure. There is no need of self-control. This is a wider, larger, deeper kind of meditation where the Atman rejoices and finds itself even in that which it sees outside as an external to itself. As a baby may dance in the middle of a reflection that it sees in the mirrors kept all round, the Atman rejoices even in the midst of objects of sense. They are no more objects of sense. They are a replica of its own Self.

Thus, the whole of creation is God's beautiful expanded form. Every atom is an eye of God, and every head is the head of the supreme Purusha. This is what the Bhagavadgita tells us subsequently. 

Sarvataḥ pāṇipādaṃ tat sarvatokṣiśiromukham, sarvataḥ śrutimal loke sarvam āvṛtya tiṣṭhati (BG 13.13): 

Everywhere you find the ears of God, everywhere you find the eyes of God, everywhere you find the limbs and the hands and the fingers and the feet and the heads of God. Where will the mind go?

Thus, in this blissful merger, union, samadhi, attainment, communion with eternity, the infinite embraces the infinite, the eternal communes with the eternal, the whole of creation enters the bos

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Next

Chapter 31: The Message of the Sixth Chapter

To be continued

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