The Teachings of the Bhagavadgita : 7.1 - Swami Krishnananda.

Chinmaya Mission :

Chinmaya Naada Bindu Gurukula, organized two captivating musical events, designed primarily for music students. The first event took place in Hyderabad on May 27, 2023, in collaboration with Tatvaa Arts and Badruka College of Commerce & Management. Pt. Rupak Kulkarni, a renowned Bansuri player and professor at CVV, mesmerized the audience with his rendition of Raga Madhuvanti, accompanied by talented artists such as Sri Jaykishan Hingu on Bansuri, Sri Aashay Kulkarni on Tabla, and Sri Upkar Godboley on Harmonium. Vid. Manjusha Patil, another esteemed professor at CVV, graced the stage for the second concert. Supported by Sri Tanishq Arora's soulful vocals, Aashay on Tabla, and Upkar on Harmonium, she showcased the beauty of Raga Bhoop, concluding with an enchanting abhang. The audience erupted in a standing ovation when Rupakji and Manjushaji performed a captivating thumri in Raga Bhairavi.

In the packed 180-seater auditorium of Badruka College, Smt. Pramodini Rao, the Head of the School of Kalayoga, introduced the programs offered at the Kochi campus while emphasizing the unique Gurukula + University model at CNBG. Jaykishan and Tanishq, aspiring musicians who have pursued their passion at the Gurukula, shared their inspiring experiences with the enthralled audience.

The second event, held on May 28, 2023, in collaboration with the 'Traimasik Sangeet Sabha,took place in the Raghukul Mangal Karyalay in Udgir. Drawing an audience of around 350 music enthusiasts from nearby cities, the evening commenced with an enthralling performance by Sri Jayateerth Kulkarni, an Assistant Professor at CVV, playing the Bansuri with grace and elegance, accompanied by the talented Tabla player Dr. Atul Kamble. The grand finale was delivered by Vid. Manjusha Patil, a beloved artist in the region, who captivated the audience with her rendition of Raga Puriyadhanasri, accompanied by Dr. Atul Kamble on Tabla, Sri Upkar Godboley on Harmonium, and Tanishq providing vocal support. This performance was a dream-come-true for the audience, some of whom had traveled over 100 kilometers to attend the concert, and it left them spellbound.

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Monday,  12 Jun, 2023. 06:30.

Chapter 7: Meditation – A Discipline of Self-Integration - 1.

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The discipline of yoga culminates in meditation, dhyana, which is the subject of the sixth chapter of the Bhagavadgita. The art of yoga is principally the process of self-integration by degrees through the levels of the constitution of one's personality, such that when we reach the point of meditation proper there is a total concentration of the whole of one's being in the direction of the whole of that which one aspires for through this discipline we call 'yoga'. Last time we noted that essentially this is a technique of communing the lower self with the higher self, and I endeavoured to briefly mention the characteristics of the higher self and the way in which we have to understand what this term means. It means many things, and in every sense of the term it has to be taken into consideration when it becomes an object of meditation – gradually by stages. We can today take up the practical side of it as enunciated in the sixth chapter, since the theoretical side is already known to you, to some extent, through our studies conducted earlier.

Meditation is no doubt the fruit of the enterprise called yoga, but it is a fruit of the tree of an inner development into a state of maturity of personality which is prepared for this last attack, as it were, on the problem of truth – of reality. The scattered particularities of human thinking get gathered in this focusing of attention, and we may bring back to our memories here what we understood of the process of vairagya and abhyasa – the detachment which is a requisite in this practice, and a concentration or habituation of consciousness which is simultaneous with it. This mustering in of the forces of one's self, the focusing of them, and the attention to be paid on the object of meditation – all these processes involve a gathering up of whatever we are, in every sense of whatever we are. I am not going to repeat what we studied earlier, since we have not much time and we are to cover the entire study in a few days.

"Whatever we are" is an important sentence to be underlined, and we have to understand first of all what we are, which is another way of saying what 'self' means. We are to understand the self in every sense – in terms of the definition of it as gaunatman, mithya-atman, and mukhya-atman, to which we made reference earlier. So, our self is not merely the imagined location of our consciousness within the body, as it were, but everything that we are, even in an established relationship of ourself – spatially, temporally, socially and otherwise, together with our consciousness of this psychophysical organism – finally to culminate in the mukhya-atman or the primary Self, which is the universality of our essential being.

For the purpose of meditation, a proper place is necessary  (Gita 6.11). 

"Shuchau deshe pratishthapya sthiram asanam atmanah

natyuchchhritam nati-nicham chailajina-kushottaram."

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Shuchau = in a clean; 

deshe = place; 

pratishthapya = having established; 

sthiram = steadfast; 

asanam = seat; 

atmanam = his/her own; 

na = not; 

ati = too; 

uchchhritam = high; 

na = not; 

ati = too; 

nīcham—low; 

chaila—cloth; 

kusha—Kush grass;

uttaram—one over the other.

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Translation :

BG 6.11: To practice Yoga, one should make an asan (seat) in a sanctified place, by placing Kush grass,  and a cloth, one over the other. The asan should be neither too high nor too low.

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Commentary :

Shree Krishna explains in this slogam the external practice for sadhana. Shuchau deshe means a pure or sanctified place. In the initial stages, the external environment does impact the mind. In later stages of sadhana, one is able to achieve internal purity even in dirty and unclean places. But for neophytes, clean surroundings help in keeping the mind clean as well. A mat of Kush grass provides temperature insulation from the ground, akin to the yoga mats of today. The deer skin atop it deters poisonous pests like snakes and scorpions from approaching while one is absorbed in meditation. If the asan is too high, there is the risk of falling off; if the asan is too low, there is danger of disturbance from insects on the ground. Some instructions regarding external seating given in this verse may be somewhat anachronous to modern times, in which case the spirit of the instruction is to be absorbed in the thought of God, while the instructions for the internal practice remain the same.

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Chinmaya International Foundation (CIF) ;

Three-day National Conference on Yoga as An Embodied Culture of Bharata

Chinmaya International Foundation (CIF), Chinmaya International Foundation Shodha Sansthan (CIFSS) and Krishnamacharya Yoga Mandiram (KYM) have embarked upon celebrating the International Yoga Day by conducting a three-day national level conference from 30 June to 2 July 2023.

Schedule

Camp Starts on (30-06-2023)

Last Date for Registration (21-06-2023)

Yoga is the art and science of healthy living. It is an integral part of the Indian way of Life.

The 3-day conference, Yoga as An Embodied Culture of Bharata, aims to trace the contribution of Yoga in the socio-cultural and religious practices of India.

The gathering will be addressed by noted speakers and thought leaders who will be presenting their papers on the topic.

Join the intellectual extravaganza. 

Learn more:  bit.ly/43pKTEv  Register now

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 In a purified atmosphere, in a conducive environment we have to place ourselves comfortably in a posture for the purpose of this great adventure called meditation. This is a great spiritual worship that we are performing, an ardent invocation of divinity, a soulful devotion that we manifest within ourselves towards the Creator of the Universe, and an inward communion spiritually established between ourselves and all that God has created and God Himself is. So it is a sanctified, sacred, worshipful attitude. It is not a mechanism that we are operating – it is a spirit that gets unfolded in meditation. There is an organic growth, an advancement of personality in the process of meditation, so that we become richer and richer, wider and wider, deeper and deeper, and grow well beyond in our spirit as we advance in meditation. The place that we select for our meditation should be free from distractions. Some more details concerning this matter is available in the Swetaswatara Upanishad. There again we are told that the location for the purpose of our seatedness in meditation should be conducive in the sense that there should be no other avenue to pull our attention in any other direction than the point of concentration we have chosen; this is an important point to remember. There are loves and hatreds, prejudices and emotional tensions to which man is heir and from which no one is totally free. These are important things that we may bear in mind.

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To be continued

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