The Duty of Karma Yoga: Cooperating with Our Higher Self- 4: Swami Krishnananda.

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Saturday 17, Aug 2024, 06:20.
Article
Scripture
The Duty of Karma Yoga: Cooperating with Our Higher Self: 4.
Swami Krishnananda
(Spoken on October 14, 1984)

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Abhyasa vairagyabhyam tan-nirodhah (Y.S. 1.12) says a sutra of Patanjali, and we have a similar statement in the Bhagavadgita. 

Abhyasena tu kaunteya vairagyena ca grhyate (BG 6.35): By practice and renunciation you shall attain success.


Abhyasa is the repeated accustoming of oneself to a single method of living. We should have a uniform way of living every day, and our moods, our ways, our occupations, as far as possible, should not vary from day to day. But unfortunately, our psychological moods change from moment to moment, distractions come in every moment of time, and a uniform behaviour is not seen. We do not know how a person will behave at any time because of one's life being mostly a reaction to action, a kind of answer that we give to the call from external nature and human society.


Most of us do not live. We only react. We have no independent, deliberately chosen way of living. We adjust ourselves to conditions prevalent outside so that our life is mostly a kind of accommodation with existing conditions and prevalent situations in life. But it is necessary to develop a stuff in one's own self. It is a very unfortunate way of living to be just a bundle of reactions to outer conditions. If somebody smiles, we smile. If somebody frowns, we frown. This is not a uniform and stabilised way of living. There should be what we may call our own stuff, and a very stern stuff, and a well-matured individuality. We have a logic of our own and have come to a conclusion, and that conclusion is in harmony with the law of things. Once this decision is arrived at, it should not be shaken by any other word of logic. No Guru, no book, no scripture and no instruction can shake us afterwards because we have come to a final conclusion, and no other advice can have any effect upon it.


We may say that the second instruction is easier than the earlier one, where we have to totally become another thing. The second instruction does not expect that much of sacrifice, and only advises us to do some practice; still, we will find that even the practice is not easy. One session of practice cannot continue for a long time because monotony is resented by the mind. The mind requires diversity, variety, a picturesque presentation of things. A uniform conundrum is never appreciated by the consciousness. We cannot go on enjoying one picture always. We cannot even do japa for a long time because of the same reason, the same difficulty, because japa is a monotonous repetition of a single formula or a sound or a name, and the mind wants variety because it is fickleness in its essentiality. It is a chameleon in its nature, changing its colours and expressing various needs at different moments of time.


So abhyasa, if it is to be a continuous attention of the mind on one given ideal, will also be difficult. Even this is a hard thing for us. We cannot be the same persons every day. We are different persons on different occasions, and having the same place, same time, same method of practice is also a hard thing. Uniformity is not known to us because we never see uniformity anywhere. In all the world we see diversity and discreteness, and Bhagavan Sri Krishna knows this difficulty of the human being that even this, even abhyasa, is difficult.


Abhyasepy asamarthosi matkarmaparamo bhava, madartham api karmani kurvan siddhim avapsyasi (BG 12.10): 


“At least make yourself acquainted with whatever is pleasing to Me, whatever is in harmony with My nature, and all the actions that are in the satisfaction of God may be resorted to.” Commentators on this verse generally tell us that this is an instruction on that kind of karma which is related to God's satisfaction, and they equate it with love of God, or what may be called bhakti yoga.

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Continued

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