A Study of the Bhagavadgita : 53 - Swami Krishnananda.

=====================================================================================

Tuesday 15, October 2024, 06:40.
A Study of the Bhagavadgita:
Chapter 9: The Yoga of Meditation - 3.
Swami Krishnananda
Post-53.

=====================================================================================

Now the object is very far away from you; the world does not seem to have any kind of living connection with you. One person has no relation to another person; each person is standing outside like a planet in the sky, apparently not having anything to do with another. That I have no connection with you, that the subject has no relation to the object, that the world is totally outside, is apparent. In this physical world, there seems to be a total disconnection of the subject and the object. Things can be lost, there can be bereavement, and it is difficult to possess anything.

But as you rise higher and higher in the qualitative fields of the upper realms, the relationship between you and the world outside becomes more and more intelligible, and not material as it is now. Less and less material it will become, and the distance that you feel between yourself and the world outside will also get narrowed down until you reach the highest realm where the object merges into the Self, the subject enters into the object, and the divinity engulfs both the subjective side and the objective side so that there is Universal Experience. This is what the Bhagavadgita would like you to understand when it says that the higher Self should raise the lower self: 

uddhared atmanatmanam.

But never be despondent and melancholy in your mood. Do not say, “This is not for me! I am an involved.” Everybody is involved in something, but everybody also has a prospect in the future. Everybody has some kind of understanding of what is happening and how to extricate oneself from the entanglement, so-called, of this social and material world. Nātmānam avasādayet: Never condemn the Self as involved, as a sinner, as bad. There is a divinity even in the lowest of selves, but it is buried, and it thinks in terms of senses, bodily associations and social conditions.

Atmaiva hy atmano bandhur atmaiva ripur atmanam. 

Who is your friend in this world? The higher Self is your friend, not somebody sitting outside you. That outside person can also become a friend only insofar as that person who is apparently outside can be associated livingly, vitally, with the adhidaiva consciousness. Otherwise, that outside person is an outside person only. You cannot have any real friendship with anybody in the world because of the independence that each one is maintaining. If the independence is slowly mellowed down by its association with the higher divinity with which it is connected as the adhidaiva, the friendship can be forged.

The friend of the Self is the self, and also it is the enemy of the self. The higher Self is your friend, to the extent your lower self is surrendering itself to the higher Self's demands. The higher Self is an enemy – God Himself is the opponent, and He will see everything is set at naught with all your effort – if this highest Self, which is God Almighty, is not put in the proper context of our relation with Him. God-consciousness, divinity-consciousness, adhidaiva-consciousness, higher Self-consciousness mean one and the same thing, so you may take it in any sense you like.

Furthermore, the higher Self is something that is immediately above us, which can be experienced as becoming the controller of the lower self only if we are able to live according to the dictates and the requirements of the higher Self. What are the requirements of the higher Self? The higher Self is less in need of the senses to acquire any kind of satisfaction. 

The higher Self is less in need of association with physical pleasures and social contact. The more you feel satisfied with your own self and feel happy when you are alone in your room, you may be said to be moving in the direction of the true higher Self. But if when you are alone you feel miserable and immediately want to get out and meet a friend in the marketplace or speak to anybody on the way, you are a distracted person.

*****

Continued

=========================================================================================