Stabilising the Mind in God: The Twelfth Chapter of the Bhagavadgita: 2. Swami Krishnananda

The material objects that one offers are of no value to the Lord of the Universe, but it is the purity and love that 'prompt' the offering, that are accepted by the Deity.

- Swami Chinmayananda

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Saturday 05, September 2024, 06:20.
Article
Scripture
Stabilising the Mind in God: 2.
The Twelfth Chapter of the Bhagavadgita: 
Swami Krishnananda
(Spoken on June 26, 1983)

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Swami Chinmayananda: 

Embrace Navratri with devotion and surrender to the Divine Mother. Through love, chanting, and meditation on Her greatness, purify the mind and awaken to the eternal bliss of the Self. Let Her grace be on all of us!

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The first slokam, therefore, pitching itself on the ultimate nature of God, which is supreme absoluteness and nonrelative omnipresence, requires us to practise what the Yoga Vasishtha calls brahma abhyasa. The Yoga Vasishtha has a particular name for this practice. It is called brahma abhyasa, and sometimes it is also called atma abhyasa. This verse that comes in the Yoga Vasishtha is repeated verbatim in the Panchadasi by Sage Vidyaranya. What is brahma abhyasa? The practice of the presence of God is called brahma abhyasa.  brooding over only that – that, and nothing else. Day in and day out, as long as you are conscious and awake, think only that, and nothing else.

If you meet anybody, speak only on this topic, and speak nothing else. Do not speak on any other topic except this.  Awaken yourselves mutually on this topic by discourse and conversation. Ask someone, “Oh, how do you do it, my dear friend?” And he will ask you, “How do you do it?” So you will mutually benefit by classroom consultation, as it were. 

Eta deka paratvaṁ ca: You are convinced that you have no other way. This is the only way, and every other way has failed. You have tried every method of saving yourself. Every other method has left you, and no hope is there from anything in this world. The whole world is cracking under your foot and there is nothing to support you. Your only saviour is this. This is my only support, this is my sustenance, this is my friend, this is my delight, this is my very breath.  This is called brahma abhyasa. Day in and day out chat, talk, discourse, think, meditate, cry aloud: only this, only this, and nothing but this. This is a state of what is called God-intoxication, the madness of being possessed by God. Such a thing is perhaps indicated in this original admonition to us: Root your mind only in God and think nothing else.

Hard is this prescription. So Bhagavan Sri Krishna, who is the spokesman of eternity speaking to all mankind, knows your difficulty. How is this puny, finite, located mind of man to contemplate the all-pervading Absolute, though this is the only solution and there is nothing else? Is this possible for me?

Before listening to what Arjuna has to say in this regard, the good teacher that Sri Krishna was says, “If you cannot do this, I shall tell you another, easier method.” How could we think of omnipresence? We will melt away into liquid in a moment if we start thinking in this manner. We will not be there at all. We will expire like burnt camphor. Who will tolerate this predicament? We cannot imagine this possibility. “All right, leave it. If you cannot do this, I shall suggest to you another way.”

Face the threats of life heroically, silently, with quiet determination and stronger faith in the Guiding Hand of the Lord.

- Swami Chinmayananda

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 If you cannot practise the stabilising of your mind in the manner mentioned, what shall you do?  Habituate yourself to a continuous practice of concentrating on something, which method is called ekatattva abhyasa in the language of the Yoga Sutra of Patanjali. The vacillation of the mind can be subdued. Though practically the instruction amounts to the same thing that was said earlier, there is this little distinction. It appears that in the earlier teaching we were called upon to perform the complete and utter sacrifice of our very existence in the ultimacy of God's universality. Well, that is all right. That is good enough. Now the second, a slightly lower step, though equally potent, is comparably easier in the sense that you are not asked to conceive of the supremacy or the universality of God at one stroke in the beginning. You choose any concept. As you like, so you choose.

Continued

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