Stabilising the Mind in God: The Twelfth Chapter of the Bhagavadgita: 4. Swami Krishnananda.

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Friday 18, October 2024, 06:20.
Article
Scripture
Stabilising the Mind in God: 4.
The Twelfth Chapter of the Bhagavadgita: 
Swami Krishnananda
(Spoken on June 26, 1983)

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Be seated in a single posture, whatever be your comfortable posture. Sit, if possible, at the same time. If not, if you are a busy person, sit at any other time also when it is convenient, but for a uniform duration. If it is half an hour, let it be half an hour every day. If it is more, whatever the time be, stick to that duration. And tell the mind that now you are going to unite yourself, commune yourself with what is finally meaningful in this world. All meaning and all value, whatever is of any worth and significance in this world, is summed up and concentrated in this thing that you are now going to meditate upon: “Thus, my dear mind, do not hop like a grasshopper here and there because of recognition of meaning, value, or significance in things in the world. I am telling you that all these are present here. That is the focus point, the concentrated centre of all the values that you can imagine as worthwhile in this world. It is the seabed of the ocean and of all the rivers of value that you can think of in the world. Therefore, stupid mind, go not hither and thither. If you think there are values in the world, okay, granted, there are also values in the world. But they are originally present in that with which you are now trying to commune yourself. Even these values and meanings and significances in life are reflections of that original value. Stupid mind, these beauties and joys, glamours and perfections of life in the world which attract you so much are shadows cast by the original, and if the shadows can pull you to such an extent, with such force, what is the power of the original if you contact it? If the shadow is so beautiful, attractive and tasty a dish to the senses, what will be the taste of that original which casts this dark shadow of the world?”

Tell this to the mind every day. Go on harping this tune again and again: “You are going to commune yourself with that in which you will find the whole world concentrated. The whole world is concentrated there.” When you go on telling this again and again, you are doing abhyasa. This is practice. Do this every day, and think nothing else. This is called ananya chintana, brahma abhyasa. Practise the presence of God in a manner convenient to you according to your own predilection and in accordance with the choice you have made of your notion of God the Almighty.

“Even this is difficult,” says the mind. So the great teacher Sri Krishna says, abhyāsepy asamarthosi matkarmaparamo bhava, madartham api karmāṇi kurvan siddhim avāpsyasi: “If this also is not possible, take to other ways which are concerned with Me.” Interpreters of the Bhagavadgita vary in their opinion of the meaning of these words matkarma, etc. Madhusudana Saraswati, one of the greatest exponents of the Bhagavadgita, is of the opinion that here matkarma should be understood as 'devotion to God'. The first way he considers as a prescription of jnana yoga, and the second way as the yoga of the will, identified sometimes with the raja yoga of Patanjali. The third way, says Madhusudana in his commentary, is an indication towards devotion.

(Bhagavata 7.5.23):

 According to this commentator on the Bhagavadgita, Madhusudana Saraswati, matkarma is: 

"sravanam kirtanam vishoh smaranam pada-sevanam 

arcanam vandanam dasyam sakhyam atma-nivedanam." 

Sravanam: Hearing the glories of God. 

Wherever satsanga is held, go and listen to these upadeshas of Mahatmas, listen to the Bhagavata Katha, and listen to the glories of God wherever they are sung, in whatever way. 

And kīrtanam, is singing names by means of musical accompaniments or even otherwise. 

Smaranam is something like japa, going on reciting His mantra, His formula, His name inwardly, rotating His name in the mind again and again as remembrance of God. 

Pada-sevanam arcanam are some special ways of adoration of God which also have been understood in different ways. Some feel that pada-sevana is attending to the feet of God Himself. 

Who can touch the feet of God? People say only Mahalakshmi can serve the feet of Narayana, Durga Bhagavati Ma can serve Lord Siva, etc. Mankind cannot practise this method. This is one way of understanding this method of worship, pada-sevana. But others are of the opinion as all the heads in the universe are the heads of the Mahapurusha only, and all the feet are his only. 

Sahasrapat (P.S. 1) says the Purusha Sukta: 

Service of humanity also is service of God. Service of the feet of all humanity. That means to say, the dedication of yourself for the welfare of all is also understood as equivalent to pada-sevana, though in a highly orthodox, mystical sense people think it is adoration of Narayana in Vaikuntha only.

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Continued

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