Stabilising the Mind in God: The Twelfth Chapter of the Bhagavadgita: (ENDS)7. Swami krishnananda.

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Wednesday 13, November 2024, 06:10.
Article
Scripture
Stabilising the Mind in God: 7.
The Twelfth Chapter of the Bhagavadgita: 
Swami Krishnananda
(Spoken on June 26, 1983)

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But there is another way of understanding this. You are not doing the action. One way is that you are doing it but the fruits go to God. The other way is perhaps a still higher perception. You are not even doing anything. Therefore, the question of fruits does not arise.

Now, do you consider this as an easy method of meditation? It may be, or it may not be. Four ways are mentioned here in these four verses. Which of them is easy, which of them is difficult, let each one think for oneself. You will find there is no choice, actually. These fourfold alternatives given to us do not actually mean a higher way or a lower way or a more difficult way or an easier way. All ways are equally compulsive in the sense that they require tremendous discipline of our consciousness in the direction of God. They are called jnana, yoga, bhakti or karma – Sarva karma Phala tyaga. There is an undercurrent of uniformity, a fundamental requirement of them I every case.

What is that requirement? That is the discipline of the sense organs in the way required for concentrating the mind on a single chosen ideal. Here the definition of the single chosen ideal may vary from person to person according to the level of the evolution of a person. Whatever be the gradational difference on account of the evolutionary distinctions in the concept of this chosen ideal, the uniform compulsive requirement is that you have to focus yourself wholly and solely on this ideal only, even if for the time being it is only a dot on the wall chosen for concentration as pratika. A dot on the wall, a flower or a candle flame is an object of concentration, your ideal chosen for the purpose at the present moment. Such a little silly thing you have chosen for meditation; it does not matter. But the discipline is terrible. What is that discipline? You cannot think anything else.

Here is the difficulty in meditation. The point is not what you are actually thinking in your mind when you think of God. The point is how you are conducting this process, with what honesty of purpose. Is there a double-dealing in this concentration in the sense that there is one thing inside and something else outside? Or is it a whole-souled pouring of your consciousness on this thing, even if it be a candle flame?

Thus, the yoga of meditation is principally the process of a psychological discipline by which the whole attention is concentrated on something, and it should be a non-externalised total whole. It may even be a pencil, a pinhead, a flower, a candle flame, a dot on the wall, a star, or whatever it is.

These are some of the details behind these various efforts of people to concentrate their mind or practice meditation. Some thoughts around these four verses of the Twelfth Chapter of the Bhagavadgita I have placed before you for your consideration.

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The Philosophy of the Karma Yoga of the Bhagavadgita: Swami Krishnananda

Continued

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