Verse 32
Ᾱtmaupamyena
sarvatra samaṁ
Paśyati yo’rjuna,
Sukhaṁ vā yadi vā duḥkhaṁ
Sa yogī paramo mataḥ:
“Hey Arjuna!
He who beholds all things as he beholds himself…”
We love all things as we love ourselves. Even
the trees and the stones will respond to our call. There are no non-living or
dead elements in this world. The various levels of creation such as matter,
vegetable, plant, animal, human, etc., are only various stages of the
expression of consciousness, but no level is totally without consciousness.
It is present even in a stone. If that were
not the case, there would be no possibility of evolution. In as much as we are
able to locate our Self as the deepest reality of all things, we will be able
to locate the same reality even in a stone.
Everything in the world will shine like the
light of the sun, and sparks of flame, as it were, will be seen jetting forth
from every atom in the cosmos. If we see solar light emerging from every atom
and every electron, only then does it become possible for us to consider
outside things as beloved, as valuable as our own self.
Sukhaṁ vā yadi vā duḥkhaṁ
Sa yogī paramo mataḥ:
“Whether he is in a happy state or in an unhappy state, that great yogi
is lodged in Me.”
This is a great promise, as it were, that the
Lord has bequeathed to us in these four verses which tell us how great God is,
how compassionate God can be, how near God is to us, and how easy it is to
contact Him. All these aspects of our relationship with God are brought out in
these four verses, which we should recite. They can be recited in any language.
A doubt arises in the mind. “Well, all this
is very well. I practice yoga, and I am struggling to achieve perfection in
this life itself. But suppose, in spite of my ardent struggle and striving, I
do not attain the goal before the discarding of this body?
Then all the effort in the direction of
God-realization by way of yoga will also be destroyed. Years of practice will
become futile.
To this, a great consoling reply comes from
the great Lord. There is no perishing of effort. The body may be discarded, but
the force that is generated by our concentration, by our practice of yoga, will
come with us because in death the body perishes but the mind / the effect of
our actions/ sadhana, does not perish.
Since all effort in yoga is a mental effort,
a conscious operation, our yoga practice will not be futile or a waste because
the mind will take with it all its assets in the form of the great work that it
has done in meditation. The power of meditation which is impregnated into the
very structure of the mind will be carried with it even if we take another birth.
So, we should not be afraid that if we die in the midst of the practice of yoga
there will be a loss of effort. No such thing will take place.
Because of the power of our practice, we may
be born in a highly conducive atmosphere in which there is no kind of
disturbance to us. Now we have a lot of disturbances—political disturbance,
social disturbance, personal disturbance, communal disturbance, and all kinds
of things. Due to difficulties of this kind, we cannot easily practice yoga in
this world. No such difficulty will be there afterwards.
All factors will be conducive to our
practice. We will be born into such a noble family, into a royal family, as it
were, due to the great practice that we have carried on in this present life.
Or we may even become the son or daughter of a great yogi such as Vasishtha or
Vyasa. Then what else would we require? Such blessedness is difficult to
attain, but it is possible to attain it.
Love.
