Verse 26
सर्वदा स्थापनं बुद्धेः शुद्धे ब्रह्मणि सर्वदा ।
तत्समाधानमित्युक्तं न तु चित्तस्य लालनम् ॥ २६ ॥
sarvadā sthāpanaṃ buddheḥ śuddhe brahmaṇi sarvadā |
tatsamādhānamityuktaṃ na tu cittasya lālanam || 26 ||
(Samadhana (tranquillity) is that
condition when the mind is constantly engaged in the total contemplation
of the supreme Reality and it is not gained through any amount of
intellectual oscillations.)
Samadhana is concentration of mind. Be
attentive always on that which you are seeking.
Your eye is always on that, like the
consciousness of a target of a bowman who strikes it with an arrow.
Concentration is the consciousness inside, fixing itself with its attention on
that which it wants.
When you want a thing, why should you
not be concentrating on it?
People say, “I want a thing, but my
mind cannot go there”. The reason is that you are not really wanting
it.
If you really want the thing, the mind
must go there; and when the mind is not going there, you are not really wanting
it. Thus knowing, concentrate your mind.
A commentator while writing on Sri
Sankaracharya's 'Atma-Anatma-Viveka' writes: 'Whenever the ears are engaged in
sravana - hearing, and the mind wanders to any worldly object or desire, and
finding it worthless, returns to the performance of the three exercises
(Sravana, Mañana and Nidhidhyasana) - such returning is called Samadhana'.
The mind is free from anxiety amid
pains. There is indifference amid pleasures. There is stability of mind or
mental poise. The aspirant or practitioner lives without attachment.
He neither likes nor dislikes, he has a
great deal of strength of mind and inner peace, he has unruffled supreme peace
of mind.
Some aspirants have peace of mind when
they live in seclusion, when there are no distracting elements or factors. They
complain of great tossing of mind - vikshepa - when they come to a city, when
they mix with people. They are completely upset. They cannot do any meditation
in a crowded place.
This is a weakness. This is not
achievement in Samadhana. There is no balance of mind or equanimity in these
persons.
Only when a student can keep his
balance of mind, even in a battlefield when there is a shower of bullets all
around, as he does in a solitary cave in the Himalayas, can he be really said
to be fully established in Samadhana.
'Perform all actions, O Dhananjaya,
dwelling in union with the Divine, renouncing attachments, and balanced
evenly in success and failure.'
This is Samadhana.
Again you will find in the Gita:
'The disciplined Self, moving among the
sense objects with senses freed from attraction and repulsion, Mastered by the
Self, goeth to peace.'
This is also Samadhana.
Samadhana, as it is understood today,
is an indifferent attitude towards both good and bad, especially towards
insults and failures, threats and despairs. It is believed that samadhana
is the mental attitude of an individual who has completely hardened himself
and has grown to be insensible to the lashes of failures and the arrows of
insult.
Love.
