Bhagwad Gita - Post 68

THE YOGA OF MEDITATION

Summary of Sixth Discourse

Sri Krishna emphasises once again that the Yogi or Sannyasin is one who has renounced the fruits of actions, not the actions themselves. The performance of actions without an eye on their fruits brings about the purification of the mind. 

Only a purified mind, a mind free from desires, can engage itself in constant meditation on the Atman. Desire gives rise to imagination or Sankalpa, which drives the soul into the field of action. Therefore, none can realize permanent freedom and tranquility of mind without renouncing desires.

The lower self must be controlled by the higher Self. All the lower impulses of the body, mind and senses must be controlled by the power of the higher Self. Then the higher Self becomes one’s friend. 

He who has perfect control of the body, mind and senses and is united with God, sees God in all objects and beings. He sees inwardly that there is no difference between gold and stone, between friends and enemies, between the righteous and the unrighteous. He is perfectly harmonized.

Sri Krishna proceeds to give various practical hints as to the practice of meditation. Fearlessness, too, is an essential quality on the Godward path. It is faith in the sustaining protection and Grace of God.

The aspirant is advised to practice moderation in his daily habits — in eating, sleeping, recreation, etc. Extremes are to be avoided as they hinder the practice of meditation. 

Living a life of such moderation and gathering up all his forces and directing them towards meditation upon the Atman, the aspirant gradually transcends the senses and intellect and merges himself in the blissful Atman. 

He finds that the bliss of the Atman is incomparable, that there is no gain greater than the Self. Having thus attained perfect union with the Self, the Yogi no more descends into ignorance or delusion. He does not relish any more the pleasures of the senses.

Arjuna wishes to know the fate of the aspirant who fails to realize the Supreme in spite of his faith and sincerity. Krishna tells him that the accumulated power of his Yogic practices will assure him a better birth in the future, with more favorable conditions for Sadhana. 

The aspirant will then be compelled to carry on his Yogic practices with greater vigor and faith and will finally achieve God-realization.

Love.

Bhagwad Gita - Post 67

Verse 22

Ye hi samsparshajaa bhogaa

Duhkhayonaya eva te;

Aadyantavantah kaunteya

Na teshu ramate budhah.

The enjoyments that are born of contacts are generators of pain only, for they have a beginning and an end, O Arjuna! The wise do not rejoice in them.

Any joy that comes through the contact of one thing with another thing cannot be regarded as real joy. There are five types of contact with external things: contact through the eye, contact through the ear, contact through the nose, contact through the skin, and contact through the tongue. The joy that we get by this kind of contact is an unreliable joy. It is a deceptive experience that we are passing through, and we wrongly come  to the conclusion that we are experiencing happiness because this kind of contact appears to be pleasant in the beginning but breeds sorrow later on.

Even at the time of the enjoyment of a sense object we are under an illusion, and it is not a real joy that we are experiencing. Why do we feel happy when we come in contact with a mango or a cup of delicious kheer or any pleasant object? 

The reason is that when the mind is not in contact with any sense object, it is restless in itself, and it goes out in search of its own food in the form of objects. The mind that is not in contact with objects moves out in search of those objects which it finds pleasant to contact.

When the mind moves in that way, the consciousness of the Atman, or the Self, also moves together with the mind — just as electricity flows through a wire. Wherever the wire is, there is also electricity. 

Swami says,

“Although Joy naturally emanates from the core of your heart, you think you are deriving joy from the sense objects and the sensory organs. But this is not so. All joy comes from within you, and you have deluded yourself into thinking  that it comes from outside”.

Wherever the mind is, the Atman also goes, as it were, due to the attachment between the mind and consciousness that is caused by karma; and when the contact takes place with the consciousness, the mind feels that there is no further necessity to move outside in search of an object, because the object has already come into possession. 

In deep meditation, the mind ceases to move outside, and comes in contact with the Self inside. Immediately there is a joy. The joy, therefore, has come from within us. It has not come from the object, yet foolishly we think that the object is painted with bliss and we are the abodes of sorrow, which is not true. 

The reverse is the case. All those who run after the pleasures of sense will reap sorrow one day or the other, for anything that has a beginning will also have an end — ādyantavantaḥ. That which has a beginning will also have an end because our pleasures, which are contact born, begin with the contact itself. Therefore, they shall end when the contact ceases. 

There is bereavement on account of sensory contact. Our relationship with this world is fragile. 

The coming in contact of beings, the friendship that we have, the community that we establish humanly, are all false in the sense that they are conditioned by the winds of cosmic powers which breed contact; and when these winds blow in a different direction, we are separated, and then we say that somebody died.

When the mind is not attached to external objects of the senses, when one is deeply engaged  in the contemplation of Brahman, he finds undiluted  bliss in the SELF within!!

Love.

Bhagwad Gita - Post 66

Verse 17

Tadbuddhayas tadaatmaanas

Tannishthaas tatparaayanaah;

Gacchantyapunaraavrittim

Jnaana nirdhoota kalmashaah.

Their intellect absorbed in That, their self being That; established in That, with That as their supreme goal, they go whence there is no return, their sins dispelled by knowledge.

Lord Krishna is now stating the results of such worship. Those who are fixed and resolute in this spiritual knowledge, whose conviction is unwavering and steady, whose one aim is That, whose mind is centered in That, whose only refuge is That and That alone, whose sins have been dissolved by atma tattva and one achieves moksha or liberation and attains the Supreme Lord.

One can attain to this state of utter perfection free from the goodness or the badness of things, or the qualities of prakriti, by intense concentration on the transcendence which is God. 

God is untarnished because of there being no change, no mutation, no difference, no physicality and no externality in God. Meditation is to be conducted by the consciousness of the seeker on a universal transcendence of its own self, freed from the clutches of whatever the world may appear to be. 

Tadbuddhayaḥ: They are tadbuddhayaḥ who are centred in their intellect, and through their intellect are centred in That; their understanding is rooted in That. 

Tadātmānaḥ: Whose self is perfectly lodged in That. Our existence itself is Its existence, and Its existence is our existence; this state of affairs is called tadātmānaḥ. 

Tadātmānaḥ is the uniting of the self with the Self. That is, the individual self unites itself with the Universal Self. That state is called tadātmānaḥ. 

Those who are established in their understanding have also their self rooted in that Supreme Being. 

Tanniṣṭhāḥ: Whose main occupation is establishment in that Supreme Being. Our daily activity, our professions, our occupations, whatever we do, is a preparation for the establishment of ourselves in That.

The activities of people, the daily routine of anybody, should be so conducted and so refined and harmonized that it stands perfectly in order in respect of that Supreme Being, Who is perfect order. 

It does not mean that when we move to God, we move from wrong to right. It is a movement from the lesser right to the higher right.

It is also not moving from falsehood to truth. It is a movement from the lesser truth to the higher truth. 

Tanniṣṭhāḥ: That is establishment of oneself in that Supreme Being. Niṣṭhāḥ is establishment, rootedness. 

Tatparāyaṇāḥ is always eager to attain That. Day in and day out we brood over the possibility of this supreme attainment: “When shall I get it, when shall I get it, when shall I get it?” You can go on chanting this mantra: “When shall I get it, when shall I get it, when shall I get it, when shall I get it?” 

This little sentence is also a recipe for bringing the mind back to the point of concentration on That. Eagerness to receive that Being into ourselves, eagerness to unite ourselves with that Being is tivra vairagya, intense detachment towards the world of objects. It is tivra samvega, or intense ardour to unite oneself with God. 

This is a word used in Patanjali’s sutra—tīvrasaṁvegānām āsannaḥ (Y.S. 1.21): God is near to you to the extent you are eager to attain Him. 

Tatparāyaṇāḥ means one who is intensely eager to reach That, and his ardour is burning like a flame. 

Gacchantyapunarāvṛttiṁ: Such persons, having attained immortality, will not return to this world of mortality. 

Jñānanirdhūtakalmaṣāḥ: On account of their being purified through the highest knowledge, they do not get reborn into this world of bondage and limitations. Immortality is attained.

Love.