Bhagwad Gita - Post 75

Verse 10

Yogee yunjeeta satatam

Aatmaanam rahasi sthitah;

Ekaakee yatachittaatmaa

Niraasheeraparigrahah.

Let the Yogi try constantly to keep the mind steady,  remaining in solitude, alone, with the mind and the body controlled, and free from hope and greed.

  

A yogi is a person who is attempting to practice yoga, and a yogi is one who is established in yoga. 

Aloneness being our friend — living in a secluded place and not in a place of disturbance or noise — we try to collect ourselves into ourselves. 

We collect our energies, muster the forces of the mind and the senses, and try to be more and more in ourselves instead of being more and more in the objects of sense. This is the meaning of this half-verse: yogī yuñjīta satatam ātmānaṁ rahasi sthitaḥ. 

Ekāki: We should sit alone in a secluded place for meditation, unbefriended, unknown. 

The analogy of milk and water can help elucidate this point. If milk is poured into water, it cannot retain its undiluted identity, for water naturally mixes with it. 

However, if the milk is kept separate from water and converted into yogurt, and then the yogurt is churned to extract butter, the butter becomes immiscible.

Our mind is like the milk and the world is like water. In contact with the world, the mind gets affected by it and becomes worldly. 

However, an environment of seclusion, which offers minimal contact with the objects of the senses, becomes conducive for elevating the mind and focusing it upon God. 

Once sufficient attachment for God has been achieved, one can challenge the world, “I will live amidst all the dualities of Maya but remain untouched by them.”

Yatacittātmā: Bringing about a union of the mind and the intellect and the Self, so that there is no disparity among the thoughts of the mind or the understandings of the intellect or the yearnings of the soul. 

They must be in a state of balance. Such a state of attaining balance is yatacittātmā. Ekākī yatacittātmā: Being alone to oneself and united in mind, intellect and spirit. 

Nirāśīr aparigrahaḥ: Expecting nothing from the world outside, having no desires for anything in the world is nirāśīḥ; and aparigrahaḥ means expecting no gifts from anybody. 

When we have abandoned things, we may not expect gifts to come from different sources — and actually gifts will come, as that is the law of action and reaction. 

The more we renounce things; the more are things abundantly poured on us. 

The more we try to renounce the world, the more it will try to pursue us and become our friend and be with us. 

Therefore, it is said that when we are desire less, we should not expect any recompense or remuneration for our desire less-ness. 

Expecting to obtain something as a result of being desire less is another kind of desire and, therefore, the desire to receive something because of our desire less-ness has also to be given up. 

Love.

Bhagwad Gita - Post 74

Verse 5

Uddhared aatmanaatmaanam

Na atmaanam avasaadayet;

Atmaiva hyaatmano bandhur

Aatmaiva ripur aatmanah.

Let a man lift himself by his own Self alone; let him not lower himself, for this Self alone is the friend of oneself and this self alone is the enemy of one’s Self.

Let a Man lift himself by his own Self Alone.

There was a person called Madhusudhana Saraswati, and a person called Vidyaranya. They did twenty-four purascharanas of Gayatri, and no Divinity appeared before them. They were great Masters, more powerful in their minds than any one of us. They were wonderstruck that after so much tapasya they had no experience at all.

A voice said, “You shall not have a vision of Me in this life.” 

The person who was called Vidyaranya, who wrote the Panchadasi and other works, was known as Madhava in his pre-Sannyasa days. He was a very learned person. His brother, called Sayana, wrote a commentary on all the four Vedas. They must have been geniuses. We cannot imagine such great wisdom. 

Madhava did Gayatri purascharana for attaining siddhi, and a voice said, “You shall not have a vision of me in this life.” 

He got disgusted that after having done so much, nothing had come. He took Sannyasa. 

When he took Sannyasa, immediately the Divinity appeared and asked, “Why are you doing so much purascharana? What do you want from me?” 

To that Madhava said, “You said that You will not appear before me in this birth.”

“But this is a second birth,” the voice said. “You have taken another birth. Therefore, I came.”

“I want nothing now,” said Vidyaranya. “I was a poor man. As the householder Madhava, I would have certainly asked for wealth and riches, and anything that would make me prosperous. 

But I have taken to renunciation, the path of Sannyasa. Now I cannot ask for anything. So, I am very sorry, great Divinity. You have come too late, and now I cannot ask anything from You.”

But the Divinity said, “I cannot go without giving something. When I appear, I must give something before going.”

“But I cannot ask for anything.”

“You must ask for something.”

“But I want nothing.” 

Then the Divinity said, “Because you want nothing, you shall have everything,” and it vanished. And Vidyaranya became omniscient. 

The above story illustrates how Madhava listed himself to become Sage Vidyaranya, to be so complete in himself that he seeks nothing even when Divine voice pursues with him to seek something.

Let him not  lower himself.

Always be positive in your nature: “I am strong. I am healthy. I can walk three miles without any fatigue, and I can digest any food that is given in the kitchen. I have no problem.”

Never become depressed. “It is a waste! So much japa has been done. What is the good of it? God may be there or may not be. I don’t understand anything. The scriptures may be saying a hundred things. I don’t know which path to pursue. This Guru has been telling me something, but finally He has brought nothing. I will go to another Guru, and I will stay in some other place.”

These kinds of ideas should not arise in the mind. You should feel, “I have taken to this path, and I am sure that I will get it.” If there is no visible progress, it is due to some rajasic karma operating in us. It does not mean that no progress has been made. So, we should never condemn yourself. 

Self alone is  friend / enemy of oneself.

Swami Chinmayananda writes,

“The second line of the stanza contains a glorious idea shaped into a beauty of expression which almost immortalizes Vyasa. We are considered both as our own friend and our own enemy. Any intelligent man observing and analyzing life will vouchsafe for the truth of the statement, but here, more is meant philosophically, than meets the eye. Generally, we do not fully understand the import when we say, “THE SELF IS THE FRIEND OF THE SELF.”

The lower in us can ever raise itself to the attunement of the Higher, but the Higher can influence only when the lower is available for Its influence. To the extent the lesser in us surrenders itself to the influence of the Higher, to that extent, It can serve the lower as a great friend. But if the lower refuses to come under the influence of the Divine in us, the Divine Presence is accused as an enemy of ourselves, in as much as the dynamism of life provides us Its energy both for our “life of higher aspirations” and the “life of low temptations.”

Love.

Bhagwad Gita - Post 73

Verse 3 

Aarurukshormuneryogam

Karma kaaranamuchyate;

Yogaaroodhasya tasyaiva

Shamah kaaranamuchyate.

For a sage who wishes to attain to Yoga, action is said to be the means; for the same sage who has attained to Yoga, inaction (quiescence) is said to be the means.

To one who is "DESIRING TO SCALE OVER THE PRACTICE OF MENTAL CONCENTRATION AND SELF-IMPROVEMENT, WORK IS SAID TO BE THE MEANS". By working in the world with neither the egocentric concept of agency nor the ego-centric desires for the fruits of those actions, we are causing vasanas to play out without creating any new precipitate of fresh impressions.

The metaphor used here is borrowed from horse-riding, and it is very powerful in its suggestions. When a wild horse is being broken in, for some time, it will ride the rider before the rider can ride it. If one desires to bring a steed under perfect control, there is a period when, with one leg on the stirrup, the individual has to hang on to the saddle and with the other leg on the ground, must learn to kick himself off from the ground and spring up and throw his legs over the back of the animal, until he sits, with the steed completely between his own legs. Having mounted, it is easy to control the animal, but till then, the rider, in his attempt to mount the horse, must pass through a stage  where he is neither totally on the horse nor on the ground.

In the beginning, we are merely workers in the world; desire-prompted and ego-driven, we sweat and toil, weep and sob. When an individual gets tired of such activities, he comes to desire to mount the steed of the mind. Such an individual, desiring to bring the mind under his control and rise over it (Arurukshah) takes upon himself the same work as before, but without the ego and ego-centric desires.

God, in the form of Bhagwan Sri Krishna teaching the Bhagwad Gita, does not propagate non-action, as we have already seen. Therefore, we cannot interpret the word ‘śama’  in this verse as absence of activity  because throughout the Gita the point is hammered into our ears again and again that inaction does not mean yoga, and inaction does not mean Sannyasa. Hence, the state of total, perfect establishment in yoga should not necessarily be interpreted as a state of total negativity, or absence of action. 

In the case of a person who is totally established, action is not supposed to be the means. Śama, or tranquility, is the means. ‘Tranquility’ is a very intriguing word and various commentaries have looked upon it from various perspectives. 

But keeping in view the total vision of the intention of the Bhagwad Gita, we should consider the life of Bhagwan Sri Krishna as the best commentary of the Bhagwad Gita. There is no commentary on the Gita greater than the life of Bhagwan Sri Krishna himself. 

Sri Krishna was a total inclusive personality. Was Sri Krishna a householder? Was He a Sannyasin? Was He a warrior? Was He a saint? Was He a Brahmin or a Kshatriya? What kind of person was Bhagwan Sri Krishna? We will not be able to have a straight answer to this because It is an incarnation of the Absolute that came in the form of Sri Krishna. 

The Absolute does not behave like a householder, and It does not behave like a Sannyasin. It does not behave like a person who keeps quiet. It may appear to behave like a warrior, but It does not mean that It is really behaving like a warrior. It is calm and quiet—utter tranquility. 

The power that Sri Krishna wielded is commensurate with the knowledge that He had. Sri Krishna was a mastermind who had the power to contact even Brahma, Vishnu and Siva. He could immediately contact these great gods, and he could work on earth as a charioteer in the battlefield, driving Arjuna’s chariot with five horses into the battle. 

He could speak the highest philosophy as in the Bhagwad Gita, and He could be in His palace in Dvaraka like an emperor. He could be like a child, a baby in the lap of Yasoda. He could be a terror to wicked people like Kamsa. 

Thus, Sri Krishna was not an inactive person; nor can we say He was an active person restlessly moving about here and there, trying to uplift the world.

Neither was He that type of person, nor was He the type who kept quiet without doing any service. And no Sannyasin could equal Him. Millions of Sannyasins could not stand before Him, and yet He was a General and a Field Marshal. What a contradiction: a Sannyasin behaving like a Field Marshal before whom no warrior could stand! No Sannyasin could stand before Him, no yogi could stand before Him, and even the Gods could not stand before Him.

This is the kind of personality that He wants us to become, and that state is the ultimate tranquility that we achieve in the condition of establishment in yoga: the divine tranquility of God Himself, who is not a restless individual. 

Yogārūḍhatva is a state of utter tranquility in the divine sense, not in the sense of absence of activity, because we cannot say that God is free from activity.  But His being busy is totally different from our being busy—because we are busy physically, socially and psychologically, but Lord Krishna is the Absolute itself working. 

We cannot know how the Absolute acts because its action is within itself and, therefore, it may look like non-action. An action that is taking place within itself is no longer an action, and yet it is a tremendous action, a most heightened form of action. 

But because it is the highest form of action, it looks like no action. Śama, which is the tranquility that is spoken of here as the characteristic of a perfect yogi, is to be understood in this sense. 

Love.