The Spiritual Import of the Mahabharata and the Bhagavadgita- 6.1 -Swami Krishnananda.

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Tuesday, March 08, 2022. 06:00. 

Chapter 6: Universal Action -1.

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In a single verse which occurs in the fifth chapter of the Bhagavadgita, the gradual stages of the ascent of human perspective are given to us. 

"Yoga-yukto visuddhatma vijitatma jitendriyah, sarvabhuttmabhutatma kurvann api na lipyate. Jitendriyah": 

‘One who has restrained the senses.' 

This is the definition of a person who has risen above the ordinary prosaic level of attachment to objects. The connection of the senses with objects is so common and apparent that we may almost be said to be living in object-consciousness, and living an object life, a fact that would be obvious. When we analyse our own minds and discover what we are contemplating, all our contemplations are of objects—of this and that and what not. The intention behind this thought of objects is a deluded notion of the senses, that they become enhanced in their dimension by the increase of pleasurable experiences.

The very same chapter in the Gita gives us an insight into the futility of the search for pleasure in objects. 

"Ye hi samsparsaja bhoga duhkha-yonaya eva te, ady-antavantah kaunteya na tesu ramate budhah." 

There is a beginning and an end for the pleasures of sense. There is anxiety permeating this search for pleasure in objects; anxiety which is equivalent to sorrow, which is present continuously from the beginning to the end in one's search for pleasure through objects. There is anxiety when the objects are not possessed. Because they are not possessed, there is an anxiety as to when they will be possessed. When they are actually possessed, then there is anxiety as to how long they will be in possession. One would not want to be deprived of this contact, and when there is bereavement of oneself from the objects, one need not explain the grief. Therefore there is grief and sorrow in the beginning, in the middle and in the end. There is no pleasure in the objects, which is practically demonstrated by our daily lives. Wise people do not indulge themselves in this search for object experience. 

Na tesu ramate budhah: It is the blind senses that, like moths rushing to fire, go headlong into external contact; a contact which they can never establish in this life, for reasons beyond their expectation and knowledge. Hence, it is necessary to control the senses.

Vijitatma jitendriyah: One who has restrained the senses is one who has taken one step towards the goal, risen at least one step above the earth level of object experience, object indulgence and object longing. All spiritual life is a step towards subjectivity of experience, from the externality or objectivity in which we are immersed. Yoga is only this much—a return to subjectivity from objectivity, a subjectivity which will encompass, in the end, all that we regard as the objects of sense. Towards this end the Bhagavadgita admonishes us that we have to learn the art of restraining the senses so that we do not live an object life, and we must learn at least the first lesson, the kindergarten lesson, of returning to the subjectivity of experience which is the conditioning factor of all experiences. Jitendriyah, a control over the senses, has to be exercised to the best of one's possibility. Such a person is called vijitatma, one who has attained self-control.

There is a very marked distinction between these two words used in verse—vijitatma and jitendriyah. On one hand we are told that we have to be controllers of the senses, and then the next step is the control of self—vijitatma. The distinction is very obvious again. The senses are variegated—at least five can be enumerated—but the self is one. Here the ‘self' referred to is the mind or the psychic apparatus. One who has controlled the senses has to turn back upon the mind and control the mind in its totality, and then he becomes vijitatma. The mind has to be controlled, which is of course more important than a tentative restraint exercised over the independent senses, because the mind is the dynamo which pumps energy into the senses. It is the powerhouse from which proceeds strength to the various centres of cognition. So when there is withdrawal of the energy flowing through the senses by means of sense control, there is an increase in the volume, the content of the energy of the mind.

To be continued .....

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