The Spiritual Import of the Mahabharata and the Bhagavadgita- 7.4 -Swami Krishnananda.

Swami Chinmayananda 

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Sunday, March 26, 2023. 06:00.

Chapter 7: The Art of Meditation.-4.

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For the purpose of the achievement of this great success in yoga, one has to carefully regulate one's daily activity. Various types of advice are given to us—we are to be socially free and free from family engagements, we should not have harassment of any kind outside, and emotionally we should be calm. We should not have tension in the nerves, not even in the muscles; all tension should cease. When we are seated in an atmosphere of distraction, we are automatically in a state of tension, and therefore we are asked to move away from human society and be in a secluded place for some time, at least, until we are masters of our own selves. Gradually, says the Bhagavadgita, the senses have to be brought back to their own source. Sanaih sanair uparamed buddhya dhriti-grihitaya, atma-samstham manah krtva na kincid api cintayet.

Gradually, slowly we have to educate the senses, the mind and the intellect, just as a father and a mother educate their children. The children should not be spanked, or threatened, or given unpleasant advice, even if they are going to school. So, a Montessori method or a psychological method, whatever we may call it, may have to be applied in educating the senses. We are like parents, and the senses are like children. Children are very unwieldy. We know very well that all children are naughty; they have their own ways, and it is very difficult to educate them unless, in the earlier stages, we are able to understand the emotions that work in their minds and their idiosyncrasies. So the senses, the mind and the intellect have to be gradually subdued very slowly, just as when we chew our food, slowly from the gross condition it becomes a little pulpy, and they from the pulpy condition it becomes liquid, and from the liquid condition it becomes very subtly adjustable to the alimentary canal of the whole body, then it is digested. If we suddenly gulp solid food into the stomach, it cannot be digested.

Likewise, we have to understand our weaknesses and also our strengths. One of the important things that a yogi or a meditator should do is to investigate into his own self. He has to become his own teacher; he is his own psychologist; he is even a doctor and physician. We have some strength of our own, it is true, but we also have weaknesses. The weaknesses are many a time known to us, and sometimes not known to us. But it is not difficult to know our weaknesses, because when we are absolutely alone we are free, to a large extent, to think in an impartial manner. We are not able to think in an impartial manner when we are in a public place or with a huge group of people, where our minds are diverted in a different direction altogether. When we are absolutely alone for a protracted period, we will be able to know our own subconscious, our desires which are vehemently troubling us—and we have to know how to deal with these desires.

Desires are the impulsions of consciousness in the direction of objects outside, and these impulses are like torrents of flood that bursts the bounds and damages villages and cities. Likewise can be the state of the meditator if he builds a dam across a river which is in flood. He has to have an outlet, a little gate through which the flooding water can escape and the dam may not burst. But if we block the water completely, under the impression that we can control it, there will be devastation and catastrophe. We are a dynamo and a magazine of power, like a river which has been dammed by the building up of a barrage. Hence, it is necessary to know where we have to exercise control, in what measure, to what extent, in what manner, etc. Like a physician treating a patient, we know that we cannot give the same medicine always. We check the patient's temperature every day, whether it is high or low or normal, and look for possible complications. Many methods are involved in treating diseases, so there is no stereotyped treatment along a beaten path in medical psychology.

So is yoga. It is not a beaten track that we are running on directly, as if it is an open highway, but it is a zigzag path where at every moment of time we should exercise caution. We have to know where our emotions stand, and where our intellect and mind are directing themselves; what are our achievements and what are our problems. Many a time this will be a hard affair, because it is easy to control others, but it is not so easy to control one's own self. Therefore a Guru is necessary. In the earlier stages, when we are just chanting a few mantras or rolling a few beads, it may look as if everything is fine—everything is milk and honey. But if we are sincere and honest and really go deep into our own selves, we will find wonder, to our surprise, and we will be unraveling mysteries of our own self of which we had no prior awareness. We will become a miracle to our own self. We will be surprised. “I am this person. I never knew that.” When we are confronted with our real personality that is placed before our eyes, we will not know how to face it. At that time we require a teacher, as in the case of psychoanalysis there is a well-versed guide who knows how to manipulate the mind of a person who is diseased mentally, and in which case the true personality has been projected out by various mechanisms of psychology. This is exactly psychoanalysis, which one does for one's own self, where all that is inside us is brought to the conscious level.

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To be continued

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