The Spiritual Import of the Mahabharata and the Bhagavadgita- 8.1 -Swami Krishnananda.

=========================================================================

Monday,  21 May, 2023. 05:30.

Chapter 8: In Harmony with the Whole Universe - 1.

=========================================================================

Chinmaya Mission :

By exercising once a week, you cannot improve your body. If you eat once a week, it is not nourishment enough. It must be regularly done, every day, at a specific time. Never give it up even for a day, whether you are traveling or are sick. When concentration is developed, all sādhanā is almost at an end. You must continue your practice until you achieve the realization of the flameless Light of Consciousness.

========================================================================

Chapter 7: The Art of Meditation.-6.

Recap :

Gradual, honest desire to move away from distractive atmospheres and to concentrate the mind on the higher Being is mumukshutva, and is itself a potent aid. And finally, surrender of self to God. The surrender of the lower self to the higher Self is again, to reiterate, done by stages, by gradual isolation in the beginning—socially, physically, and finally even psychologically. We must find ourselves in a psychological sequestration, not merely physical isolation. We find ourselves alone even mentally, and then the mind comes down on an emotional level and a perceptional level—then it is that we can be said to be in state of proper concentration. Atma-samstham manah krtva na kincid api cintayet: After the mind has established itself in its own root, which is the Atman, there is no necessity to think anything. All thought is external and is lodged in objects outside, but when it has been weaned from objects and centred in the inner selfhood of non-objectivity, no thought is permitted, na kincidapi cintayet, and an unknown joy bursts from within like the sun shining in the midst of dark clouds when the mind returns to its own source. All happiness, whatever be its nature, is only a modicum of the tendency of the mind to return to the Self within. The more we go inside, the more are we happy, so that when we are perfectly established in our Self, we are in the state of highest happiness. The seer establishes himself in himself when consciousness rests in its own Self; chit becomes sat and when cit becomes sat, it becomes ananda, and one exists in a state of the highest divinity.

Chapter 8: In Harmony with the Whole Universe - 1.

The Bhagavadgita is in eighteen chapters, and the first six chapters devote themselves to an exposition of the various methods of the integration of personality, the bringing together of the various parts of oneself into a concentration, and the transforming of oneself into a complete being rather than a dissipated individuality. We are not whole beings even now. We are psychological wrecks, distracted to the core, ruined in nerves and muscles and drooping in our psychic spirit. We are like a river that is rushing in various directions in the form of rivulets and streams, dashing against various objects and things of the world and thus losing ourselves in the dreary desert or the wilderness of this complicated existence called human life. None of us can be regarded as a whole personality in the true sense of the term, and that is why we are restless and never find peace of mind even for a few minutes continuously. We are agitated every moment of time, and even a wisp of wind can disturb our peace.

All this has been taken into consideration by the great Teacher of the Bhagavadgita. The great Master who propounds this gospel entirely devotes His attention in the first six chapters of the teachings to the techniques of individual integration. From the first chapter until we reach the sixth, which forms one-third of the whole work, we have a graduated teaching, imparted in a systematic manner, for the purpose of bringing into the conscious level the submerged layers of our personality—the emotions, the sentiments, the personal and racial prejudices, whatever it is. There are various kinds of complexes, and adepts in psychology tell us there are personal complexes which get accentuated by cultural complexes, the collective unconscious—whatever the name we give to it. All these are our problem; they are our sorrows, and these sorrows, when they are considered as an ocean inundating us from all sides, are called by the name of samsara.

Now Bhagavan Sri Krishna, the great Teacher of this gospel, taking Arjuna as a specimen of human individuality, gives an eternal gospel for all mankind, for all times, applicable to all conditions of life. In an outline of these teachings from the first chapter onwards until the sixth, we have probed into this a little. The sixth chapter, which sums up this teaching of concentration of the individual for a higher purpose by means of dhyana or meditation, concludes by saying that the aim of this concentrated, integrated person is the visualisation of the great reality in all things. Sarva-bhuta-stham atmanam sarva-bhutani catmani, iksate yoga-yukta-atma sarvatra sama-darsanah. Everything is seen everywhere—that is the great vision towards which we are moving. With this solacing as well as cautious admonition towards the end of the sixth chapter, we are lifted further up into a wider vision of things and introduced to a new vista of life in its depths, not visible outwardly on the surface.

*****

To be continued

=========================================================================