Chapter VI (VERSE 36) & CHAPTER XII (VERSE 3, 4)
Dhyana Yoga -The Yoga of Meditation
CHAPTER VI
Verse 36
असंयतात्मना योगो दुष्प्राप इति मे मतिः ।
वश्यात्मना तु यतता शक्योऽवाप्तुमुपायतः ॥ ६-३६॥
YOGA, I think is hard to be attained by one of uncontrolled self; but the self-controlled, striving, can obtain it by (proper) means.
In the previous stanza extreme emphasis was placed on practice. But what constitutes the spiritual practice (Abhyasa) was not indicated, even indirectly, in that verse. A scientific book that leaves missing links, either in its arguments, or in its logic, is no text-book at all. In the stanza under review, Krishna is giving a direct clue to what He means by the term ‘practice’ (Abhyasa).
He declares that the uncontrolled, and therefore, the totally dissipated person, cannot bring into the field of religion the necessary amount of dynamic vigour and vitality to sustain him till he reaches the peak of his Self-rediscovery. It is therefore said: “Yoga IS HARD TO BE ATTAINED BY ONE OF UNCONTROLLED SELF.”
An individual who barters himself away to slave among the sense-objects according to the mad dictates of his flesh — or he who dances to the death-tunes sung by his sensuous mind — or he who roams about endlessly to fulfil the tyrannical demands of a drunken intellect — such a one has neither peace of mind nor the strength of sustained aspiration to goad him on towards the Templeof-Truth within himself.
As long as the sense-organs are not properly controlled, ‘the agitations of the mind’ cannot be pacified. An agitated mind is no instrument, either for listening or for reflection or for meditation — and without these three, the ‘veiling power’ cannot be rolled up. The agitations (Vikshepa) and veiling (Avarana) are caused by ‘activity’ (Rajas) and ‘inactivity’ (Tamas), and we have already found that, without controlling these two temperaments, the ‘unactivity’ (Sattwa) cannot come to predominate in the seeker.
It is natural, in a discussion, that you have to present your own arguments against a team of opposite arguments so that the discriminative intellect of the listener may, by contrast, easily judge the acceptability and logic of your view-point. Krishna uses here this commonplace technique of every drawing-room, when He, in the second line, explains as a contrast, how “THE SELFCONTROLLED, STRIVING HARD, BY RIGHT MEANS, CAN OBTAIN IT.” Self-control, achieved through the process of total withdrawal of the sense-organs from their respective objects, is the beginning of spiritual life… and this is never possible until we learn to turn our minds to the Higher Truth.
Even in ordinary life, when he wants to achieve something solid, the man-of-the-world will have to live to a large extent in self-denial. The life of a candidate during election time, that of a student before examinations, or of an actor or a dancer before his first performance… are all examples wherein we find that the individuals deny themselves all their idle preoccupations in their anxiety for success in their respective fields. If, for material gains and flimsy ephemeral glories, we have to deny ourselves, how much more should we deny ourselves the joys of the world outside in order to win the glories of the Eternal and the Permanent, the Infinite and the Absolute Bliss of the Self!
It is not that the seeker should deny himself all senseobjects. This seems to be the general misunderstanding among almost all seekers in India to-day. In the name of religion or spiritual practice, many seekers, at least for some years, live seemingly in self-denial and selfpunishment, shamelessly insulting themselves and carelessly persecuting their own physical urges and even biological needs. This sort of a devilish and suicidal self-condemning tyranny of oneself, always ends in an outburst of Satanic forces from within the very seeker.
Lest the student of the Geeta also should fall a prey to such a misunderstood and misconceived spirituality, Bhagawan indicates here, that the self-controlled seeker can, “STRIVING RIGHTLY, OBTAIN IT.” Not going to a cinema and not visiting the playgrounds are not, in themselves, assurances that the students will pass their examinations. The time wasted in such merry-making must be properly utilised in intelligent study, which alone can vouchsafe for them a success in their examinations. Here too, if a student appearing for an examination in mathematics, were to read the whole night geography text-books, he cannot hope for any glorious success; he must STRIVE RIGHTLY in order to gain true success.
Similarly, when through self-control, a seeker has conserved in himself energies which would otherwise have got dissipated in the gutters of sensuality, he must know how to direct those energies into the right channels, whereby he can get himself detached from his misconceived self-projections and ultimately realise for himself his own Self-hood. That such an intelligent seeker “CAN OBTAIN IT” is the optimistic philosophy of this ever-smiling God of the Hindus, Lord Krishna.
With these two verses, Krishna exhaustively answers the question raised by Arjuna, and what follows clearly indicates that the Pandava Prince has been convinced by the Lord’s reply.
Bhakti Yoga – The Yoga of Devotion
CHAPTER XII
(Verse 3)
ये त्वक्षरमनिर्देश्यमव्यक्तं पर्युपासते ।
सर्वत्रगमचिन्त्यं च कूटस्थमचलं ध्रुवम् ॥ १२-३॥
Those who worship the imperishable, the indefinable, the unmanifest, the omnipresent, the unthinkable. the unchangeable. the immovable and the eternal, . . .
(Verse 4)
सन्नियम्येन्द्रियग्रामं सर्वत्र समबुद्धयः ।
ते प्राप्नुवन्ति मामेव सर्वभूतहिते रताः ॥ १२-४॥
Having restrained all the senses, even-minded everywhere, rejoicing ever in the welfare of all beings — verily theyalso come unto Me.
In the previous stanza, the essential conditions under which alone a devotee can practice contemplation upon a Manifest-Form of the Lord to become a steadfast Yogi were described. In these two stanzas, Lord Krishna is trying to describe those who meditate upon the Unmanifest-Form of the Lord.
IMPERISHABLE (Akshara) — All those that have forms and qualities are substances and all substances are perishable. The Imperishable is, therefore, that which has no qualities. Qualities alone can be perceived, and it implies that it is impossible for the sense organs to perceive the Imperishable.
INDEFINABLE (Anirdeshyam) — Definitions are always in terms of perceived experiences and when a thing is imperceptible, naturally, it cannot be defined and distinguished from other things. ALL-
PERVADING (sarvatra-gam) — The Infinite that has no qualities, that is not manifest, that which is, therefore, Indefinable, should necessarily be All-pervading and existing everywhere. If the Supreme can be indicated as not existing in any place, then the Supreme will have a particular shape. And that which has a shape will perish.
UNTHINKABLE (Achintyam) — That which can be conceived of by a human mind will immediately become the object of feelings and thoughts and since all objects are perishable, the Imperishable must necessarily be Inconceivable, Incomprehensible, and Unthinkable.
UNCHANGING (Kootasthah) — The Self, the Consciousness, remains unchanged even though it is the substratum on which all changes constantly take place. ‘ Koota’ in Sanskrit, is an “anvil.” Just as the iron block in a smithy’s workshop, without itself undergoing any change, allows other pieces of iron to be beaten out on it, and changed into any shape; so too, the Consciousness allows our personalities to grow well or ill in contact with It.
IMMOVABLE (Achalam) — Motion is change in the timespace system. A thing can never move in itself; it can do so only to a point in space and time where it is not already. Here, now, I remain in my chair. I can move to another place to occupy it in the coming minute. But here and now in my own chair, I cannot move in myself, since I pervade the whole of me. The Infinite is All-pervading and there is no point in space or time where It is not, and therefore, the Infinite cannot move. It is here, there, everywhere; It has the past, the present and the future IN it.
ETERNAL (Dhruvam) — That which can change is a thing that is conditioned by time and space. But the Supreme, the Substratum of all, at all times and in all places, is the One that supports the very play of time and space, and therefore, these two factors cannot condition the Infinite. Consciousness, which is the Infinite Self in us, is the same everywhere and at all times — in our childhood, youth and old age, in all places and at all times — and in all conditions of joy and sorrow or success and failure. It is only when we come down to the levels of our intellect, mind, and body, that we step into Einstein’s world with its Relativity Theory in the play of time and space. The Supreme is unconditioned by time; It is the ruler of time. It is Eternal.
We must note that all these terms used here are expressions borrowed from our Upanishads to indicate that which provides the Eternal substratum for the everchanging universe of names and forms, behaviours and happenings, perceptions and feelings, thoughts and experiences. Meditation upon the Lord, symbolised-inthe-form, demands three unavoidable conditions.
HAVING RESTRAINED ALL THE SENSES — To dissipate our energies through the sense organs is the vulgar hobby of the thoughtless mortal. A seeker, who is aspiring to reach the summit of Perfection and rule over the state of deathless joy, must necessarily curtail such dissipations and redirect the energies so conserved for the higher flight. The sense organs are the real gateways through which the disturbing world of plurality steals in, to storm our inner bosom and plunge us into destruction. It is again through the organs-of-action that the mind gushes out into the world-of-objects. These two transactions break up our harmonious equipoise and steady balance. Krishna rightly emphasizes here that, if a meditator is to succeed in the ‘Path-of-Meditation’ he must cultivate a habit of living with his senses in control.
ALWAYS EQUANIMOUS — The second of the conditions that has been prescribed here by the Lord for a successful meditator is his intellectual equanimity in all conditions and experiences. It is very foolish indeed for a thinker to hope for a condition in life, wherein no disturbance from the outer world can reach him to distract his meditation.
Such a perfect condition is impossible. The things of the world in themselves and in their patterns keep on changing. In such a kaleidoscopic design of existence, it is indeed unintelligent to expect any desirable system to remain continuously for the benefit of a seeker’s steady practice. Such a thing is impossible. In the world-ofchange, therefore, a seeker must discover his own balance and equipoise, by controlling his intellectual evaluations, mental attachments and physical contacts with the world outside.
The intelligent relationship maintained by a seeker towards the world outside, whereby he experiences a uniform steadiness in himself, in spite of the mad revelry of things and beings around him, is called the condition of equanimity. He, who has developed the right sense of discrimination, can easily watch for and see the golden chord of Beauty that holds together all that is enchanting and grotesque constituting the outer world. This capacity is called Sama-buddhi.
My child may be dirty at one moment, mischievous at another; screaming in the morning, laughing in the noon; bullying in the evening and wild at night! Yet, through all such conditions, the father in me sees but one and the same son, therefore, I give my love equally in all these different manifestations of my own son. This is a loving father’s Sama-buddhi. In the same way, true seeker learns to recognise the Lord-of-his-heart in grim tragedies, in the pleasant comedies, in the tremendous successes, in the sighing sorrows and in the disappointing failures in his own day-to-day life. Therefore, he becomes equanimous intellectually.
INTENT ON THE WELFARE OF ALL BEINGS — Enumerating the third of the qualifications necessary for a successful meditator, the Lord says that he should ever be self-dedicated in serving at his best, to all beings. It is impossible for anyone, as long as he is in the embodiment, to give all his mind and intellect, at all times, towards the higher contemplation. He must necessarily come in contact with the world and react to it. In all such activities, a seeker should be, by the very nature of his philosophy, one who is ever devoted in tirelessly serving the entire living kingdom. Love for all beings becomes his creed.
Thus, if the meditators, fixing their mind upon the Imperishable, the Unmanifest, are able to control their sense organs, keep themselves equanimous and make it their nature to serve others, they too, “REACH ME ALONE.” Krishna declares that they too reach the same goal, the Supreme Self.
The question as raised by Arjuna is rather of a controversial nature, while Krishna’s answer to it is a declaration of an incontrovertible truth. Here, the great divine philosopher points out how both the Paths take the practitioner to one and the same goal, and the same general rules of conduct in their dealing with the world are here clearly prescribed for both of them. Whether the devotee is seeking his spiritual unfoldment through meditation upon a personal, or an impersonal God, the result achieved, it is shown, remains the same, if the disciplines required of him are all fully and faithfully followed.