The Relevance of the Bhagavadgita to Humanity

The First Six Chapters of the Bhagavadgita

by Swami Krishnananda

Chapter 28: Sitting for Meditation

Tatraikāgraṃ manaḥ kṛtvā yatacittendriyakriyaḥ, upaviśyāsane yuñjyād yogam ātmaviśuddhaye (BG 6.12): For the purification of the self, one should engage oneself in yoga by concentrating the mind on a single chosen ideal. What is the single chosen ideal on which the mind is to be fixed? There is not much discussion in the Bhagavadgita on the details concerning the nature of the object of meditation because it is to be assumed that we have a practically appreciable knowledge of the nature of things of which this world is constituted, and also of the way in which we seem to be placed in this vast world of God's creation. When there is this satisfactory insight into the structure of the universe and our relation to it, we would know how to adjust our mind, our attitude, in the light of this vast universal structure and our placement in it.

What is thought, after all? It is the manner of our being aware of the conditions in which we are living. These conditions come as reactions from outside through the sense organs, through the nervous system, through the muscles, through the entire body, through our mind, through our emotion, through our reason, through everything that we are. We react, and the world reacts in return. There is a mental adjustment or, to be more precise, it is a reaction of our whole being in respect of the entirety of the environment in which we are placed. This looks like thinking. There is all variety of thinking – conscious thinking and unconscious thinking. Even the body may be said to be doing a sort of unconscious thinking when it feels cold and heat and adjusts its temperature for the temperature outside, and maintains a balance of the physiological system irrespective of changes that take place outside in nature.

I mentioned yesterday that the word 'prehension', which is a scientific manner of expressing subtle operations in nature, makes out that there is no unintelligent bit of matter in the universe. Even the cells of the body are intelligent; they react, and because of a necessary adaptation to environment, in which even the body is engaged constantly, we are able to live in this world. Otherwise, if we cannot adapt ourselves to the environment outside, we will perish in three days. So there is a feeling which is keeping every part of us vigilant in respect of what is happening outside, and the mind, or thinking, is a subtle form of this total reaction of ourselves in response to the reaction of the world of nature from outside. Hence, to think would be to adapt oneself to circumstance, and so our thoughts change according to the nature of the condition in which we are placed. Since we are not always in a uniform condition either outwardly or inwardly, we cannot be maintaining a uniform thought always. There is a multitude of thoughts due to a multitude of responses evoked from our side in respect of conditions of every blessed type prevailing outside.

Anyway, taking all this into consideration, a total preparation of oneself is to be undertaken in yoga. The concentration of mind that is referred to here in the context of yoga meditation is a complete army-like preparation, as if we are soldiers active in the field. It is not enough if only a little of the soldier's personality is active and the other parts are lingering or sleeping. That would not be a proper attitude. It would not be a workable method of action. Yoga is also a kind of battle. Perhaps some such thing was in the mind of the famous Bhishma when he spoke a sentence to Yudhisthira. Evidently the verse occurs in the Shanti Parva of the Mahabharata: “There are only two persons who are eligible for moksha. Only two persons can break through the orb of the sun and attain to salvation: the yogi who leaves his body in deep meditation, and the soldier who dies in battle. These two attain moksha.” Well, we have to take this statement in the spirit in which it is spoken, and also the spirit in which the sannyasin is understood or the soldier is understood. The idea is that there is a welling up of the whole being of a person in total action. The soldier is total action, and meditation is total action in a similar manner. There is a total encounter to a total situation in army action. In meditation also there is a total occupation of the total personality to a total situation which is the whole universe.

Hence, meditation is not mere wool-gathering, thinking something idly, as we may be gazing semi-consciously at a tree when we have no work to do, looking at the sky. This is also a kind of thinking, but this is not yoga thinking. Yoga is union, a communion of everything. Therefore, there should also be a communion of all the parts of the mind into a totality. There is a modern psychological term, evidently a German term: gestalt. It is a new school of philosophy which considers that the mind is a total operation. There is no such thing as a fractional operation of the mind. Never does the mind work with one leg. It is the whole of it that operates. It is a particular wholeness of consciousness projecting itself through the avenue of a given situation; therefore, when you think, you think entirely, at least in proportion as required under a given condition, even if it be a very insignificant condition or not a very conspicuous situation.

We do not behave part by part; we behave wholly. But this wholeness which we seem to manifest in our daily behaviour and in our thought may be a very lukewarm wholeness or an intensified wholeness. In a very intense form of rage, a kind of wholeness rises into action. In intense affection beyond a normal measure there is a kind of intensity of wholeness rising into action. In utter starvation and greed for food where anything and everything looks very tasty, there is a total asking from the entire structure of the body. In deep sleep where we are sunk into total oblivion, our whole being is also involved. But in conscious life very rarely the intensity rises into high pitch, except under grave conditions of danger when life itself is at stake. When a lion is facing us in the jungle, or we tread on a cobra, and so on, then our whole life will rise up into action. But normally, though we seem to be a gestalt in a psychological sense, there is no partitioned behaviour or fragmented thinking. It is a kind of wholeness, no doubt. When I think in any way, the whole of me thinks, but this wholeness needs to be understood in the percentage of the intensity of its expression at any time. The hundred percent total does not rise into action always. It may be one percent whole, two percent whole, three percent whole, etc.

The Bhagavadgita tells us in a coming verse, śanaiḥ śanair uparamed (BG 6.25): Gradually do you withdraw; systematically do you rise. Slowly you ascend, which means, let your wholeness of preparation in yoga be a graduated rising from an outward whole to an inward one, and from a lower one to a higher one.

Aikāgraṃ manaḥ kṛtvā: concentrating the mind wholly and entirely. We have a difficulty in getting wholly engaged in yoga practice. We cannot wholly give our love to yoga, as we cannot wholly give our love to anything in the world. There is a reticence and a guardedness, and a little doubt, a kind of wary attitude of oneself even in our wholly giving ourselves up in unselfish behaviour or affection, or in dedication, in worship or even in a religious exercise such as meditation. There is a subtle 'but' at the back of every undertaking of ours. That 'but' is an unpreparedness of ourselves in the given measure of intensity.

The question may arise before us: After all, having heard all this, having studied so much and understood well all that has been told, what am I supposed to do now? You have asked me to sit in a particular posture, and now you are asking me to think one thing. How long will I be able to think one thing, and what is that one thing?

As I mentioned, the Bhagavadgita has not much to say about the nature of this one thing, though we have to read between the lines and take the whole Gita as a single message as if we are in a position to grasp whatever is to come in future also in the coming chapters, and in this light of a capacity that we may exercise in our ability to appreciate the total message of the Gita, we may not have to raise this doubt in our minds as to what it is that we are expected to concentrate upon. It may be the whole creation, it may be God the Almighty or it may be any blessed thing, because when it is said that the mind should gradually rise, the idea seems to be that the lower manifestations, while they too can be taken as objects of meditation, should be clear as a presented picture before the mind. There should not be any kind of haze or twilight of perception even if the object chosen is a physical object. As hatha yogins and certain other circles of yoga practice tell us, concentration can be on anything that attracts you.

Here is some interesting sideline, namely, the object of concentration should be attractive because how would the mind think an unattractive thing? A repelling object or something which one resents cannot be taken as an object of meditation. Now, a thing cannot be attractive unless a value is seen in it. When a value is recognised in a particular thing, it becomes attractive. But how would you see any value in any object? The meaning that it has for you in your practical life is the value: Does this have any meaning for me? In my present condition, does this mean anything? To the extent it means something to me, to that extent it may look beautiful and attractive also. But if in my present condition this is of no utility to me, then it is not attractive. I can see no value in it, nor will I be propelled to think of it too much. It means nothing to me.

But this is not the way you have to think when you are scientific, you may say, in your approach to things. Yoga is a science. It is not an emotional reaction to anything. It is not loving in an emotional sense, or in a sentimental manner. It is a love born of understanding. It is rational appreciation and not an emotional, sentimental or biological impulse in respect of any object outside because you cannot trust impulses which are emotional, volitional, biological, etc. They are untrustworthy propelling forces, which will not propel you always. They can subside because they are appetites which ask for some food, and when the food is supplied, the appetite will subside. Therefore, it cannot be always a dynamo that can supply you enough energy. That dynamo will stop, so there must be a perpetually reliable mechanism within you which can generate that perennial energy in you which will not subside. The object of my concentration is very beautiful. It is full of meaning to me. It is so because it is all value for me. All the value that I can expect anywhere in the world, I see in this object. All the world of meaning is concentrated for me in this object. Firstly, I may not see any meaning in anything in the world except in this object; or even if there is some meaning in other things in the world also, taking that for granted, accepting it, all the meaning that may be there in other things I see here also, so that there is no point in my thinking anything else. Whatever I can expect from anywhere else, I can have here also. Now, how will you convince yourself that this is the case? Is it humanly possible to accept that any particular thing that you are thinking of in your mind as your dear object of meditation and yoga is all things and all values and all meaning – all father and all mother, all treasure? Is it possible for your heart and feeling to accept this fact?

Consciously considering what we are in our superficial level of waking existence, this is not possible. We cannot love a thing like that. In our conscious life we are shells of personality, fragments, though basically we are a whole. If we take all the levels of our psyche as a total whole, then we can manifest a total love for this object, but if we employ only the surface of our life, which is conscious living, as a means of concentrating, then the lower levels of the psyche, which may be stronger in their demands, may prevent our taking excessive interest in this particular object. They will say, “We shall not allow this because we too have something to say.”

Therefore, it is necessary for us to be conscious of whatever demands may come from our own selves inside. Have you any demands other than this that you have chosen now? It is no use imagining that you have no demands. Psychology, psychoanalysis, is also a good guide, and the sutras of Patanjali, for instance, are very good aphorisms on ancient psychoanalysis. The word chitta used in the sutra of Patanjali is a total comprehension of psychic values. It is mano, buddhi, ahamkara, chitta all put together, the entire psychic operation which it takes into consideration when it uses a particular word chitta to form his own angle of vision. All the requirements of what we call the internal organ, the antakarana or the psyche, are comprehended in this word. An unsatisfied mind cannot become a yogi. That is the meaning.

If there is a demand from any part of our psyche inside in respect of anything in this world which has not been properly answered or responded to – the demand has not been supplied, it has been denied, or rather, suppressed or shunted back – there will be an angry snake sitting inside a hole who will try to project its head out through any aperture whenever opportunities are available, and these are the submerged, unfulfilled longings of the psyche.

Our longings are mostly submerged. They are very rarely manifested outside because desires are intelligent operations. They are not dull. Every desire knows how it can fulfil itself, and it will not unload all its commodity of requirements at once on the head of anybody. It will keep something inside. As much as can be projected outside as a feasible demand will be expressed outside under conditions which are favourable for its fulfilment. It does not mean that it has not got other demands. It is ever unsatisfied. You will never satisfy the mind. The more you satisfy it, the more it will flare up like a flame which has been fed with clarified butter. The insatiability of desires is as vast as the roaring of the ocean itself due to the fact that the psyche is externally motivated in a universal fashion, and it is not one little mind thinking for one little object in the world. There is a vast sea of objective demand at the back of our psyche, which is, at its root, as big as this creation itself.

Psychoanalysts such as Carl Jung and philosophers such as Schopenhauer have gone into the details of this terrific fact that is at the back of our psyche, which they call the universal will or the collective unconscious, etc., making out that we are not such simple persons as we appear outside. We are not innocent little babies that can be handled. No. We cannot be easily handled. We are uncontrollable. Naughty is the mind. That is why it has been said in these verses of the Bhagavadgita that we have to move with caution, weaning ourselves slowly from outer attractions. And about our attitude to our loves and hatreds in this world, our likes and dislikes and our demands for certain things, something will be told us in the coming verse. The Bhagavadgita is very careful. It does not give us hasty recipes, unthought-of prescriptions. The great master who spoke the Bhagavadgita seems to know even the little weaknesses of man. He is a very good teacher, a very good psychologist, though the greatest master you can conceive of. It is not expected of us to repress our longings. About that we shall speak afterwards.

Tatraikāgraṃ manaḥ kṛtvā: thus collecting all thought, the entire psychic organ, mustering the whole force of it in a given direction. Which is the given direction? This is a question of initiation. There is a process called initiation in religious spiritual circles. A master has to instruct, guide, illumine the student in the art of concentration in meditation, in yoga. It is done by various means: by recitation of mantras, by study of scriptural passages, chanting them repeatedly, or by certain other exercises which are prescribed during initiation. Otherwise, by a reading of a commentary or a mere translation of these words much meaning may not come out to an uninitiated student.

Yatacittendriyakriyaḥ upaviśyāsane yuñjyād: Seated in this posture, as mentioned, bringing into a single communion the mind, the sense organs and all the individual operations, may one be prepared for this art of self-purification. Ātmaviśuddhi is the purification of self. What is the impurity in us? What is the dirt that we have got so that we require to be purified? The dirt is the accretion that has grown on our own consciousness, the dirt of longing for externals: kama, krodha, lobha, moha, mada, matsarya, and so on. Any kind of impulsion of consciousness towards whatever is outside is the dirt of consciousness. The consciousness is purchasing trouble by imagining that it wants something from outside it. By karma, upasana and dhyana, as the tradition goes – by unselfish performance of duty, by meditation religiously and by philosophical analysis – one has to purify oneself.

The shedding of the lower for the sake of the higher is a way of purification. Because you have a higher, you need not long for the lower. Therefore, the discipline in the direction of the higher principle in life involves a shedding of the calls of the lower instinctive resistance, which is the dirt in the context of the higher self. The higher self is a purified self; the lower is impure. The lower is impure in many senses. Firstly, the higher includes the lower, and to cling to the lower in spite of the fact that the higher includes all things would be to cling to an extraneous something which need not be there as our concern.

Secondly, the mistake in our thinking is that there can be something of the lower self as a total alien to a higher self. Our longings, our desires, and our cravings of any kind imply that we believe in the utter wholesale extreme reality of that particular thing which is lying there outside, as it were, as another self which the longing self requires. The lower self is not outside the higher self. So even in our longing for things as a sort of outside being, we commit the double mistake of firstly imagining that it is outside the higher, forgetting that it is subsumed by the higher. And also, the other mistake is thinking that it has a reality of its own. That which is already subsumed in some other principal cannot have an independent reality of its own. That which it implies has to be taken as included. It should not be considered separately. The larger finite includes the smaller finite, and the larger finite, from the point of view of the lower finite, is an infinite. It is an infinite because it is wider than the little finite. That which breaks the boundaries of a little given form of finitude is the tentative infinitude immediately superior to the given finitude. So there are levels of infinitude as there are levels of the self, as we have mentioned.

Hence, the purification of the self – ātmaviśuddhi referred to here – is the gradual withdrawing of consciousness from desires for lower forms of self, the object as self or the body as self, or any kind of temporal object as a desired something. Wherever there is a desire, there is also an implied hatred. There cannot be love without hatred. It is implied that to love one thing is to not love another thing. Not to love another thing because of the love for one thing is to have a subtle hatred for that thing which is not loved, and that it is an object of rapacious hatred will be known when that which is not loved interferes in any manner with the operations of the love for the given object. There can be subtle hatred or active hatred. Anyway, love and hatred are one and the same mental operation. They are not two distinct things. One cannot be there without the other. Now, this has to be properly understood psychologically and in a cultured philosophical mood with deep spiritual aspiration.

The mind, in this sense we have described it as whatever we are, should be roused into total action for the sake of the glorious achievement that is ahead of us. We have to satisfy ourselves with this message: A glorious achievement is ahead of us, a grand thing is before us. We are going to be face to face with a grand perfection, a great fulfilment, and we are going to be inundated with a great joy unthought of by the world. We are going to bathe in nectar; we are going to drink the elixir of immortality; we are going to speak to God Himself. The whole world of nature is going to be our friend. The wealth of the cosmos is going to be our property. I shall lack nothing. Hence, I lose nothing by this yoga discipline. Some such instruction one has to give to one's own self. Otherwise, we shall droop in spirits after a few days. The mind, in its lower form of instinctive appetite, will say something in its own little whispering voice, becoming louder and louder afterwards, and drowning our little spiritual longing. Hence, guarded is the person – upaviśyāsane yuñjyād yogam ātmaviśuddhaye.

Samaṃ kāyaśirogrīvaṃ dhārayann acalaṃ sthiraḥ, saṃprekṣya nāsikāgraṃ svaṃ diśaś cānavalokayan (BG 6.13); praśāntātmā vigatabhīr brahmacārivrate sthitaḥ, manaḥ saṃyamya maccitto yukta āsīta matparaḥ (BG 6.14): In this seated posture, the spine and the neck and the head should be erect in position. There should not be a crooked posture or an uncouth position of the body in the posture of meditation, because the intention here is to bring about an equilibrated condition of consciousness, a balance of outlook and a harmony within the functions of the psyche, which is achieved gradually by effecting the very same balance even in our nervous system and muscles.

The pranas also have to move within the body in a perfectly harmonious manner. There should not be any kind of oversupply or undersupply of the pranas in any given direction. There should be a properly proportioned supply of the energy of the pranas throughout the body because the pranas move through the little tubes called the nerves, and they are connected with our muscular physiological system also. The posture of the physical body tells upon the condition of the nervous system, and incidentally, on the way in which the pranas operate through the nerves, and the nerves tell upon the mind. This is the connection between the mental operation in meditation and the posture of the body. The posture is to be erect, not a crouching posture or a leaning posture or any kind of unbalanced position of the body. That is the meaning of saying that we should be seated in a single posture of meditation with our spine and neck and head erect, maintaining that position.

In the beginning this will be difficult because the spine will start aching after a few minutes because you are not accustomed to sit like that, so in the earlier stages you can have a backrest in a ninety-degree position. That is a good assistance in the beginning. Otherwise, you will find it very hard. That is all right; you can do that. Anyway, it is the final requirement.

Samaṃ kāyaśirogrīvaṃ dhārayann acalaṃ: Without movement. Sthiraḥ: Fixed. How to fix? An interesting suggestion comes from a sutra of Patanjali. Prayatnaśaithilyānantasamāpattibhyām (Y.S. 2.47): Effortless should be the asana. You should not be conscious that you are sitting in a posture. The purpose of this position of the body is to make you forget that you are sitting at all, to make you practically unconscious that the body is there. Therefore, there should not be undue effort exercised in the maintenance of the posture. You should not bend the knee hard and force it into position. Then it will be an object of your concentration and you will think of the knee much more than anything else. A great ache will be there; the back will ache, and many other things. So assume any posture you like which is effortless, provided it is conducive from your own point of view. Antasamāpattibhyām. This is a sutra of Patanjali: concentrate on ananta. Ananta can here be considered as that which has no anta. Anta means 'end' or 'limit'. Concentrate on that which has no end. Concentrate on the endless. What are the endless things?

For your own practical purposes, you can think of space. Endless is space. Go further, go further, go higher and higher, go wider, go right, go left, go north, go south, go to the top and go to the bottom – endless, endless, endless, endless, endless. From all sides is endlessness, endlessness. I am melting and I am moving in ten directions. I am becoming as large as space, as big as space, as wide as space, as endless as space. Now you see the body is sitting erect because of the very thought of endlessness. Endlessness is nothing but perfect equilibrium. It is infinity. Endlessness is infinity. So the thought of infinity, endlessness, creates a stability of the posture. There are many other meanings attached to the word ananta. We need not concern ourselves with that now.

Saṃprekṣya nāsikāgraṃ: gazing at the tip of the nose, as it were. It is mentioned that you may gaze at the tip of the nose. Sometimes it is said 'as it were' – not exactly gazing on the tip of the nose but gazing, as it were, at the tip of the nose. Now, the idea is expressed in various manners by the students of the Bhagavadgita exponents. If you open your eyes entirely, it is possible that objects of sense may distract your attention. Therefore, do not open your eyes entirely and be gazing outwardly. But do not close the eyes entirely, because then you may fall asleep. Neither should you close the eyes completely nor should you open them entirely, for reasons mentioned, so let them be semi-closed. And this semi-closed position of the lids seems to be like looking at the tip of the nose. That is why commentators have used the phrase 'looking at the tip of the nose, as it were'. But some people think it is really looking at the tip of the nose. That is all right in the beginning because the tip of the nose is also some point which can be taken as an object of concentration. It is a part of our own body. It is very near us. And the more generous interpretation of this instruction seems to be that it should be a semiconscious attention of the mind, and not an intensely extroverted consciousness of any particular thing outside or a total subliminal introversion by the closure of the eyes. Let it be a balanced consciousness, neither thinking too much of what is outside nor completely oblivious of what is outside and sinking into the inside. Neither are you an extrovert, nor are you an introvert. You are a balance of the extrovert and the introvert positions of consciousness. Some such meaning we may take for our practical convenience here in this instruction saṃprekṣya nāsikāgraṃ svaṃ diśaś cānavalokayan. You should not be looking around. Do not look in different directions. Do not turn your neck. Let it be fixed erect. Already it has been told, and there is no need for you to look around all sides. In this manner, be concentrated.