The Philosophy of the Bhagavadgita

by Swami Krishnananda

The Yoga of Meditation is the subject of the Sixth Chapter of the Bhagavadgita — dhyana-yoga, as it is called. We have noticed that, for purposes of meditation, a convenient place, free from distractions, is necessary. The time that we choose for meditation, also, is to be such that it should not have the background of any engagement or activity which may distract the attention of the mind from the goal of meditation. A suitable place, a suitable time — these two are very important prerequisites. But more important, perhaps, than place and time is the preparedness of the mind. The mind should be eager to sit for meditation and it should not feel any kind of compulsion. We do not sit for meditation merely because in our daily routine it is the time allotted for meditation; that would be something like going for lunch at noon, even if we are not hungry, merely because noon is prescribed as the time for lunch. It is not the time, but the need that is important. If the mind does not feel the need for meditation, a mere prescription of place and time will not be of much benefit. Most people feel a difficulty in getting any kind of satisfactory result, because the mind is not prepared.

How is the mind to be prepared? Here a question arises, which can be answered by each one, independently, from one’s own point of view. Why do we feel the need for taking to yoga practice? If the need has not been felt, we would not have been resorting to yoga at all. Somehow, we have felt within our hearts that yoga is a solution to the problems of life. Everyone has difficulties and tensions and our conscience has somehow persuaded us to accept that the panacea for all problems in life is yoga, finally. We have accepted, of our own accord, that no one can help us in the end, except that great principle which yoga regards as the ultimate reality of life. We do not take to the yoga of meditation just because somebody has told us to do it, or some text book has eulogised it; just as we do not go to the dining hall for our lunch, or dinner, merely because somebody asked us to go there. We feel that it is necessary, and, therefore, we go. Now, this need that we feel for the practice of yoga should be a genuine one. The mind is a trickster. It always deceives us from moment to moment, because it does not have a continuity of moods. The moods of the mind change almost everyday. And it is not difficult for the mind to get dissatisfied with things. And it can be dissatisfied even with that which it once regarded as a very necessary item in its life. There is no more difficult thing to understand than our own mind. We ourselves are the greatest difficulties in life. Our mind, like a weathercock, moves from one state to another. So, while most of us may be honest and sincere in our resort to yoga practice, we are also in some way subject to the whims of the mind. “I do not feel like it;” this is what we often remark. But why should we not feel like it? What has happened? And we would only say, “I do not know what has happened.” That means to say that our mind is not under our control. Even our taking to the practice of yoga may be a mood of the mind and not be a real conviction born of understanding; this is important to remember. Even as there are umpteen moods of the mind, yoga also may be one of the moods, and it may be a very unreliable mood, for it may pass away. And the problems we feel when we sit for meditation are due to the unpreparedness of the mind basically, at its root, though on the surface it appears as if it has accepted the adventure. Many times we accept things only on the surface, and in our basic attitude we are not prepared to accept everything.

Now, the acceptance of yoga should be a whole-souled attitude of the seeker. It should not be merely a surface outlook which has somehow acquiesced in the situation. And, as the great goal of life is the wholeness of reality, our preparedness for its realisation should also be a wholeness from our side. Hence, a moody attitude and an acceptance which is partial cannot be satisfactory where our objective is such an important factor in life as yoga. All this has been touched upon in a concise manner in different places of the Chapters of the Bhagavadgita, which will give us a clue as to why we have varying moods and contradictory desires, which will surprise even our own selves. The answer to this question in the Sixth Chapter is that we are often likely to be extremists in our activities. We are not sober and harmonised in our engagements, in our relationships. When we like a thing, we sell ourselves, as it were, to that which we love. It is an extreme attitude of attachment. When we dislike a thing, we whole-heartedly condemn the thing, and go to the other extreme. We have found that it is very hard to maintain a balanced mood of equanimity of attitude. And it is easy to be an extremist, while it is hard to be a person of sobriety of perspective. Either we eat too much, or we do not eat at all. Both these things are very easy. We suddenly declare, “I shall not eat; for one week I shall observe fast.” But to control the appetite in a way that does not affect either the body or the mind, or even our relationships and activities, is a little difficult.

While the Gita has emphasised the factor of harmony in yoga, it has not confined this harmony merely to the ultimate union of the Self with the Absolute, in a transcendent sense. Again and again it has been driven into our minds, in various places, that yoga as harmony has to be applied in its relevance at every level of life, even in our kitchen and bathroom, our social relationships, our personal vocations, and the like. Even in our eating and sleeping and our recreation there should be a harmony, and there should not be any extreme mood, not that we indulge in eating and sleeping too much, not also that we completely abstain ourselves from the needs of the body and mind. The golden mean is supposed to be the essence of the ethical attitude — the golden mean — and it is so subtle as a hair’s breadth; it is an imperceptible reality. The arrangement of factors in a harmonious manner is an imperceptible truth, not visible to the organs of the senses. But we have to conceive it in our minds; with some effort. Yoga is not for that person who eats too much, or does not eat at all; sleeps too much, or does not sleep at all; works too much, or does not work at all; plays too much, or does not play at all, etc. These are common statements but very important ones.

The great Masters of yoga are most normal persons. They are not queer individuals looking like other-worldly ascetics, making themselves conspicuous. There is no conspicuity about yoga practice. It is not an unnatural way of living making oneself an exhibit in the social atmosphere. When we are a real Yogi we will not appear as a Yogi at all. The moment we start appearing as a Yogi, there is to be sensed some unnaturalness in the practice. Why should we “appear”? There is no need to put on countenances. Normalcy of behaviour is a spontaneous consequence that follows from an understanding of the wholeness of life, which is, basically, yoga. With this preparedness of the mind in a healthy manner towards all things, one has to sit for meditation on the degrees of Reality; the particular degree that has to be chosen is the Ishta-Devata. We have already referred to the Deity, or Devata, on an earlier occasion. And our soul-filled absorption in it with affection, with love, and with utmost regard, is our yoga in respect of it. The mind is steady absolutely, when it is in the presence of that which it likes immensely. When we have something highly valuable as our possession, we get wholly absorbed, and we are in a state of rapture, as it were, by the very presence of it, because it is the Deity that we like, and the only thing that we want. Then it is impossible for the mind to think anything else at that time.

Is there anything in the world which we like so much that we cannot think anything else at the moment of being in its presence? Here is the significance of what is called initiation into the technique of meditation. The choosing of the objective, or the ideal of meditation, is very important. It is done with the guidance of a preceptor, a teacher, a superior, a Guru. Most of us are incapable of choosing our ideal, we drift from one point to another, today one thing looking all right and tomorrow another thing. A superior mind which has passed through certain stages of psychological development would be a good guide to people who are in the initial stages; such a person is a Guru, or a teacher. If one has already passed through some stages which another has not come across, the former can tell the latter what are the things which have to be expected on the path. Initiation into yoga is the introduction of the mind to that particular ideal or concept of the objective which can engage the attention wholly, so that it becomes the only reality for the practitioner. The mind can concentrate itself entirely only on that from which it can expect everything that it needs. If we are sure that a thing is going to satisfy every one of our needs, and there is nothing else left out, then there would be no need for us to think anything else. But there is a suspicion in the mind, a doubt that, perhaps, it is not the only thing that is needed in life, that there are other things also which are equally important, or, at least necessary in some way. This would be another way of saying that one has not chosen the ideal properly; has no faith in the glorious object which has been chosen as the target of meditation.