The Spiritual Import of the Mahabharata and the Bhagavadgita : Ch-7. Part-3.

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7: The Art of Meditation-3


But the unselfishness that is indicated here, in the art of meditation, is not merely the social definition of unselfishness. Well, a person who has a desire to take care of his family—wife, children, brothers, sisters, etc.—and who does not cling very much to his own bodily individuality would be regarded as an unselfish man. And a person who has love for the whole nation rather than merely his own family, can be regarded as an unselfish man. And a person who has love for the whole of humanity and works for the good of mankind, rather than clinging to the ideals of one’s own nationality, can also be regarded as an unselfish person. 


But here the word ‘unselfishness’ is used in a more profound sense, not in the social sense of unselfishness—which of course is good in its own way. There is a qualitative enhancement in the realisation of the higher Self in the movement the individual towards the family, or from the family to the nation, or from the nation to the whole of mankind. There is not much of a qualitative transformation, though there is a quantitative increase in the outlook of life. But the higher Self is not merely a quantitative largeness; it is also a qualitative enhancement.


Likewise, we have the example of the waking consciousness, to come to the analogy once again. The waking consciousness is not merely quantitatively larger than the dream consciousness, it is also qualitatively higher. So it is that we are happier in waking life than in dream. We may be emperors in dream and beggars in waking, but a person would be happier to be a beggar in waking than an emperor in dream. That is because the emperorship, or wealth, or whatever value that we may have in dream is a qualitative deprecation; it is inferior in quality, and therefore the beggarhood in waking is superior to the kingship in dream. Though we may say the king is superior to the beggar in economic value, but what of that quality of consciousness? 


This example is only to give an idea of what the higher Self can be. The higher Self is not merely a physical expansion in the society of people; and so the movement towards God is a little different from becoming unselfish in the purely social sense, though social values, as I said, are preparatory steps for self-purification. All this I am mentioning in connection with the implication of a single verse of the sixth chapter: Uddhared atmanatmanam natmanam avasadayet, atmaiva hy atmano bandhur atmaiva ripur atmanah.


Bandhur atmatmanas tasya yenatmaivatman jitah, anatmanas tu satrutve vartetatmaiva satruvat. He is the friend, the higher Self is our friend only in the case of that person who has overcome the lower self by means of the higher Self. But if the lower self has taken hold of the whole personality, and there is a complete oblivion of even the existence of the higher Self, that higher Self will be an enemy of the lower self. It will come like a thunderbolt, because nobody can violate existing laws; ‘ignorance of the law is no excuse’ is a saying not merely applicable to man-made laws but also to divine laws. Merely because we do not know the existence of divine law, it does not mean that we can be exempted from the operation of that law. 


So God Himself acts as an enemy, as it were. Of course, we cannot say that God is an enemy of anybody, but the reaction that is set up by the higher law of God is something like an automatic action of a computer system that has no friends or foes. A computer has no enemies; it has no friends. It depends on how we feed the matter into it. If we wrongly feed it, a wrong result comes, and we cannot say that it is an enemy because a wrong result came—we have fed it wrongly. But if it is properly fed, the correct result comes. 


As with electricity—we cannot say electricity is a friend or an enemy. If we are able to control it, it is a great harnesser of power, but if we do not know how to manipulate it, it can kick us and finish us off. All laws are of this nature. Every law is impersonal and unprejudiced—there is no friend or foe for it. So it depends upon the extent to which we are in harmony with the regulations and the regulatory laws of the higher Self—to that extent we are successful. All success is a consequence of our alignment with the requirements and laws of the higher Self, and all failure is contrary to it.

Swami Krishnananda

 To be continued  ....


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