The Moksha Gita : Swami Sivananda // Commentary : Chapter 7.2 - Swami Krishnananda.

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Monday, April 17, 2023. 06:30.

The Moksha Gita : Swami Sivananda

Chapter 7: The Process of Sadhana -2.

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5, 6. You cannot see the all-pervading butter in the milk, but if you churn it you can get the butter. Even so you cannot see Brahman by these physical eyes; but you can behold the All-pervading Brahman by the churning of meditation.

The churning of meditation brings the butter of Brahman. When the confused subjectivity is overcome, the nature of Brahman is revealed. The whole task of Sadhana is a very careful and vigilant process and it should not be undertaken at random. The physical eyes cannot see Brahman because Brahman which is Experience is different from perception. Perception which is a part cannot encompass Experience which is the Whole. The part is included within the Whole. Sense-activity is a method of the further sub-division of the act of psychic cognition and hence the senses by themselves are rendered impotent in trying to comprehend Brahman. The senses are automatically withdrawn into their dynamo of the mind which charges them with the power of action, when the moral restraints and ethical disciplines are rigidly observed.

The predecessor of the meditative condition is the steadiness of the psychic organ. The main factors which disturb right thinking are lust, greed and anger which give birth to infatuation, pride and jealousy. The generality of mankind fancies to think that lust is a passion for sex. But on careful investigation it will be found that it is an intense desire for self-expression in one way or the other. The aspirant should guard himself against falling a victim to this force by checking with fortitude the urge to materialise himself further, which urge manifests itself in countless ways, ununderstandable and unimaginable. The fire of clinging to life is the mother of all impulses for self-manifestation. When the will to live is pulled down by the root, the urge for expressing oneself is withheld. Anger is the outcome of unfulfilled desires and greed is the effect of love for life. These are the negative forces of the one strong desire to maintain the individuality and to increase the sense of diversity by adding to the number of the individuals. The job of Nature is distracting things, creating things and killing things. One who involves himself in the family of the creative Prakriti cannot practise Yoga. Yoga is swimming against the current of Maya, acting against the nature of the mind, against the formal law of the earth, against Pravritti and against everything that is pleasant to the being of the earth. Meditation or Yoga is the Sreyo-Marga, life on earth is the Preyo-Marga.

7,8. Purge your mind of all impurities. Sever mentally all your connection with visible objects. Destroy the weeds of desires. Abandon all Sankalpas. Eradicate the longings. Meditate on Brahman. You will attain soon the non-dual Brahmic seat of ineffable splendour.

The mind should be purged of the tendencies to materialisation. This can be done through the spiritual penances that prescribe the austere living of the individual. One of the potent methods of removing the impurities of the mind is acting against the habits and natural propensities of the mind. The mind has got certain main doors through which it throws out energy into the external world and attracts objects for the maintenance of the relations which it should keep with them for the sake of saving its skin. The moment the mind stops relating itself to things which are disconnected among themselves its life is at stake. The daily activity of man on the earth for acquiring food, drink, clothing and shelter from the oppression of nature is to guard his own ego from being presented with what is harmful to the endurance of personality for long. This activity is mainly for the purpose of Self-preservation. A fasting of the senses and the mind is very painful to the individual, because of its thereby nearing the danger of self-extinction through non-relation. 

The mind can either contemplate on outward objects, the egoistic pleasure-centres, or sleep by adjourning its activities. The beginner in spiritual Sadhana, therefore, observes fast and vigil in order to withhold the natural habits of the mind of taking pleasures in relational connections with the universe and falling into torpidity when it is unable to obtain sense-pleasure. This morbid state of the self is to be cured by severing oneself from all objects and asserting Self-independence. Mouna is another method which the aspirant adopts to check the habit of self-expression of the mind, for, speech is an extrovert-force which maintains relational existence. The world cannot exist even for a moment if things stop inter-relations and assert Independence. The force of Nature compels the individual to abide by its plan of the sustentation of diversity. Hence Yoga can be practised only after boycotting the Pravritti-tendency of Prakriti or Maya through Tapas, Ahimsa, Satya-Vachana, Brahmacharya and Dhyana. Such a rare hero alone can meditate on Brahman which is the climax of the grand Truth where the cunning relativeness is totally destroyed.

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To be continued

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