The Spiritual Import of the Mahabharata and the Bhagavadgita : Ch-7. Part-12.

7: The Art of Meditation-12.


When we were babies we could not even walk; we fell down many a time and injured our knees. When we learned bicycling we fell down many times, and so on. Swimming, cycling, walking—all these are difficult things, but once we master the technique, we can run without even being aware of our legs. Those who are master swimmers do not become conscious of the water in which they are swimming. People who are masters in cycling do not think of the cycle on which they are sitting, and when we walk, we do not even know that we have legs. But when we were babies we were very conscious, and therefore we fell.

So, practice makes perfect.

Gradual, honest desire to move away from distractive atmospheres and to concentrate the mind on the higher Being is mumukshutva, and is itself a potent aid. And finally, surrender of self to God. The surrender of the lower self to the higher Self is again, to reiterate, done by stages, by gradual isolation in the beginning—socially, physically, and finally even psychologically. We must find ourselves in a psychological sequestration, not merely physical isolation. We find ourselves alone even mentally, and then the mind comes down on an emotional level and a perceptional level—then it is that we can be said to be in state of proper concentration.

Atma-samstham manah krtva na kincid api cintayet:

After the mind has established itself in its own root, which is the Atman, there is no necessity to think anything.

All thought is external and is lodged in objects outside, but when it has been weaned from objects and centred in the inner selfhood of non-objectivity, no thought is permitted, na kincidapi cintayet, and an unknown joy bursts from within like the sun shining in the midst of dark clouds when the mind returns to its own source. All happiness, whatever be its nature, is only a modicum of the tendency of the mind to return to the Self within. The more we go inside, the more are we happy, so that when we are perfectly established in our Self, we are in the state of highest happiness. The seer establishes himself in himself when consciousness rests in its own Self; chit becomes sat and when cit becomes sat, it becomes ananda, and one exists in a state of the highest divinity.

END

Swami Krishnananda

To be continued  ...

Next : 8: In Harmony with the Whole Universe -