The Spiritual Import of the Mahabharata and the Bhagavadgita : Ch-7. Part-8.

7: The Art of Meditation-8.

Likewise, we have to understand our weaknesses and also our strengths. One of the important things that a yogi or a meditator should do is to investigate into his own self. He has to become his own teacher; he is his own psychologist; he is even a doctor and physician. We have some strength of our own, it is true, but we also have weaknesses. The weaknesses are many a time known to us, and sometimes not known to us. 

But it is not difficult to know our weaknesses, because when we are absolutely alone we are free, to a large extent, to think in an impartial manner. We are not able to think in an impartial manner when we are in a public place or with a huge group of people, where our minds are diverted in a different direction altogether. When we are absolutely alone for a protracted period, we will be able to know our own subconscious, our desires which are vehemently troubling us—and we have to know how to deal with these desires.

Desires are the impulsions of consciousness in the direction of objects outside, and these impulses are like torrents of flood that bursts the bounds and damages villages and cities. Likewise can be the state of the meditator if he builds a dam across a river which is in flood. He has to have an outlet, a little gate through which the flooding water can escape and the dam may not burst. But if we block the water completely, under the impression that we can control it, there will be devastation and catastrophe. 

We are a dynamo and a magazine of power, like a river which has been dammed by the building up of a barrage. Hence, it is necessary to know where we have to exercise control, in what measure, to what extent, in what manner, etc. Like a physician treating a patient, we know that we cannot give the same medicine always. We check the patient’s temperature every day, whether it is high or low or normal, and look for possible complications. Many methods are involved in treating diseases, so there is no stereotyped treatment along a beaten path in medical psychology.

Swami Krishnananda

To be continued  ...