Bhagavadgeeta : ( 26/11/2012. )

Chapter 13: Centring the Mind in the Heart-3. The centring of the mind in the heart is an art by itself. It is to locate the mind in its own centre, where its own roots are to be found. We hear in the studies of psychology, for instance, that there are layers of mind beneath the conscious level, and the conscious operations are mostly a surface activity of our consciousness. There are deeper layers which are buried beneath the conscious activities, and they are the impulsions which propel the mind to approve the activities of the senses. The centring of the mind in the heart is, in a way, the directing of the mind to pure subjectivity of feeling. The heart is the centre of all feelings which are the immediate expressions of our true being. Our essential nature reveals itself in the psychic expressions which we know as feelings. They are very powerful—everything is controlled by feeling, finally. The mind has to be centred in the root of feeling, the very base of...

Chapter 13: Centring the Mind in the Heart-2. The methodology of sense restraint is described in various places in the Bhagavadgita, in different contexts. The control of the senses is not easy, if we are to confine ourselves merely to the area or the field of sense activity. We have to apply a higher power in order to restrain a lower urge, and unless we resort to a higher resource that is within us, we will not be able to draw enough strength in order to handle these impetuous sense organs. If we were to think of the senses and then merely by the power of thought attempt to control them, we would not be entirely successful because the lower mind, which is the sense mind, is in collaboration with the senses, and it is the mind that approves the requirements or demands of the sense organs. Thus, the lower mind is not going to be of help. The higher mind, which is the superior reason within us, has to be employed in order to harness a greater power for dealing with th...

Chapter 13: Centring the Mind in the Heart-1 The yoga of the rise of the soul from this world is the main subject of the eighth chapter of the Bhagavadgita. Usually the soul reverts to this world on account of the pull that the world atmosphere exerts upon it, as the power of gravitation can pull everything towards the earth. All our desires connected with the world are the forces that drag the soul back to the world, and any kind of impulsion to which the soul gets subjected becomes its bondage. Liberation of the spirit is freedom from such subjection. How can this be achieved? This is answered in a few slokam-s of the eighth chapter. "Sarva-dvarani samyamya mano hrdi-nirudhya ca, murdhny adhayatmanah pranam asthito yoga-dharanam." "Om ity ekaksaram brahma-vyaharan mam anusmaran, yah prayati tyajan deham sa yati paramam gatim."  The whole of the yoga that one has to engage oneself at the time of the departure from this world is described ...

Chapter 12: The Entry of the Soul into the Supreme Being Part-22. This point will be taken up for consideration in the coming chapters—ninth, tenth and eleventh. In the eighth chapter we are only taken up to the level of the transcendence of God and the possibility of the departure of the soul in the fields to come, above the earth. It is only in the ninth chapter that we will receive a greater consolation by being told that God is not so far away as we were told earlier. His hands operate in this world just now, and devotion becomes an immediate activity of our day-to-day existence, and not merely a performance in a temple or church. Our whole life gets transformed into religion and spirituality when we are told that the law of God rules even this material earth. Towards this end we shall be taken in the coming chapters. Chapter 12: The Entry of the Soul into the Supreme Being -  ENDS Next : Chapter 13: Centring the Mind in the Heart Swami Krishnananda To b...

Chapter 12: The Entry of the Soul into the Supreme Being Part-21. That ending of desire is the immediate salvation of the soul. This is what is known as sadyomukti or the entry of the soul into the Supreme Being at once, here itself. There is no travel, no passage of the soul after death, and no reincarnation, nothing of this kind—no rebirth because the soul is immortal and is not conditioned by the process of the material evolution. The power of the universe does not affect it any more, because its experience is not involved in space, time and causation. There is no externalisation of the consciousness of the spirit; there is only a universalisation of it and not externalisation. This attainment of the universality of spirit is known as sadyomukti or immediate salvation. It is immediate because the Universal is present everywhere. There is no need to travel to the Universal, because no concepts of space and time are there. Even the concepts of space and time ...

Chapter 12: The Entry of the Soul into the Supreme Being Part-20. So the Bhagavadgita here tells us that there are two passages of the soul—the light and the smoke. There is a possibility of going up gradually with no return, and there is also an ascent for the purpose of returning. The soul reaches regions higher and higher until it becomes impossible for it to retain its individuality. That is the way to moksha or salvation by the progressive method of ascent, known as kramamukti. But those souls who are involved a in life of activity for the purpose of profit of one kind or the other, who are not devotees in a truly religious sense but participants in religion for the purpose of attaining earthly goods and recognition of some type or other, will have this desire fulfiled and they will revert to the place from where they started. The Upanishads have given us more details about these paths than we find in the Bhagavadgita, and there are possibilities of the soul get...

Chapter 12: The Entry of the Soul into the Supreme Being Part-19. But that need not necessarily be the meaning of prayer. Prayer can be an overwhelming, indwelling of God Himself in our soul—the soul getting invaded by the presence of God. The soul getting possessed by the omnipresence of God can also be devotion, and there one cannot expect anything from God other than the presence of God Himself. We are used to expecting things, and therefore we are also used to utilising persons and things as means for the fulfilment of our expectations. So the very defect in which the human mind is involved transfers its usual ways of the envisagement of values even to God Himself, and while it asks for small things from small persons, it asks for large things from God. The highest devotion is not an asking of anything from God. Then, any kind of ulterior asking ceases in the processes of the mind—it becomes totally selfless. The abolition of individual selfhood in gradual s...

Chapter 12: The Entry of the Soul into the Supreme Being Part-18. Unselfish devotees do not come back, but those who have desires of some type or other will have to be retained in that condition until their desires are fulfilled. Often our devotions to God are connected with some ulterior desires. Many of us will be finding it difficult to imagine what unselfish devotion to God can be. We may accept theoretically that unselfish devotion to God is the only real and true devotion. But our mind is so made that it cannot understand what unselfishness is, because there cannot be any kind of effort without an intention behind it, and this intention decides whether it is unselfish or otherwise. To seek something from God is the essence of the principle of selfishness that enters into the devotion to God. All prayers to God in all the religions have something to tell God. We convey a message to God. The necessity to convey a message to God again implies our suspicion ...