The Spiritual Import of the Mahabharata and the Bhagavadgita :13-8.

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Chapter 13: Centring the Mind in the Heart-8.

Now, towards this end, another advice is given here.

All this is not easy to practice.

Whatever be the details of the instruction we may listen to in respect of this great yoga, when we actually come to it, we will find that it is beyond us.

The mind will revolt and the senses will clamour for satisfaction.

Even at the point of death, desires do not cease—they become more acute.

Oftentimes it is said that when the desires sense the destructive stroke that is going to be dealt at their very root by the phenomenon of death that is about to take place, they become extremely strong, and even those desires that we would not usually have in normal life will come to the surface when we are about to quit this world.



Everything that we have pushed into the subconscious or the unconscious level comes up at the time of the departure from this world.

We will be in a miserable condition when they all come up and ask for their dues.

Death is the shaking up of the whole of the body and the entire psyche, and all the sheaths of the body.

There the concentration of the mind on God is a practical impossibility for an ordinary person.

Some advice in the direction of making ourselves ready for this practice is concerned with the chanting of ‘Om’ or pranava.

Om ity ekaksaram brahma-vyaharan mam anusmaran—there are two pieces of advice in this half-verse.

Reciting the great mantra which is pranava or Om, and absorbing the whole of our being in the Being of God, we have to leave this world and depart to the higher realms.

The recitation of Om or the chanting of pranava is prescribed as a part of this practice of yoga, the antimayoga of the eighth chapter.

Swami Krishnananda
To be continued  ..




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