Bhagavadgeeta : ( 26/11/2012. )

Chapter -18: Fix Your Mind on Me Alone-4. The reason is purely psychological, which is the essence of the whole matter in contemplation or meditation. Meditation proper is what usually is known as ananya chintana—a thinking deeply, absorption wholly, to the exclusion of any extraneous idea. This is the basic psychological secret in contemplation or meditation. The function of the mind at the time of meditation is very important, not the nature of the object. The purpose of meditation is to so adjust the mind to a particular pattern of thinking, so that it ceases from any distracted attention towards dualistic notions which sustain the ego individuality of a person. The whole point in meditation is transcendence of thought—overcoming of ego and dissolution of personal consciousness in God-Being. This can be achieved only when the mind is freed from its attachments to diversity of thought and the multitudinous attention that it usually bestows upon objects of sense. When th...

Chapter -18: Fix Your Mind on Me Alone-3. Though the one may appear to be different from the other in the method of approach, the goal is the same. This is a great consolation to every seeker. It does not mean that one is superior or inferior to the other, though many a time it appears to investigative and logical minds that the impersonal approach is superior to the personal. But surprisingly to religious thinkers, the Bhagavadgita makes no distinction. The whole point of meditation is the capacity of the mind to absorb itself in the object of meditation, to the exclusion of any other thought. One may be wondering how Bhagavan Sri Krishna regards the personal approach as equal to the impersonal. Swami Krishnananda   To be continued  ....

 Chapter -18: Fix Your Mind on Me Alone-2. In meditation we set ourselves en rapport with that upon which we are meditating. There is a sort of parallel concourse of consciousness between ourselves and the great object of meditation. If we are far below the level of that on which we are ideally contemplating in ourselves, there would be no proper harmony between the subject meditating and the object of meditation. It is very clear and obvious that people are mostly incapable of raising their consciousness to the status of impersonality wholly, because of the fact that we are ‘persons’ and not ‘impersons’. How many among us, who among mankind, can be sure of overcoming the awareness of a physical body and be certain of one’s ability to transport one’s mind to the level of the infinitude of God? As it involves, therefore, a tremendous difficulty on the part of the minds of people who are engrossed in body consciousness, Sri Krishna says, “I prefer the devotional or the d...

 Chapter -18: Fix Your Mind on Me Alone-1. The vision of the cosmic form was vouchsafed to Arjuna, as portrayed in the majestic words of the eleventh chapter of the Bhagavadgita. Subsequent to this wondrous display of God’s glory, which was witnessed with consternation by Arjuna in his mystical rapture, he raises a question before Bhagavan Sri Krishna. “This mighty spirit which was revealed to me just now is capable of approach and attainment, finally, in a whole-souled contemplation of the entire being of the seeker; a merger, as it were, of one’s consciousness in the impersonal Absolute. There is the other way of contemplating You as the glorious, mystifying, majestic form. Which of the two approaches can be regarded as preferable?” This is the question. The answer is a little surprising and, at the same time, very solacing. One would have expected the great Master to give an immediate reply by saying that what is required of the seeker of the liberation of the soul is ...

7.The Vision of God-18. But a whole-souled devotion, which implies an utter dedication of oneself to the last remnant of one’s personality, becomes the means to this attainment. Jnatum drastum ca tattvena pravestum ca parantapa: The vision has to be experienced in stages—it has to be known, it has to be seen and it has to be entered into. Arjuna did not enter this vision. He came back, repelled from that Form. He had the glorious vision, no doubt, and he was also given the knowledge thereof. Jnana and darshana were there, but not pravesha—he did not dissolve himself in the Absolute. He was impeded from that melting away of himself into the universal vision. So there was a terrifying experience where the vision is had but the entry is not permitted, and that strikes like a thunderbolt on the very head of the ego. The soul cries, “Enough of this vision! May I be brought down once again to the level of ordinary knowledge and empirical consciousness.” The fear is such and so aw...