Bhagavadgeeta : ( 26/11/2012. )

Chapter -18: Fix Your Mind on Me Alone-8. So here is the central theme of the twelfth chapter before us, after which the characteristics of a real devotee are described. A real devotee is one who hates not or loves not anything in this world in an exclusive manner, but is compassionate, merciful and equanimous in his attitude towards all things; principally one who shrinks not from anything and one who does not conduct oneself in such a way as to be shrunk away from by others. "Yasman nodvijate loko lokn nodvijate ca yah" : - One who does not regard oneself as a proprietor of anything. You have no propriety right over anything—"aniketah sthira-matir." Aniketah is one who has no habitat. Even the house you live in is not your house. You are a trustee, as it were, a caretaker of the so-called property which appears to be invested upon you but of which you are not the owner in any manner whatsoever. Who can say that we are the owners of anything...

. Chapter -18: Fix Your Mind on Me Alone-7. Even this is difficult for many people; they cannot even sit for practice in this manner. They take to devout adoration of God—singing His names, glorifying His Being and engaging themselves in such ways as would be conducive to the maintenance of devotion to God in their daily routine of practice. By way of worship, by way of listening to God’s glories, by singing His names, etc., mat-karma-paramo bhava: “Do your duties as worship of Me.” If even this is difficult, then perform your duties unselfishly. Everyone has a duty to perform in the station in which one is placed in human society. No one is free from this obligation—everyone knows this very well. Now, this fulfilment of the obligation that we owe in life, the duty that we are expected to perform, is to be conducted in a most unselfish manner as an instrument in the hands of God. The whole doctrine of the Bhagavadgita, which goes by the name of karma yoga, sums up the principl...

Chapter -18: Fix Your Mind on Me Alone-6. Now having said this much, a beautiful prescription is given in the very middle of the twelfth chapter which sums up what we know as ‘the four yogas’, in modern terms. Though the names of these yogas are not mentioned there, these are equivalent to what we know as jnana, raja, bhakti and karma yoga. “Absorb yourself wholly in Me.” Mayy eva mana adhatsva is the first instruction. Mayi buddhim nivesaya, nivasisyasi mayy eva ata urdhvam na samsayah : - A total absorption on God is the supreme yoga. A whole-souled attention—twenty-four hours a day we are only concerned with That, our mind is thinking only of That, and there is no other interest in life except an entertainment of God thought. This is the greatest achievement that we could conceive, if it could be practicable. But Sri Krishna says that if we find this is hard, if we cannot maintain this thought throughout the day, then—abhyaasa-yogena tato mm icchaptum dhananjaya—tr...

Chapter -18: Fix Your Mind on Me Alone-5. Our personality—the ego, the bodily consciousness—are maintained intact on account of diversity of attention. Just as a cloth is constituted of threads which are the warp and woof thereof, the mind is constituted, as it were, in the form of a fabric made up of the warp and woof of thoughts of likes and dislikes, loves and hatreds, etc. These are nothing but an expression of the mind’s attachments and aversions to the diversity of objects. The attention of the mind on one particular concept, internally or externally, is the opposite of the usual function of the mind. Hence, irrespective of the particular character of the object of meditation—form or impersonal, whatever it is—the transformation that takes place within us is common. Whether we contemplate on a Supreme Form or we contemplate on the Formless Infinitude of Being, the transformation that takes place within the mind is similar. It is an attention which is whole-souled and freed fro...