THE HOLY YOGA
CHAPTER TWO
SAMKHYA YOGA OR THE YOGA OF KNOWLEDGE
VERSE NUMBER 65
Text in Transliteration:
prasaade sarvaduhkhaanaam haanir asyo ‘pajaayate
prasannachetaso hy aasu buddhih parayavatishthate
Text in English:
In tranquillity, all his sorrow is destroyed. For the
intellect of the tranquil-minded is soon anchored in equilibrium.
COMMENTARY BY SWAMI CHIDBHAVANANDA:
This world is a mixture of good and evil. But the majority
of people see more of evil than good in it. Some among them hope that when the
world gets rectified there is the
possibility of their enjoying more of peace of mind. Cognizing evil in
the word and mind being given to restlessness are interrelated. Evils seen outside
are all, in fact, the projection of the mind; they have no external reality. As
the mind gets purified, seeing of evil gets minimized. Grounds for becoming a
prey to sorrow are accordingly cut down. When the mind becomes perfectly pure
all evils and all sorrows automatically vanish. Keeping the mind even under all
circumstances is the means to gain in purity.
What appears as the world is verily the Divinit. Creating
relationship with It on this basis leads to the purification of mind. Poise and
pacidity are the characteristics of the purified mind. Atman, the Reality, gets
reflected best in it. Ultimately the pure mind itself gets merged in Atman.
SRI RAMAKRISHNA AS QUOTED BY SWAMI CHIDBHAVANANDA:
After curdling, the milk is to he kept undisturbed in one
place only so that it may coagulate into good curds. Change of place will have
adverse effect. Likewise mind is to be fixed on the Lord only for it to become
calm and divine.
COMMENTARY BY SWAMI SIVANANDA:
When the mental peace is attained, there is no hankering
after sense-objects. The yogi has perfect mastery over his reason. The
intellect abides in the Self. It is quite steady. The miseries of the body and
the mind come to an end.
Comments by the blogger:
Swami Chidbhavananda would often say that every being, every
animal wants bliss or ananda. That every
animal moves towards the ultimate ananda. This might be extended to mental
piece. A sleeping bear or monkey does not take kindly to being disturbed.
Dreamless sleep is the ultimate bliss every one enjoys every night at least for
an hour or two. That state is one of the four states: first is sleepless and
wakeful state. When you read this, you are fully awake. Second is sleep with
dream. Third stage is dreamless state. And the fourth state is not common to
all. It is the domain of the yogi described in the previous (64) verse. So,
wakefulness, dream and dreamless state or levels of consciousness are common to
all of us. The fourth state, the uninterrupted bliss or ananda is the
super-conscious state in which an aspirant attains the kind of peace and
tranquillity in which all pains are destroyed.
Ramana Maharishi would put a question as to why we seek
doctor’s help when we get head ache? The answer would simply be that in order
to get rid of the ache. But the Maharishi would answer, no, that is not the
full answer. The full answer is that we knew of the fact and our state when we
had no head ache! And we want to get back to that stage! Thus ananda or bliss
is our original stage, and that is why we all seek bliss in the way better
known to us! But the best way is to get right back to our original state of
consciousness in which we were one with God and full of everlasting peace!
When the mind becomes steady, even for a few hours, like
when we go on a tour and find ourselves in the lap of nature and rid of all
worldly worries, we can understand that bliss which will sustain us through the
tumult and din of the city life for another year! A mind that becomes steady
has the power of looking into the life of things. In his Ode on Tintern Abbey,
the poet Wordsworth revisits the Wye after a lapse of five long years. Once
again he hears the murmur of the Wye, and sees the steep and lofty cliffs, the
dark sycamore, the plots of cottage ground, the orchard with its unripe fruits,
the hedge-rows, the pastoral farms, and columns of smoke rising form among the
trees with a distant glimpse of the gipsy tents in the woods or of some
hermit’s cave. A long absence does not seem to have blotted out of his memory
these beautiful forms. these beautiful
shapes of Nature have bee a source of comfort to him, and have sustained him
during his exile amid the nose and bustle of towns and cities. They have acted
on him as a stimulus to kind and sympathetic deeds. They have also a profound
spiritual effect on him. He owes to them that exalted mood in which he can
perceive the reality above and beyond earthly things. In these moments of illumination, when all is wrapped in a state of joy
and harmony, he has an insight into the life of things.
If we think it is for the yogis, we can become Karma Yogis;
a karma yogi need not indulge in meditation. All he or she needs to do is to
carry out his self-ordained duty without expectation of the fruits thereof. We
can enter into the life of things. All the roads lead to Rome. And all the four
yogas, namely bhakti yoga or the yoga of devotion, karma yoga or the yoga of
action, Jnana yoga or the yoga Jnana and the Raja yoga, lead one individually
to the same Ultimate Reality so much so we become HIM!
Time hangs heavily on human hands, unlike the other species
belonging to the animal kingdom which are chiefly lead by instinct without much
consciousness about the time, and we have to spend the wakeful hours in some
way or other. There is no other alternative. For Arjuna his self ordained duty
as a kshatriya is to give battle and slay the opponents. For us our swadharma
may be reading, writing, working, scrubbing, washing or any of a hundred
activities. We have to indulge in them whether we like it or not. Giving
ourselves over sloth is a sin as much as giving up our hearts to the inner
Satan or craving for things and sensual pleasures. We have to carry our self
ordained duty in a way prescribed by the Lord in order to escape the obligation
of having to spend our daily wakeful hours.
But when we carry out our prescribed and self ordained duty
without expectation, the kind of tranquillity of mind and mental piece is
something that is simply priceless treasure! In this way we would be carried
toward the Lord, birth after birth, swiftly! That would be the release from all
the bondage. Everyone cannot be a great yogi performing meditation. But we can
be a yogi of devotion and yogi of action. That too would bring about the same
result!
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