THE HOLY GITA
CHAPTER NUMBER 06
DHYANA YOGA OR THE YOGA OF MEDITATION:
VERSE NUMBERS 24 and 25
Verse 24
Text in Transliteration:
samkalpa prabhavaan kaamaams tyaktvaa sarvaan aseshatah
manasai ‘ve ‘ndriya graamam viniyamya samanatatah
Text in English:
Abandoning without reserve all desires born of sankalpa, and curbing in, by the mind, all the senses from all sides;
Verse 25
Text in Transliteration:
sanaih-sanair uparamed buddhyaa dhrtigrheetayaa
aatmasamstham manah krivaa na kimchid api cintayet
Text in English:
With his intellect set in firmness let him attain quietude little by little; with the mind fixed on the Self let him not think of anything.
For verse 24 COMMENTARY BY SIDBHAVANANDA:
The formative thought lurking in the mind is sankalpa. It is this seed of sanalpa that sprouts and grows into the plant of desire. The desire that is like a spark today is capable of developing into a conflagration tomorrow. It is therefore to be entirely eliminated with the weapons of discrimination and dispassion. The senses are safe only when freed from desire.
SRI RAMAKRISHNA AS QUOTED BY SWAMI SIDBHAVANANDA:
However carefully a man may move about in a room full of soot, his clothes are bound to be stained a little at least. In the same way he who lives in the midst of sense-objects is bound to be tainted with a trace of at least of lust.
Verse 25
Text in Transliteration:
Sanaih-sanair uparamed buddhyaa dhrtigrahitayaa
Aamasamstham manah krivaa na mikchid api chintayet
Text in English:
With his intellect set in firmness let him attain quietude little by little; with the mind fixed on the Self let him not think of anything.
Dhrti or firmness is a virtue born of disciplined life. Some are smart enough to distinguish academically between the permanent and the impermanent. But in the day to day life they are slaves to the impermanent sense-pleasure. As mind gets fixed in the self, it ceases to deviate into sense-indulgence. Constant thought of the Lord excludes all other thoughts from the mind.
SRI RAMAKRISHNA:
Mind is the main factor in you. As is your mind, so are you. It may be compared to a washed white cloth which is capable of taking any dye dipped in. When you have learnt a new language you cannot help uttering a few words from it in your conversation. Contact with the undesirables contaminates the mind. Holy company on the other hand elevates it.
COMMENTARY BY SWAMI SIVANANDA:
Without reserve: The mind is so diplomatic that it keeps certain desires for its secret gratification. Therefore you should completely abandon all desires without reservation.
Desire is born of imagination (sankalpa). Therefore destroy the Sankalpa first. If the imagination is annihilated first then the desires will die by themselves. Mark here! All the senses must be controlled from all sides by the mind. Even if one sense is turbulent in one direction it will distract the mind often and often. The senses will be absorbed in the mind by the constant practice of abstraction (Pratyahara). Then the mind will not think of the objects of sense-pleasure and will become perfectly calm.
That mind which is endowed with a strong discrimination and dispassion will be able to control the ground (or group) of the senses from their objects in all directions. Therefore cultivate strong Viveka or discrimination between the Real and the unreal and also Vairagya or total dispassion for sensual pleasures.
For verse 25
The practitioner of yoga should attain tranquillity gradually or by degrees by means of the controlled by steadiness. The peace of the Eternal will fill the heart gradually with thrill and bliss through the constant and protracted practice of steady concentration. He should make the mind constantly abide in the Self within through ceaseless practice of steady concentration. He should make the mind constantly abide in the Self within through ceaseless practice. If anyone constantly thinks of the immortal Self within, the mind will cease to think of the objects of sense-pleasure. The mental energy should be directed along the spiritual channel by Atma-chintana or constant contemplation on the Self.
Comments by the blogger:
The Lords words in verse 24 that all the senses should be curbed in from all sides call back to mind Arjuna’s prayer while The Lord shows his viswarupa or Cosmic Sight and Arjuna begs the Lord piteously in these words, “Salutations to thee from the front, salutations to thee from the back, salutations to thee from all sides!” Such was Arjuna’s fright at the sight of the Lord’s Cosmic Form. And such is the care with which the Lord in verse 24 exhorts Arjuna to curb in all the senses from all the sides! Because this world is a Maya or Illusion and the Lord Himself elsewhere in Gita describes the illusion as “mama maya” that is, my maya or my illusion. The illusion consists in our senses constantly going toward the sense object with which the world abounds. Thus it is clear that even for the well-disciplined yogi has to be on his constant guard and curb always in all the senses from all the sides. Lord Shiva is a great yogi. He is called the Adhi Yogi or the First Yogi. He is great curbing all the senses from all the sides. To show this he appears with a deer held safely under his left arm! The deer here stands for the run-away senses. Such is the power the Yogi of constant self-discipline should have over the senses. Sankalpa is the thought or imagination and when we just imagine about a beautiful form even without us ever knowing our mind has a tendency to file it away for future use! Thus just a wayward sankalpa has a tendency to strike invisible roots in the mind and having grown in strength without the owner of the mind knowing anything about it at one point when it had come to have an overmastering power over the mind for the satiation of that sankalpa thus wasting away all the Sadhana or Pratice in self-disciplining over the years by the Practitioner.
In verse 25 the Lord exhorts the Practitioner to attain quietude little by little with his intellect having been set in firmness because attaining the stage of complete quietude is not feasible even for the trained and tried Practitioner! The mental energy is like the electric energy or electricity. We all know the electricity should continue to flow and there’s no way of containing it so that it becomes static even for a period of a split second. Thus electricity cannot be considered as a commodity which can be transported by other means of transport like trucks as in the case of other things. Electricity must be flowing continuously and always. That is why we have to incur colossal transmission loss when electricity is transferred from grid to grid. Mental energy also cannot be contained and made static. And indeed mental energy is by far greater in speed and other properties than the electric energy. So, like electric energy is contained inside of a battery cell, mental energy also should be made to attain quietude in the sense that it must be channelized toward Self and God. When mental energy in totality is made to flow toward God then the Practitioner is said to have overmastered it and attained the QUIETUDE THE LORD SPEAKS OF. THE QUIETUDE SPOKEN IS IN RELATION TO THE CHANGING OF CHANEL, THAT IS, TURNING THE FLOWING TOWARD THE SENSE OBJECTS AND CHANNELIZING THE SAME TOWARD THE ULTIMATE MAKER OF OURS. The Lord says “with the mind fixed on the Self let him not think of anything.” This means let him channelize the mind’s energy fixedly on the Self let him not think of anything MUNDANE. When the Practitioner attains to the level of thinking of his Self-possession, no other possession and enjoyment would make any claim over the mind of the Practitioner. Of all possessions, Self-Possession is the ultimate and undying one and it also brings to the Practitioner the freedom from having to come back to the plane of the Earth again!
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