THE HOLY YOGA, CHAPTER NUMBER 06, DHYANA YOGA OR THE YOGA OF MEDITATION, VERSE NUMBER 12

THE HOLY YOGA

Chapter number 06

DHYANA YOGA OR THE YOGA OF MEDITATION:

VERSE NUMBER 12

Text in Transliteration:

Tatrai ‘kaagram manah krtvaa yatachittendriyakriyah

Upvisyaa ‘sane yunjyaad yogam aatmavishddhaye.

Text in English:

 Sitting there on his seat, making the mind one-pointed and restraining the thinking faculty and the senses, he should practise yoga for self-purification.

COMMENTARY BY SWAMI SIDBHAVANANDA:

Mind loses its innate purity to the extent it contacts objects through the senses. It is very much like the rain water contacting the earth and becoming muddy. Suspending the senses and resting the mind in the Self is the only means to reclaim it to its original state. Like bathing and cleansing the body with water, mind has to be purified by repeatedly merging it in the Self. And this process is life-long. It is to be as obligatory as bathing and eating. The power and potentiality of the mind increases as it progresses in self-purification.

SRI RAMAKRISHNA AS QUOTED BY SWAMI SIDBHAVANANDA:

Milk gets easily mixed with water; but if it is churned into butter and put in water it floats maintaining its individuality, instead. Man’s mind that easily gets lost in the sense-objects has to be cultivated in devotion to the Lord in solitude. Worldly contact that comes subsequent to the development of devotion to the Lord causes no harm.

COMMENTARY BY DR.S.RADHAKRISHNAN:

Yoga here means dhyaana yoga, meditation. To realize truth, man must be delivered from the clutches of practical interests which are bound up with our exterior and material life. The chief condition is a disciplined disinterestedness. We must develop the power to see things as a free undistorted intelligence would see them. for this we must get ourselves out of the way.  When Pythagoras was questioned why he called himself a philosopher he gave the following story. He compared human life with the great festival at Olympia where all the world comes together in a motley crowd. Some are there to do business at the fair and enjoy themselves. Others wish to win the wreath in the contest and some others are merely spectators and these last are the philosophers. They keep themselves free from the urgencies of immediate problems and practical necessities. Shankara points out that the essential qualifications of a seeker of wisdom are a capacity to discriminate between the eternal and the non-eternal, detachment from the enjoyment of the fruits of action, terrestrial and celestial, self-control and an ardent desire for spiritual freedom. For Plato, the aim of all knowledge is to raise us to the contemplation of the idea of good, the source alike of being and knowing, and the ideal philosopher is one whose goal, at the end of a life lived to the full, “is always a life of quiet, of indrawn stillness, of solitude and aloofness, in which the world forgetting, by the world forgot, he finds his heaven in lonely contemplation of the ‘good’. That and that alone is really life” “Blessed are the pure in heart for they shall see God.” This purification of the heart chittasuddhi, is a matter of discipline. Plotinus tells us that, “wisdom is a condition in a being at rest.”  

COMMENTARY BY SWAMI SIVANANDA:

The self means the mind. The real Supreme Self is the Atma. This is primary (Mukhya). Mind also is the self. But this is used in a secondary sense (Gauna). Mukhya Atma is Brahman or the highest Self, Gauna Atma is the mind.

Make the mind one-pointed by collecting all its dissipated rays by the practice of Yoga. Withdraw it from all sense-objects again and again and try to fix it steadily on your Lakshya or point of meditation or centre. Gradually you will have concentration of the mind or one-pointedness. You must be very regular in your practice. Only then will you succeed. Regularity is of paramount importance. You should know the ways and habits of the mind through daily introspection, self-analysis or self-examination. You should have a knowledge of the laws of the mind. Then it will be easy for you to check the wandering mind. When you sit for meditation, and when you deliberately attempt to forget the worldly objects, all sorts of worldly thoughts will crop up in your mind and disturb your meditation. You will be quite astonished. Old thoughts that you entertained several years ago, and old memories of past enjoyments will bubble up and force the mind to wander in all directions. You will find that the trap-door of the vast subconscious mind is opened or the lid or the storehouse of thoughts within is lifted up and the thoughts gush out in a continuous stream. The more you attempt to still them, the more they will bubble yp with redoubled force and strength.

Be not discouraged. Nil desperandum. Never despair. Through regular and constant meditation you can purify the subconscious mind and its constant memories. The fire of meditation will burn all thoughts. Be sure of this. Meditation is a potent antidote to annihilate the poisonous worldly thoughts. Be assured of this.

Meditation on the immortal Self will act like a dynamite and blow up all thoughts and memories in the conscious mind. If the thoughts trouble you much, do not try to suppress them by force. Be a silent witness as in a bioscope. They will subside gradually. Then try to root them out through regular silent meditation.

During introspection you can clearly observe the rapid shifting of the mind from one line of thought to another. Herein lies a chance for you to mould the mind properly and and direct the the thoughts and mental energy in the divine channel. You can rearrange the thoughts and make new associations on a new Sattvic basis. You can throw out worldly and useless thoughts. Just as you remove the weeds and throw them out, you can throw these out, and you can cultivate sublime, divine thoughts in the divine garden of your mind. This is a very patient work. This is a stupendous task indeed. But for a Yogi of determination who has the grace of the Lord and an iron will it is nothing.

Calm the bubbling emotions, sentiments, instincts and impulses gradually through silent meditation. You can give a new orientation to your feelings by gradual and systematic practice. You can entirely transmute your worldly nature into divine nature. You can exercise supreme control over the nerve currents, muscles, the five sheaths (of the Self), emotions, impulses and instincts through meditation.

  

Comments by the irregular blogger:

When life started here on earth as one cell animals' senses were almost absent. But sense objects abounded the world. The air and water was pure. There were occasional sounds as when there was rain, tornado earthquake etc. But still one cell animals had the sense to proliferate, eat, drink and sleep. As the single cell animals wanted to enjoy these sense objects more and more there needed to be the senses of hearing, shouting, grunting etc. So as centuries passed, the single cell animals not only evolved into multi-cell animals, they also wanted to enjoy this world of sense objects more and more. More was the ambition to enjoy and greater multifarious became the power of senses! Then several centuries afterward the animals in the water bodies encroached upon the land. There were all sorts of flower and fauna in the millennial course of evolution. Ordinary Zebra tried and tried to eat the leaves of higher branches. So those zebras gave birth to cubs which had long necks even as their mothers. When they matured into adults their necks were double that of their mothers in length. Still these cubs now adults tried to eat leaves on higher and higher branches. These virtuous cycles continued till at one time the modern zebras evolved.

Not only the single cell animals came to have longer necks as zebra, birds had beaks the size of which was ruled according as the habitats and surroundings. Eagle the bird had developed longer curved talons as they were necessary to carry the prey and then tear open them and gut them and eat. Their beaks also evolved for that purpose.

Thus animals came to have highly developed senses so that they can enjoy this world full of sense objects. The snakes did not have ears but they developed a highly sensitive underbelly by which they can factor in the oncoming of both the preys and enemies. The bats did not have eyes but they learnt to fly by sending some rays forward and would fly till the rays go unchecked and once checked then there was an object so they could in a jiffy turn the direction. All these senses are pure matter of striving for and receiving. That is what we call evolution. The prakrity or nature would give whatever we ask of it continuously and studiously. So striving on the part of the original single cell animal became the ultimate Ape.  

Then, in the course of time, Man evolved with a very unique mind that is by far superior to all animals taken together!

He had five unique senses to enjoy the whole world.

But alas, since the bodily evolution is over when the ultimate modern Man evolved he could sing, speak, write poems and dramas and so on. There is no end to Man’s power to enjoy the nature with sense objects numberless.

But the same prakriti or Nature which gave the zebra its longish neck, the snake an ultra sensitive power, fox and dog an ultra sensitive power of smell, now says to Man TO UNLEARN WHATEVER HE HAD BEEN LEARNING FROM HIS TIME AS THE SINGLE CELL ANIMAL!

NOW, SELF-CONTROL IS ONE OF NOT, BUT THE ONLY IN THING.

MAN, THOU SHALT CONTROL YOURSELVES.

THAT IS WHY WORLDLINESS IS CALLED BY GREAT YOGIS AS POISONOUS!

TO BECOME A SLAVE TO ONE’S SENSES IS NOW A SIN!

AND THEN THERE IS AN ORIGINAL SIN TO WHICH ALL MANHOOD STANDS PRIVY ACCORDING TO THE HOLY BIBLE!

IT IS AS THOUGH MAN SHOULD UNLEARN EVERYTHING HE HAS BEEN LEARNING FROM THE DAYS OF THE SINGLE CELL DAYS.

UNLEARN!

DON’T DO THIS. DON’T DO THAT. DON’T INDULGE IN THAT OVERMUCH.

WHO SAYS?

HELLO, WHO SAYS ALL THESE THINGS?

WHY, THE NATURE! THE VERY NATURE WHICH ENCOURAGED THE ZEBRA TO DEVELOP LONGER NECKS, AND OTHER ANIMALS ALL THEY NEEDED TO EAT, DRINK, SLEEP AND PROCREATE QUITE INDULGENTLY, NOW SAYS THOU SHALL NOT DO THIS AND THAT!

The former editor-in-chief of the Tamil Weekly, Mr. Cho Ramasami famously said, the same father who at once encouraged his son to learn much so that he could earn much and make his life abundant, turns around when the son attains middle age that money is not the only thing in life. There are values of life and virtues of life more important than money and the power it gives. Give money to others. You yourself contemplate on God!

Nature is like that father. It encouraged endless variety of species to develop endless power to enjoy the earthly life. But when the ultimate animal comes around, the Nature turns around and says “unlearn almost all the worldliness you’ve learnt. Think of your Self. Now Self culture is the in thing. Grow abundantly in Self culture. Realise that you are not an animal. Don’t make a pig of yourselves. Think of the Maker of this Universe. He is within you. Thou art that. Learn it through yoga or dhyana or meditation.

Some ten thousand years ago when the Rig Vedic saints and then the Upanishadic saints sat in a place and turned their attention inward they realized that the animal life and life style is over, now is the mind culture or self culture starting to take the predominate place. Once you realise yourself then you would find this world is only a school for teaching Age after Age how to enjoy this world and then graduate from that and how to enjoy your own Self.

That is why yogis call the worldliness as poisonous. And ask us to turn toward Godliness!

Because now is the time for the evolution of Man in His Mind and become one with His Maker!