Bhagavad Gita is an emergent dialogue that transpired in the battlefield. War-field verily is not the place for any deep moral, ethical or philosophical discussion. Nor would there normally be a charioteer, who can fulfill the role of a great spiritual guide and teacher. Generally the charioteer (sarathi) is expected to build up, preserve and enhance the warring spirit of the Master of the chariot (rathi). This role is restricted to maneuvering the chariot to face as well as evade enemies effectively, and give timely suggestions and clues to the Master for intensifying his offence and defence alike; in short, to actively protect and support the Master in all possible ways.
But here the situation was a stunning contrast. However, as was the demand so was its fulfillment. The great Krishna consented without any reservation, to be Arjuna’s charioteer; but the role proved to be quite different and unprecedented right from the start. Krishna had to hold the reins of Arjuna’s mind and spirits more than the reins of the horses. For, a deeper, greater war suddenly began to rage within the warrior, where the adversary as well as the defender both was himself. Is this not what Krishna pointed out in verse 6.6 earlier? “One has to make his own mind a friend, or else it will stand as enemy.”
Bhagavad Gita – a book of sadhana
In such an exceptional dialogue, how can Krishna keep to mere conventional notes? In a discussion on the mind and its afflictions, Krishna cannot avoid exploring the whole psyche of man and reveal the vast potential the mind holds within it. Meditation thus finds an inevitable place in the discussion, because it is finally through this inner voyage alone that all human pursuits find their meaning and purpose.You may wonder whether this kind of philosophical probing and rendering of the mind part of the fighter has any realism or relevance, or it is merely imaginary. The question should be taken up, sooner or later, and answer found in all earnestness.
War too is an act, like so many others in human life. As are the other activities subject to a sustainable rhythm, order and viability, fighting too must conform to the same spirit and harmony. Otherwise, the warrior in him will get destabilized, dislodged internally. Physical destruction is not everything and all; mental downfall is even graver!
As the Kurukshetra war progressed, many a crucial, unnerving as well as revealing episodes came to pass. Each of them held great lessons on the constitution and behaviour of human personality. Human life is both individualistic and social. The social, interactional part of behaviour cannot be divorced from its personal individual part. Morality, ethics, and order thus enfold and apply to both.
The first verse of Bhagavad Gita is thus a forerunner to the whole discussion that followed. What did Dhritarashtra enquire? “In the dhaarmik battlefield of Kurukshetra, what did my sons and the Pandavas do?” Remember that Sanjaya came running to the King on the 10th day of the battle to break the stunning news that Bheeshma had fallen from his chariot, hit by Arjuna’s arrows.
Sanjaya’s words totally unnerved Dhritarashtra. Assailed to the core, he raises an array of questions, displaying affliction, dejection, and bewilderment. He doubts the very power of morality and hazards to say that immorality has overpowered morality. In the background of such doubts, he asks Sanjaya whether he knew of any discussion or episode concerning morality, witnessed in Kurukshetra before the war actually started.
What does this mean? Even in the midst of war, the mind can be assailed by deep questions. When this takes place, no committed fighter can remain content with mere physical war thoughts and considerations. His mind will crave for something deeper to find its relief, assurance and refuge.
Bhagavad Gita did not thus become a philosophical and spiritual gospel for no reason. Its sole aim was to set right the enfeebled mind and declining spirits of Arjuna.
Arjuna’s crisis is not anything superficial. As commanded, Krishna positioned Arjuna’s chariot between the confronting armies, but right in front of the grandfather and the preceptor. To go ahead with the battle would be to pierce these venerable elders with sharpest of arrows. Arjuna felt that it would be far graver than a bodily injury.
Before thinking about the treachery further, his mind was hurt to the core. His intelligence was confronted. The physical war yet to begin, the mental battle was already raging, where the confronted and the confronter both lay within himself.
This personal, subjective war was a greater reality for him than the other war to follow. Krishna was dealing with this first event of Kurukshetra, before steering through the next one, commencement of which was now at stake, as Arjuna, the main fighter, stood undecided and retreating.
The confusion and weakness had to be removed: “How can I get to killing these venerable men? Where can I hide the mountainous sin accruing from such a treachery? An act physically done is gone. But it gains a strong place in the mind, refusing to be ousted from there. How can I contend the mental impact of this ghastly assault on my grandfather and teacher?” Arjuna’s torment is unparallelled. Krishna employs the best of arrows to contend the inimical notes in Arjuna’s mind:
“In the core of one’s being, deep inside the consciousness, reigns the sphere of Soul, one’s unchanging identity. There the question of either killing or getting killed can never arise: Nayam hanti na hanyate (2.19).”
Arjuna instantly began to reflect upon the truths of man’s personality from this new angle.
Is this pronouncement about the centre of one’s being merely conceptual, or is it definitely something more? Krishna unmistakably says that it is first a concept, then a comprehension, and thereupon a concise finding and realization. He explained the first two, and now wants to follow up the third. Every aspect in the dialogue is thus fact, truth and experience. Bhagavad Gita is a book of sadhana, not alone one of theory or exposition. In stepping into the third phase (namely, realization), can Krishna avoid referring to meditation and the benefits it brings?
Meditation – a means for realization
There is the Self in one’s being. It is to be experienced, realized. There is a way for it. It is within the reach of mind and intelligence. The question is merely of employing these inner instruments in a subtle manner, whereby they will get trained and attuned to the internal Subject perception. This practice or effort of tuning the mind and intelligence for Subject perception is verily called meditation.
Krishna, as he does with any subject of discussion, deals with meditation too in a distinguished manner. The exercise called meditation has, he says, two distinct stages. The first is linked with physical discipline, wherein a pose or asana and the like come in. But actual meditation has its bearing only on the mind and intelligence. It is the intelligence that holds the power to check the mind – enrich, empower and sublimate it.
Mostly seekers are not ripe enough to take to the solely mental discipline. They therefore need some physical, bodily, help and assistance. Recognizing this, Krishna first describes the asana-based meditation.
Meditation can and should be a full-fold pursuit (yogi yunjita satatam), says Krishna in verse 6.10. It is like pursuing any worldly goal – material or external. In meditation, the goal is internal, spiritual. But the one who pursues it is the same. Do not forget this fundamental point.
Krishna has two points to emphasize: One is the need for solitude. The next is that of being alone in doing the practice. The goal to be reached lies within oneself. Naturally the effort to reach there does not call for any collectivity or group effort. The yoga-seeker should engage his mind and intelligence in meditation, sitting all alone.
Solitude implies freedom or insulation from the intensity of activities. As mentioned earlier, if a room in one’s own house can be made quiet, that would suffice. These are days when even soundproof facilities can be made wherever needed. But only when solitude is taken to its zenith, woods and caves become the natural choice. The more earnest seekers, for this reason, make it a practice to take to forest life as a congenial step for pursuing spiritual life.
In such solitude, sit alone, says Krishna. He wants a special seat (asana) to be prepared exclusively for meditation. Such a holy seat will, by the law of association, help the practitioner get absorbed. Krishna strikes a traditionally ascetic note in laying out the asana (6-11):
Spread kusa grass first (a good protection against dampness and white ants), then a deer skin on it, and cover both with a piece of cloth. It becomes an indigenous seat for dhyana. Kusa grass is a ceremonial constituent of rituals. As part of the seat, it gives sufficient cushioning to sit on the bare earth or floor.
Why is the skin, particularly deer-skin, brought into the picture at all? Is such a skin part of ascetic life? Does not use of any skin imply killing? Will ascetic life support killing?
Two kinds of skin have come to be associated with asceticism – the tiger’s and the deer’s. They imply a grave contrast: the cruel and the gentle. Deer-skin can be regarded as harmonious with ascetic thoughts because of the gentleness and harmlessness it represents. Ascetics have to imbibe these qualities to the maximum. But what relevance does the cruel tiger, its skin, have for ascetics? Both are wild animals, hosted by the same forests. Does this not point to some great truth?
To be an ascetic is to be an object for varied treatment in the hands of others. Despite his harmless life, the ascetic may still be ridiculed, hated and attacked by some. His task is to assimilate the conflicting notes of all, in the very creation itself. The tiger or deer skin acts as a very powerful reminder to cultivate a broad and assimilative mind.
The one constant object of meditation is to bring purity and all-fold expansion to the mind. This expansion surely implies the readiness to accept and accommodate utterly conflicting tendencies of humans as well as other creatures.
One can at best purify himself, but he cannot dictate all else to do so. To become pure and at the same time be enlightened and integrated to withstand and assimilate the impurity of the world around, is the true spiritual goal. Krishna and Bhagavad Gita do not relent in driving home this infallible message.
The asana, Krishna says, must not be either too high or too low. The height should be moderate, harmonious with the needs as well as the surroundings. The principle of moderation, the conspicuous message of Krishna, finds place here also. By all these disciplines, the mind gets the benefit, as it should be.
The next focus is on posture. For this, the mind has to focus on the upper part of the body to make it straight, something that we are not generally given to. To meditate is to employ the mind assiduously on the objective we set. By focusing it first on making the body sit erect, Krishna makes us accomplish a measure of meditational purpose.
Krishna then gives a discipline to the eyes, which are the most sensitive and active of all our senses (6.13). From the moment we wake up from sleep, our eyes are always engaged till we sink in sleep again. As long as the eyes remain open, seeing will continue and controlling the mind will be difficult. To close the eyes is not a common habit. Many may find it difficult too. Krishna cleverly treats this hardship. “Keep the eyes open,” he says, “but look at the lower or upper end of the nose”.
In both cases nothing will be seen, as both the points will not fulfill the requirement of the least distance for distinct vision. To make doubly sure that seeing is fully avoided, Krishna adds that no attempt should be made to look in any direction at all. How clever a way of disallowing all kinds of vision, yet keeping the eyes open!
Subtler aspects of meditation
With this, the physical part of meditational setting is over. The focus must now be to restrain and refine the mind functions (6.14). For that, the best will be to think of God or the Guru, who exposes the why and how of meditation, and describes the supreme goal of the whole pursuit. That will give the right inspiration and commitment. Meditation is a very personal subtle effort of the mind on the mind’s own functions.
“Drop all fear,” says Krishna. This is important. Meditation is the most holy, sublime and self-strengthening pursuit, to prevent as well as redress all kinds of insufficiencies and torments. But fear assails many when it comes to looking at their own mind to study its working.
Does anyone fear to go to sleep, though sleep robs his awareness? Sleep is verily a short-term death. Unconsciousness is another condition, infrequent though. After both conditions, the mind comes back to be active and alive. Why then fear to meditate and get into the supramental state, if at all?Fear comes because of unfamiliarity, and a sense of loss. Both are uncalled for. In a world where even stark immoralists, dacoits and others live and survive, why should one striving to realize Truth or attain purity ever think of anything adverse at all? This assurance must be sufficiently felt. It should instill the right confidence.
Brahmacarivrate sthitah: This is another stipulation of Krishna. It should make anyone think deeply. Many interpret this to give a wrong stress and relevance.
Religious life is generally based upon rituals and ritualistic disciplines and performances. In meditational pursuit, no such external relevance or linkage is there. Can such a self-based practice be sufficient to substitute, replace or transcend the worth of conventional religious practices? Or will it bring a religious vacuum in the seeker? What happens to all the gods or godly abodes, the mind was given to lean upon earlier? Is the hold of religiosity in the mind a sheer delusion or weakness?
Krishna says that this meditational practice tops all religious practices, as it incorporates brahmacarivrata. Vrata is anushthana, religious practice. In meditation, the effort is to abide in Brahman, Brahma-cintana. In place of external props and refuge, the seeker contemplates upon the inmost essence of the very existence, the Self or Brahman. To abide in that is to abide in Brahman. The mind should dwell on the atma or Brahman. Such dwelling should become a full-fold practice. Abiding in the thoughts of Brahman must itself be the exclusive vrata or pursuit.
If one persists in this self-subsisting, self-sublimating, self-fulfilling effort of meditation, then indeed will he attain to the peace resulting from deep, inner release. Krishna uses the word nirvana for this release. It emerges from God. Being so, does it not mean the best of all religious rewards and fruition?
In a sense, all other joys are born of the contact with the five elements and their modifications. But this inner one results only from the sixth factor, the Consciousness Absolute. It is the one that emerges independently from oneself. When derived, the seeker will know it himself. It is quite distinct and self-revealing.
The first phase of the meditational description is over. Krishna then takes up the next phase, where the whole effort is made without taking recourse to any physical discipline.
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(From the Series Essential Concepts In Bhagavad Gita -Volume 3)