The Role of Moderation in Meditational Sadhana
In dealing with the second aspect of meditation, which is solely a mind-intelligence-based pursuit, Krishna again stresses the importance of moderation. Spiritual meditation will become meaningful and fruitful only when samatva is ingrained in the sadhaka.
The yoga will be of no avail to one who eats too much or too little, or who sleeps too much or too little. For one who is moderate in taking food and recreations, in activities and rest, the yoga becomes means for removing pain or misery.
The practice of yoga and meditation will not be possible and fruitful if the sadhaka indulges either in excessive eating or in undue starvation. Likewise, it will not be effective in the case of one given to excessive sleep or wakefulness. The yoga practitioner has to be moderate and balanced both in enjoyment and self-denial. Only then the yoga practice will become effective and it will alleviate grief.
Meditation is not to be considered as an exclusive practice independent of other activities of life. It must be viewed as an integral part of one’s life. No part of seeker’s life or activity should be isolated from the sublimity and refinement that meditation aims at. The non-meditational life should become a supplement and complement to meditation, and vice versa.
In as much as gluttony is bad, Krishna says that any gross deprivation of the need to appease hunger by under-eating in the name of spirituality, is also harmful and unproductive. In fact, it is due to thorough misunderstanding and misinterpretation of facts and truths that undue fasting or starvation is considered by some as an essential limb of sadhana. Instead of resorting to any such excesses or denials in the name of yoga, what the true seeker must care for is to bring about a comprehensive discipline and moderation in all his activities and interactions.
Yoga-pursuit and discipline should not be an impulsive or a half-hearted effort. In eating, talking, thinking, feeling, evaluating – in every act, internal or external – the discipline and refinement should be one of moderation and sublimity. Only then yoga-pursuit will have a wholesome and lasting effect.
As about eating, there is a great deal of confusion about sleeping also. Sleep is a regular need of the body. It is in restful sleep that the body builds up its cells and energy. Krishna says that one should become moderate in sleeping as well as waking. Depriving oneself of essential sleep in the name of yoga and austerity, is neither necessary nor desirable. There are some who, misunderstanding the whole purport of yoga and the means of approaching the mind and Self, take to extreme austerities like abandoning sleep, lying on bare ground under scorching sun, or bearing the icy cold weather without covering the body.
Krishna says that true austerity consists in taming all these extreme traits, and cultivating a refined, moderate personality. Given to the practice of moderation, the mind will beget a note of sublimity, which in a way is the sole aim of all spiritual pursuits.
Krishna’s words should be taken as a timely guidance and clarification. Yoga-pursuit commences with the adoption of moderation, refinement and sublimation, and it courses only through greater and greater degrees of these virtues. Moderation alone will make yoga practice comfortable, delightful and fulfilling. Then the yoga will be the means to remove pain – “yogo bhavati duhkhaha”.
Desires – the Last Hurdle
The mind, enriched and empowered by the sublimity of moderation, becomes fit to get absorbed into the Self. The only other spiritual embellishment it needs is sublimation of desires. That comes from deep introspection over the futility of desiring and realizing how the luminous Self alone is sufficient to provide all the contentment and fulfillment one looks for from external possessions.
Krishna stresses this point, as part of his exposition on meditation:
When the well-regulated mind spontaneously begins to rest upon the Self, being indifferent to all desires and desirable possessions, then indeed does the practitioner become integrated and fulfilled in yoga-sadhana.
When the mind, treated with moderation as a wholesome discipline and sublimity, freed of the hold of desires and expectations, begins to rest upon itself, the Self, one becomes a Yogi – spiritually integrated. Desires and lack of moderation are the only hindering notes in attaining Self-absorption and Self-vision.
Profundity of the Self-state
The mind resting upon the Self is such a comprehensive and ultimate spiritual state that it leaves nothing more to be sought or gained. Krishna explains how full such an inward steadiness and restfulness is:
Just as a lamp placed in a windless place, has an unflickering flame, the disciplined mind of a yogi remains firm, still and poised.
This statement is immensely profound to be treated casually. The life in the world, given as it is to a variety of activities, always destabilizes the mind, making it desultory and distracted. If this plight is to be redressed, the pursuit of yoga is the only means.
In the next two verses Krishna pictures how great, redeeming and fulfilling such an inwardly absorbed state of the yogic mind is:
When the mind is restrained and sublimated by yoga-sadhana, particularly by this kind of meditative absorptional effort, the seeker will reach a state in which he will derive the perception of the Self. That perception, involving nothing second, external or otherwise, will be by him of himself. It is not a sensory perception wherein the perceiving senses apprehend the perceivable object, implying in the process a clear distinction and distance between the two – the perceiver and the perceived. Here it is a process of the mind seeing itself, the meditator perceiving himself.
Krishna says that such an inward perception is inaccessible to the senses, because it is not of something away from them, as the world objects are. Though inaccessible to the senses, it is fully palpable to the intelligence, buddhi. When this inmost perception is gained and the delight arising there from is experienced, the mind and intelligence become contented and stable. This possession is an exclusive enrichment, which can never be robbed by anything or anyone. All external possessions are transitory and can be robbed, but this cannot be. Being his own closest within, nay himself, the seeker does not fall from it, nor does he get distanced from it, come what may.
The unswerving state of the mind and intelligence is itself the pinnacle and fulfillment of yoga. This is a point Krishna emphasized in the second chapter itself (verse 53). Seekers often miss this fact and consider yoga to be some special mystic supra-mental state with supernatural powers like levitation etc. Any such abnormality or eccentricity, however strange and mystic it may seem to be, is not at all the gift or blessing of true yoga-sadhana.
The Right Understanding of Sadhana
Sadhana relates to mind, intelligence and senses. It is a process of discipline, refinement and purification, ridding the mind of all its cravings, undue indulgences and fascinations. There is no place for any abnormal expressions in true spiritual life and pursuit.
Can this kind of mental and intelligential steadiness or composure have the most delightful and fulfilling note? Krishna categorically answers this point:
Having gained which, one considers nothing else as superior to it; established in which, one is not perturbed by even the most severe affliction.
This inward poise and stability is such a fulfilling attainment that it leaves no room for aspiring anything further. No other gain, external or internal, can match the fullness and excellence it breathes. On getting to this state, the seeker’s mind will be so full that nothing else will allure it. All desires for external objects, all allurements, lose their charm and significance. What further?
Krishna adds: “On achieving this inner poise, even the worst of afflictions or adversities will not shake the mind. The yogi will not be ruffled by anything whatsoever.”
Imagine Krishna himself instrumenting the destruction of his own race, the Vrshni-kula, and as a concluding note of it, ending his own life hit by a dart discharged by a hunter. He was waiting for this fateful moment, sitting upon a tree. What was the extent of self-denial and self-infliction in Sri Rama’s life? Not to be afflicted or affected by any such plight, says Krishna, is the gift of true yogic enrichment.
What constitutes true spiritual attainment has the best and final answer with abundant clarity in this verse. Seekers should learn this verse, ruminate over its content and remind others about it as effectively as possible, so that their sadhana is rightly guided and safeguarded at every stage. Yoga does not denote anything mystic or astral. It is truly related to the character and behaviour of the mind, involving its regular interactions.
Krishna then stresses (6.23) that such yoga, which he describes as duhkha-samyoga-viyoga (free from the contact of duhkha) should be pursued tenaciously, unflinchingly (anirvinna-cetasa) at all times. Earlier in the second chapter, he said by way of preface, that in the yoga practice, vyavasayatmika buddhih is what counts supreme. It means, the intelligence should remain resolute and unswerving at any cost. Again while concluding the 2nd chapter, he described the Yogi as a sthita-prajna and sthita-dhee, as one of stable-mind and stable-intellect. Is not then to make the mind stable, contented and fulfilled, the sole aim of yoga?
This point should not be missed. The whole process of meditation involves only the conscious constituents in the seeker, namely his mind and intelligence. Generally people think of the meditational efforts giving stress on asana, pranayama etc. But, reflection upon true spiritual wisdom and its assiduous pursuit are themselves sufficient to lead the seeker to meditation.
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(From the Series Essential Concepts In Bhagavad Gita - Volume 3)
