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Gurupoornima 2015
Harih Om Tat Sat. Jai Guru.
I was speaking to you yesterday that by virtue of noble and holy actions, activities, the sinful elements in one’s own personality particularly the mento-intellectual part of your being, it gets purified, edified, it becomes holier and holier. It is at that time that one is able to think of God without any kind of a break, any kind of an anxiety, any kind of a fear or doubt. The thought of God, devotion to him becomes undisturbed. Not only that, it starts producing a great lot of delight for you.
We understand that delight comes from within the mind. We think that delights are caused by the external objects. No object ever enters into our inner system to give us an experience or joy. Whatever you see, whatever you hear, whatever you taste, all these are purely external. They are objects but the joy is emotional and inner and the author and the source of this joy is always the mind, nothing else.
The mind alone produces joy even with your external interactions seemingly from the external objects. I see a good flower outside and I feel joy. The flower doesn’t enter my heart but I feel joy. As is the seeing within me, so is the joy production also within me. I would like you to understand this.
Now in Bhagavad Gita you will find that there is only one pursuit, one practice, one focus and that is what Krishna calls “yoga”. He defines this yoga when he introduced it or introduces it in the second chapter.
This is the one definition right from the beginning. Samatva is yoga. Normally yoga is understood to be one thing getting united with the other. Krishna says, “No, it is not. It is only a kind of evenness, equalness, evenness, equalness. The harmony and integration that you feel as a result, that is called yoga.” And where is this integrational or harmonizational process going on? Only in your mind. Whenever we speak of samatva, evenness, it is always towards two things which are uneven. What are the uneven elements? That is what he called dvandva-moha, icchā-dveṣa. You will find words like kāma and krodha, icchā and dveṣa, rāga and dveṣa. And in the external representations of these in the form of what?
He uses three sets of pairs of opposites. Sukha-duḥkhe. Sukha and duḥkha – inner mental responses to all the stimuli that take place in the sensory level. These sukha-duḥkhas are the mind resultants, mental resultants of all the interactions and interactional impacts that you have. Now develop an even attitude towards sukha and duḥkha. Without duḥkha there is no sukha and without sukha there is no duḥkha. Each is a complement to the other. One is mutual with the other. Either they both will be or they both cannot be. So you cannot choose between the two. If you choose, you are a fool. That’s all. So develop an even attitude towards sukha-duḥkhas.
In the same manner, lābhā-alābhau, jayā-ajayaou. Lābhā and alābhā , gain and loss, profit and loss, that is referring to an external activity or an interaction. Similarly, jayājayau, victory and defeat. When we say victory and defeat, they are references to external outcomes. Lābhā-alābhā, external outcome. Lābhā-alābhau, jayājayau, though they are external outcomes, in the mind level they produce uniformly only sukha and duḥkha.
So how many things you have to evenize? Only sukha-duḥkhas. And all the pairs of opposites in this world either in the form of people or in the form of events or in the form of concepts, imaginations, anything whatsoever, in the experiential level they give rise to only sukha-duḥkhas and they become only two. When you are able to develop this evenness, not unitedness, evenness, this evenness is called yoga. Just see?
“If you adopt this even attitude and governed by that, pursuing that, enriched by that, you fight this war. Let your grandfather stand on the opposite camp, the teacher also, Kripāchārya also, Shalya also. So many relatives and the others, let them all stand and fight from the opposite side. No sin will even accrue to you because sin and virtue also are a dvandva. When you have an even attitude towards sukha-duḥkhas, that attitude will look after all the dvandva multiples, whether they are sensory, objective, material, interactional, born out of various outcomes, the principle is the same, the practice is the same, the perfection is the same!” This is what he says.
Now you will find, this samatva alone is discussed throughout Bhagavad Gita. Tomorrow I will pick up one other verse and then show you how the same samatva incorporates everything about spirituality and spiritual sadhana and when your mind is able to accomplish and preserve this inner evenness, you will find you will have a life of fulfillment, spiritual fulfillment and spiritual crowning.
Harih Om Tat Sat. Jai Guru.