| Listen to Prabhaata-rashmih Audio |
Harih Om Tat Sat. Harih Om Tat Sat. Jai Guru. Jai Guru.
After listening to me, I would like all of you to tell me that you have understood it and then what you feel about this spiritual life, spiritual path and spiritual sādhanā. I have been explaining this for many many years but I don’t think people have understood it. If they have understood it, they will adopt it and they will also speak to others what they find about it.
Arjuna came to the Kurukshetra battlefield after thirteen years of austerity or austere life and also expectation that the war would be on and he would fight the war and succeed in it. It is such an Arjuna who totally crumbled in the battlefield on examining the army and finding that his own kith and kin are arrayed in both the armies and his grandfather for whom he had no enmity and grandfather who had no enmity for him, the same applies to his teacher and even some of the others. They were also there present for him to fight with. On seeing that this was so, he was not able to proceed further and he completely crumbled and started speaking quite a lot of things, finally to say that “I shall not fight; I will retreat from the battle”.
I think you will all agree that Arjuna had reached a very acute level of crisis in his mind unable to do what he wanted to do, what he was preparing himself to do for thirteen years. Then Krishna disapproved of his reaction and decision and started speaking his point of view and assessment. Arjuna on hearing very few words from Krishna in the way of an exhortation, left his sorrow and sympathy to a very large extent but said that, “I have some moral questions and resistance which you should resolve for me”. That is how the conversation began and continued.
As the dialogue progressed, it not merely became a mere war dialogue; it became a much more broad-based life dialogue, interaction dialogue and various elements of spirituality, ethics, morality, philosophy, yoga and other items were included in it. That is how it became a seven-hundred verse dialogue. But all through, Arjuna participated in the dialogue raising questions and expressing his reactions. In that way, it was a very vibrant and instantly effective dialogue. In the ninth chapter Krishna says:
He was describing this yoga practice. It is actually a mento-intellectual practice, ‘samatva buddhi yoga’ you can say. That yoga practice, Krishna says it is: ‘rāja-vidyā rāja-guhyaṁ pavitram-idam-uttamam, pratyakṣāvagamaṁ dharmyaṁ su-sukhaṁ kartum-avyayam’. This is actually a knowledge which the King sitting on the throne had to possess and they possessed. So it is not dissociated with life. It is associated with the most vibrant and challenging administrative life to ensure peace and welfare for the subjects of a kingdom or a country.
Rāja-guhyaṁ : At the same time it is actually a secret, you can say a Kingly secret. A secret held by the King is very very difficult to extract. Or you can say, of all the secrets it is a royal secret to prove its elegance and rarity.
He then says it is pavitram uttamam. This is a very good purifier and the best and the most effective. One given to this samatva buddhi yoga will be able to apply it, practice it and find the beneficial effects. So it is experiential. It is called pratyakṣāvagamaṁ dharmyaṁ. Once you start taking up and practicing this yoga, samatva buddhi yoga, then you don’t have to observe or heed or follow any other dhārmic injunctions, no not necessary. This itself is a full practice, dharmyam.
The next words are su-sukhaṁ kartum-avyayam. Su-sukhaṁ kartum: it is very pleasant to practice. Now this is what I want to tell you. And then tell me whether you have understood it and you find this practice pleasant or not. Why is it pleasant? It is pleasant because as it happened in the case of Arjuna, it takes away and resolves your sorrow. It removes all kinds of resistance and reservation from your mind. It takes away your ignorance and delusion. Every effect of it is very salutary and sublime.
When you have a doubt and the doubt is cleared, will you not know that you have clarity? Once you know that you have clarity, how happy you will be! It will be like the full moon shining in the sky. That clarity will start shining in your inside like a full moon. Because it takes away the resistance, constriction, load, heaviness, stress, strain etc. it is very very pleasant.
Then another important point is that this is not a practice that requires a very special time and circumstances. If you have some time to sit alone and meditate, well and good. But we are not speaking about it. You must be able to practice this along with your activity and interaction. It is a practice linked to interaction and it is meant to take away the tension, heaviness, doubt and oscillation about your active life. Even if you have an inch of benefit, that benefit makes you relaxed and comfortable. If you are cured of a disease, does it not make you healthy and comfortable?
To practice it is comfortable. If that is so, you tell me, why should people not take it up? What happens to those who take up this practice and pursue it? Are they finding it comfortable? Actually, the tense nature of your mind is removed, redressed. The intelligence has got enough of material to think and reflect upon. So it is a very big opportunity for the intelligence. Whatever negative or disturbing elements or characteristics you have at present for your life of interaction, all of them will be treated and removed and resolved by this sādhanā. Such a sādhanā, how dare you say that it is difficult? So what I want you to do today is do you agree with this, that it is comfortable to practice, it is very pleasant to pursue?
Suppose you lose your weight, you have excess weight, when you lose it, are you not comfortable? This pleasant practice is a concept that you should think about, understand, accept and feel happy about. It is pleasant to practice because you can apply it every day in your day-to-day life. When you are at home in your dealings with the members of the family, in the responses and reactions you get from them, you will find this yoga can be practiced because it is dealing with your likes and dislikes. Throughout the day, our interactions cause impacts in the mind. Those impacts are favorable and unfavorable. We should not be gloating over the favorable and we should not be sweating over the unfavorable. Open your mind and give a place for both.
Now if this approach is adopted, will you not think that the life will become easy, facile, natural, light? So it is very very comfortable. This comfortable nature if you understand, I don’t think you will ever feel this sādhanā is not harmonious with you. When you have sukha you have to apply it, when you have duhkha you have to apply it, when somebody speaks well you apply it, somebody speaks not so, then also you apply it. So every time you can apply this sādhanā and the effect of it will be, instantly you will be relieved of the tension, heaviness and difficulty.
I don’t know when you are going to understand this. It is not like doing a pooja taking half-an-hour or one hour of your time. It is not like doing prāṇāyāma, āsana or anything like that. It is a question of applying it every time in your mind and by application you will find your activity improves, interaction improves, your relationship is improving. Can you imagine Arjuna had to mercilessly fight for eighteen days and every arrow of his had to bring down the neck of a soldier? He had to fight with his grandfather, his teacher. How could he have done it? Only by applying one formula, “sukha duhkhe same kritvā” (Bhagavad Gita 2.38); that was the formula. So I don’t know whether you will understand this. If you don’t understand it, why don’t you spend some time and let me know in the evening?
Harih Om Tat Sat. Jai Guru.