Whenever we have a difficult examination or a trying emotional situation to face, the best thing we can do is repeat the mantram. In going to sleep at night, it is simple to close our eyes and repeat the Holy Name until we fall asleep. No matter how difficult the problems we have to face, this simple tonic will rest and refresh us so that we will be at our best in meeting the day’s challenges. I have the responsibility of guiding the meditation of hundreds of people, but when I go to bed now, after years of practice, I can just hand my responsibilities over to the Lord. The mantram takes over so that I hear it in my sleep, so that I see the Lord in my sleep; and when I wake up I am refreshed in body, mind, and spirit, able to face whatever the day brings because I have placed my burden at the feet of the Lord.
31. They worship Me in the hearts of all, and all their actions proceed from Me. Wherever they may live, they abide in Me.
Outward signs of spiritual effort such as going to temple or church are no substitute for the practice of meditation, for without meditation we will not have the capacity for transforming anger into compassion, ill will into goodwill, and hatred into love. A man may have a brilliant intellect, may have won the Nobel Prize; but when it comes to changing anger into sympathy or hostility into kindness, he is helpless without the spiritual discipline of meditation.
You have probably seen that huge machine which demolishes old buildings by hoisting a heavy metal ball high into the air and then dropping it with a terrific crash. This is similar to what occurs in the early stages of meditation, in which we destroy old habits of acting, speaking, and thinking. This is a painful process; the joy comes when we start rebuilding. At that point we do not have to drive miles to pick up materials, cart them home, unload them, and store them until we are ready to use them. The Lord has all the materials ready, and he is waiting to hand them to us as we need them. We have only to demolish our self-will and selfishness and he will give us the materials of love, wisdom, patience, and endurance with which to build a house that can never be destroyed.
If we continue to use our old house, built with selfishness, fear, and anger, without a secure foundation, it is likely to crash and bury us in its ruins. But if we tear down the old, creaking structure and build a new one on firm foundations, with materials given by the Lord, then we will live free from anxiety and fear. With such a house, we will be able to offer shelter to more and more of those around us. This is another way of phrasing the truth that Sri Krishna never tires of repeating: “Do not depend on things outside yourself, on money, possessions, power, or fame, for they will not bring lasting joy or security; they will bring only a temporary satisfaction which will leave you weaker and weaker with the passage of time.”
32. When a person responds to the joys and sorrows of others as if they were his own, he has attained the highest state of spiritual union.
In this verse Sri Krishna sums up the entire art of living in one simple, practical suggestion: to understand how to behave towards others, all we have to do is understand that what gives us pain gives others pain also. Jesus uses similar language when he tells us, “All things whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them.”
We can apply this wise advice even to the smallest trifles of daily living. When we are waiting for a friend who is a few minutes late, for example, we look at our watch, shake it, and get more agitated as the seconds go by. But when we are half an hour late, we expect our friend to be patient and understanding. We expect others to overlook our few foibles because of our many virtues, yet at the same time we consider it our prerogative to point out everyone else’s weaknesses and mistakes. To understand others, to be considerate towards others, we have only to recognize how much we appreciate consideration ourselves.
The person with real spiritual consideration will help others forget about their failings. Learning to make others comfortable, even when they have made a mistake, is another way of going beyond our petty little selves and becoming aware of everyone else’s needs. The more we can forget ourselves by being sensitive and aware of everyone else, the more the Lord comes to life in us. The Compassionate Buddha was good at driving this point home to his disciples. He would tell them there was nothing to discourse or debate about in understanding other people: what offends you, offends others. It is that simple. When someone makes a sarcastic remark about us, we are not exactly delighted; therefore, we cannot afford to make sarcastic remarks to others.
Harsh thoughts, resentful thoughts, can wound others more deeply than knives. We are not used to thinking of thoughts as things; our idea of a thing is something we can put in a cup and rattle. We are unaware of the cacophony of the thoughts that rattle in our consciousness. If we could open our inner ear, we would be surprised to hear these hateful thoughts making such horrible noises in our consciousness: “I hate you, I hate you,” or “Drop dead, drop dead.” Such hateful thoughts injure others like a knife we throw at them over and over, and injure us too because each thought rankles and digs further into our consciousness as the days go by. Yet thoughts can be curative also. When a person bursts out in anger against us, if we can remain friendly, not hold his mistake against him, and move closer to him, we will bring him continual relief from his anger. This is true of even the roughest character; everyone responds to forbearance and forgiveness, which bless not only the one who gives them and the one who receives them, but everyone who associates with the man or woman who forgives.
ARJUNA
33. O Madhusudana, the complete stillness of union which you describe is beyond my comprehension. How can the mind, which is so restless, attain lasting peace?
Madhu is the name of a demon, the ego demon; sudana refers to one who destroys. This is a beautiful name for Sri Krishna: Madhusudana, ‘the slayer of the ego.’ Arjuna addresses him in this way with great respect, confessing that he sees no way of conquering his restless, turbulent mind.
We know that in meditation there are days when we come confidently out of the meditation room thinking we have performed the funeral ceremony of the ego; but then, on the following morning in meditation, we hear a titter from the mind which says, “Fooled you, didn’t I?” Sometimes we feel almost ridiculous for trying to conquer this demon called the mind; yet we must not let ourselves lapse into negative thinking, for it is completely within our power to reshape our mind, our conduct, and our destiny. We do this by making intentional choices about how we act, how we speak, and how we think, day in and day out. By using inspirational passages like the Prayer of St. Francis or the second chapter of the Gita, our choices in daily living will become wiser and more in harmony with the selfless ideal we are meditating upon. In this way we begin to transform our thinking from fear, anxiety, and despair into courage, love, and wisdom.
34. O Krishna, the mind is restless, turbulent, and violent. Trying to control the mind is like trying to control the wind.
Now Arjuna gets down to specifics by telling the Lord, “You might as well ask me to control the wind, to ride on a storm or to master a hurricane, as to control my mind.” Even the expression “I think” is more a euphemism than a statement of fact: we do not think most of our thoughts; they think us. We sit in meditation with a deep desire to meditate on the Lord, but how is it our thoughts go to the local pizza parlor, or to the movie we saw? The answer is that the mind just thinks what thoughts it likes. When we at last become aware, through meditation, of the lack of liberty in our own realm, we get the incentive to drive the usurper, our ego, from the throne. The ego is seated there scepter in hand, and since we do not know that he really isn’t king, we all say, “You command, we obey.” Patanjali, the great teacher of ancient India, calls meditation raja yoga, the ‘royal path,’ the way to depose the ego and reinstate the Lord as the true ruler of our body, mind, and spirit.
Having listened to Arjuna’s lamentation that the battle of the ego is too fierce for him, and heard him say he can defeat others but not his own selfish passions, Sri Krishna now smiles lovingly, puts his arm
around his friend, and encourages him to take on his greatest foe, his own selfishness and separateness.
SRI KRISHNA
35. It is true that the mind is restless and difficult to control. But it can be conquered, O Mahabaho, through regular practice and detachment.
The Lord does not address Arjuna as “mister” here; he calls him Mahabaho, ‘you whose arms extend to the heavens.’ Our arms, too, can extend to the heavens if we try to reach beyond ourselves. Today we are leading selfish lives, going after what concerns us, oblivious of the needs of others, and this selfishness has crippled our arms. But the Lord of Love tells us that if we stretch our arms wide to embrace everyone, if we use them for comforting and strengthening others, we will find them growing longer and longer until finally we will be able to reach out and catch the Lord.
Stretching our arms is not easy, for it takes untiring effort and the grit to bear with others no matter how unlovingly they treat us. We start strengthening our arms right with our family, with our friends, and on our job, by doing little things for others. It is easiest to begin by establishing good relationships with our family, because they want to be loving and close as much as we do. Then, after we have brought a cease-fire to the guerilla warfare in our own home, we can gradually develop good relationships with our neighbors, then with our city council, then on to the state capital; and finally, when we have proven ourselves to be an unshakable negotiator for peace, we can work on a national and international level.
Yesterday we took the children to start their swimming lessons, and I was recalling how I learned swimming from my Grandmother in just two easy lessons. First she showed me how; then she told me to get into the water and swim like her, reassuring me that she would rescue me if I needed help. I had such trust and faith in her that I plunged right in and, after swallowing some water, started swimming. In contrast, the gradual, incremental method of the modern instructor is a safe and sure way of teaching a large number of people to swim. From what I saw yesterday, they start you out in the baby pool, blowing bubbles. Then they take you on to kicking, and when this is mastered, you learn to dog paddle. Likewise, on the spiritual path the incremental approach is the logical sequence for us. We gradually make our arms long and strong by setting our lives right, first in our own homes and then in our community and society.
The instructions we need to follow to develop selflessness are very simple. Practice meditation regularly every day. Repeat the mantram at every opportunity. Restrain the senses with temperate, moderate choices, and put the welfare of all those around you first. At the swimming pool I saw an object lesson in what is meant by carrying out instructions. An excellent instructor was teaching four children to dive by showing them all the movements they should follow to do a perfect dive. Although all four were listening to everything he said, and watching him closely, each gave a different performance. The little girl did such a perfect dive that I had to hold myself back from applauding loudly. She had the capacity to translate instruction into practice. Then came the little boys: one did a belly flop, another tried to curl into a ball, and the third, overenthusiastic, landed on his back. For them, the capacity to translate instruction into practice was still in the making. Like the little girl, we should try to remember Sri Krishna’s instructions exactly and follow them to the letter.
In the second line Sri Krishna tells us there are two essential aids for bringing the mind under control. One is abhyasa: regular, systematic practice. Every day, no matter what problems try to interfere, we must get up as early as we can and meditate. When we do this regularly, our practice will become perfect. The other is vairagya: detachment from our opinions, our actions, our ego. We are so entangled and embroiled in ourselves that we take everything personally. Once, after I had been talking about some of our human weaknesses, a lady in the audience indignantly asked me why I had been talking about her that way in public. Anger, jealousy, malice – these are weaknesses we all have. Instead of giving in to them, however, we should turn our back on these petty demands for attention and go against our frustration and anger when these demands are not met. With sustained practice of meditation and sustained detachment from the ego, Sri Krishna reassures us that we will be able to reach him at last.
36. Those who lack self-control will find it difficult to progress in meditation. But those who are earnest in the practice of meditation and self-restraint will attain the goal.
If we are prepared to base our lives on meditation and follow Sri Krishna’s instructions exactly, union with the Lord is possible. But if we are lethargic or sporadic – if we start out on the spiritual path with a big bang and end up with a whimper – the unitive state is not possible. The Sanskrit word arambhashura, ‘hero at the beginning,’ describes this second type perfectly.
The person who succeeds on the spiritual path is the plugger, the one who will not give up. If he cannot run, he will walk; if he cannot walk, he will crawl. He will not take no for an answer. To reach a selfless goal, he is prepared to climb over any obstacle; whatever barriers are in his way, he will pile them up into a big heap to climb over an even greater barrier. If we keep trying to make the most of these opportunities, we will discover that there is joy in overcoming what seemed to be an immovable obstacle. At first these efforts to grow are extremely painful, because they usually require us to go against our self-will. But if we keep our eyes on the supreme goal, these agonizing stabs will turn into little pinpricks and finally into just the tickling of a feather. When we have such complete, unqualified dedication to the supreme goal, we shall find what joy there is in going forward on the spiritual path.
ARJUNA
37. Krishna, what happens to the man who has faith, but who wanders from the path and loses sight of the goal?
Here Arjuna is very much our representative, giving voice to the disquieting doubts that keep nibbling at little bits of our consciousness. Sounding like a skeptical modern man, Arjuna asks Sri Krishna: “Supposing that after practicing meditation for some years, a force beyond my control makes me give it up. Are all those years of hard discipline wasted?” This is a question we are all likely to ask in the early stages of meditation.
After we have been meditating for some years we will gradually begin to see some of its great rewards. By bringing the senses under control, we will come to have vibrant health; by bringing the mind under control, we will find a state of quiet joy; and by bringing the ego under control, we will develop more loving relationships with our family and friends. If, after having a glimpse of these rewards, we give up meditation for some reason, we will find there is nothing in the world to take its place. We can throw ourselves into feverish pleasure and excitement, into the driving pursuit of power, but there will always be a little voice inside us saying, “You’ve lost the path.”
This verse is very apposite today, especially with respect to the pressing problem of drug addiction. Thousands of young people are being misled by the assertion that psychedelic drugs can bring about spiritual awareness. Even well-known people have made statements about Indian sages using drugs; but I have no hesitation in saying that no sage worth his mantram has ever taken drugs for spiritual purposes. Meher Baba, a great modern mystic, warned us that not only do drugs not bring spiritual awareness, but when taken for a long time they may damage our capacity for spiritual awareness. If we look for a chemical shortcut through drugs, there is a possibility we will reach a point where we will be unable to meditate. Meditation is such a demanding expedition into the world within that we must have a strong, resilient body, a fit nervous system, a calm mind, and a lucid intellect, all of which are likely to be impaired not just by drugs, but by any form of excessive indulgence in the senses and in self-will.
38. If a man becomes deluded on the spiritual path will he lose the support of both worlds, like a cloud scattered in the sky?
39. O Krishna, you who are the dispeller of all doubts, remove this doubt which binds me.
Probably everyone has watched the wind
break up a big billowy cloud into tiny pieces and scatter them all over the sky. Arjuna compares himself to such a cloud and asks Sri Krishna, “What will happen if some great calamity, some overwhelming desire, picks me up, cuts up my consciousness, and scatters my mind, my resolve, and my will in all directions, making my desire for the spiritual life disappear like a cloud? Will I have lost both the world of sense pleasure and the joy of the spiritual life?” This is a very practical question, which is likely to occur to all of us who have been used to indulging our senses and imposing our self-will on others. Having confessed his doubts, Arjuna here pleads with the Lord to give them a fatal blow. In samadhi, when the Lord of Love permeates our consciousness, all our doubts will cease, and there will come a tremendous inner certitude that will convey itself to everyone around us.
SRI KRISHNA
40. Partha, my son, spiritual work will never be wasted, nor will one who does such work ever come to a bad end, either here or in the world to come.
Now we can almost see Sri Krishna coming closer to Arjuna, putting his arm about him, and saying, “Never will meditation on Me be wasted, even if it has been done only for a short time. No step taken on the spiritual path is ever in vain.” According to the Hindu and Buddhist scriptures, no person is ever lost, for we are all children of the Divine Father. We can find the most secluded place to hide and delay our reunion all we want; but whether we like it or not, one day we are going to go home to the Lord.
A beautiful aspect of the Hindu mystical tradition is that the word damnation never occurs. All of us, even though we are tardy and playing truant, are still children of the Lord. A good way to strengthen ourselves and ward off negative states of feeling is to remember that in spite of our outward acts and appearances we are pure, perfect, and ever divine in origin.
The End of Sorrow Page 39
