In the previous episode, we had witnessed Bhagawan Krishna continuing His important accord on how we perform our “Yogam” meticulously. When Bhagawan talks about bringing our mind under absolute control, this is where we have several schools of thoughts in the present day. We sometimes talk about having a thoughtless mind as we meditate, which might be next to impossible for many of us – The sole reason being that, our mind can never ever be devoid of thoughts even for a single moment. This is why, to bring our mind under focus, it is better to have Bhagawan’s divine physical form as a portrait in our mind and to try and focus on it for a longer time. Even then, chances are high that our mind will run away from this focus and enter into several other thoughts. One such technique to bring our mind back into the focus is to keep watching our thoughts at the grassroot level and over time, we can gradually understand from which point our mind gets distracted and thereby gradually trace the trail of thoughts that the mind is going through. If we’re able to get to the bottom of this trail of thoughts, this trail can be broken and thus, the mind will have no other option but to focus on Bhagawan while meditating. This is of course easier said than done, and this exercise would take a long time to perform. This is why it is important that we should not lose heart by failing once or twice in this pursuit. This is a long marathon and it is going to be a dogfight! We’ve to be prepared for it and should face the mind with perseverance and patience.
Thus, meditation (“Dhyaanam” / “Yogam”) is best performed, keeping Bhagawan and His divine form in our mind as a portrait, upon which we focus our mind. In fact, this is exactly what Patanjali Bhagawan is also propagating in his famous work called “Yogasutra” as well. Many of us might know that Patanjali Bhagawan is also one of the many incarnations of Bhagawan Adisesha (Divine serpent upon whom Bhagawan Vishnu reclines). In fact, Bhagawad Ramanujachaarya is also considered to be a divine incarnation of the same Bhagawan Adisesha only, just like Lakshmana in the Ramayana. Thus, Lakshmana, Patanjali Bhagawan, Bhagawad Ramanujachaarya, etc. are divine incarnations of Bhagawan Adisesha in different time periods. So here, while talking about how to go about our “Dhyaanam”, Patanjali Bhagawan says that we should be consistent in our practice. He talks extensively about consistency and perseverance, and this is very important. Normally, during our initial days of practice, our mind will never cooperate. It will keep wandering here and there. However, if we’re able to focus our mind for five minutes continuously during our initial days, this itself is a great achievement. Patanjali Bhagawan says that the more we focus on Bhagawan’s divine physical form, the more quickly our sins start getting washed away. For instance, if we’re able to focus on Bhagawan for 15 minutes continuously, all the sins that should be washed away during this time period will start getting washed off!
Thus, this is where our perseverance is under test. While we start with a minimal time period for “Dhyaanam”, we should gradually start elongating it further. In other words, we should make that 5-minutes into 20 minutes and this 20 minutes into an hour and so on… The more we’re able to focus on Bhagawan’s divine physical form, the more it will be engraved into our mind for a longer time, and gradually, we would be able to control the wandering of our mind. However, this requires meticulous and consistent effort. Normally in psychology we have a norm that if we practise anything continuously for around three months, it becomes ingrained into us. Applying this psychology principle here, if we’re able to practise this “Dhyaanam” and focusing of our mind every day for around three months and if we make this as a routine, our mind and body will slowly get accustomed to it. As we do this, we can gradually increase the time span of our meditation session and over a period of time, it will become easier for us to meditate over a longer period of time. Moreover, as we keep on doing this, Bhagawan’s divine form will be imprinted into our mind permanently and moving forward, we need not waste time in imagining Bhagawan’s form from scratch every time we sit for meditation. However, if we shun the practice, we might have to start all over again! This is where we’ve to be very careful and this is where, a routine is required for the practice of “Dhyaanam”.
So for today, let us understand this very important explanation given by Patanjali Bhagawan with regards to how we should go about our practice of meditation and let us try to implement it in our everyday life as well. We shall wait till the next episode to proceed further with this discussion. Stay tuned! 🙂
The Indian Dharma 