In the previous episode, we had witnessed Bhagawan Krishna explaining an important point with regards to the “Yogam” that we perform every day – If we’ve to reach the highest level of our “Yogam”, we will be able to see Bhagawan in every living being, and also we will be able to see every living being in Bhagawan. This means that we’ve achieved the highest state of “Atma-Saakshaakaaram”, which is nothing but the realization of our “Atman”. This is what Bhagawan Krishna has been stressing upon right from the beginning of the “Karma Yoga” discussion wherein, the “Atman” is the same across all living beings in this world. If we’ve to reach higher levels of “Yogam”, we’ve to be able to see everyone equally without any differences.
This is what our “Sanaatana Dharma” preaches all through. In this entire world, we should understand that if there’s one religion that sees everyone equally and accommodates everybody with equal love, affection and tolerance, it is “Sanaatana Dharma” and nothing else! On the other hand, almost all religions in this world except our “Sanaatana Dharma” were in fact formed based on separationist philosophies. This might not go well with a few people, but this is the hard-hitting truth and reality. Hence, as ardent followers of our “Sanaatana Dharma”, we should be proud to be part of a religion which embraces everyone equally! This is exactly what Bhagawan Krishna propagates in the Bhagawad Gita through the above-mentioned shloka. If we’re able to develop this spiritual state of seeing everyone equally, there will be no room for any kind of fighting or misunderstanding. We would be able to treat everyone with love and affection.
Moving further from here, we’ve witnessed in the previous episode that Arjuna is asking a counter question to Bhagawan Krishna – How do we establish control over our mind? Is it easy or difficult? Why is our mind wavering like this constantly? Is there any solution to contain this wavering nature of our mind? For this, Bhagawan is now going to give an important answer and let us witness it now. Bhagawan says thus,
“Abhyaase na tu kaunteya vairagyena cha grihyate!”
Bhagawan Krishna says thus, “Oh Kaunteya (Arjuna, who is the son of Kunthi Devi)! Yes! You’re right – The mind is very difficult to control. However, there’s a solution to this. You’ve to repeatedly train your mind to focus on me!” Here, the phrase “Abhyasam” means “Repeated practice”. We need to keep training our mind slowly every passing day and should keep educating our mind that Bhagawan Krishna’s divine physical form is much more important for us than anything else in this world. Secondly, Bhagawan talks about “Vairagyam”, which means will-power. We should constantly train our mind in such a way that we should never give up our practice! Normally what happens is that we might start something with a lot of enthusiasm. However, if things do not go as per our wish, we would slowly start giving it up. This happens during our meditation practice quite often. If we’re unable to focus our mind properly as per our expectation, we might start feeling dejected and conclude that we are unfit to perform the “Yogam” at all!
This is where Bhagawan Krishna is cautioning all of us – He says through the phrase of “Vairagyam” that we should develop the “never give up” attitude! Even if we fail a hundred times, so what? We should be able to have that “Vairagyam” to get up and try for the 101’th time. This is where our consistency and perseverance are under test. Of course, controlling the mind is one of the biggest things to achieve and not many people can do it. However, having said that, can we sit in a corner and keep quiet without doing any attempts towards performing our “Yogam”? This is a wrong approach and this is exactly where Arjuna was trying to go into! Through this shloka, Bhagawan is slowly instilling the faith and confidence in Arjuna and in all of us that performing the “Yogam” and reaching the highest level is very much possible for all of us, provided we put in the right effort, along with perseverance. Even if it is an internal battle that we’ve to fight with the mind, we should be prepared to take on the battle and win! Arjuna’s battle was on the battlefield and our battle is with our mind! Hence, Bhagawan Krishna’s words are extremely important in this context.
So for today, let us realize this point and let us start introspecting ourselves here. It is always important that we read / listen to Bhagawan’s words and put them into practice isn’t it? Hence, let us start develop the two important qualities of “Abhyaasam” (Repeated practice) and “Vairaagyam” (Perseverance and repeated reassurance of our mind) in order to bring our mind under our control. Of course, it is not a single day job and let us accept the hard fact that this is going to be a long-drawn dogfight! We shall wait till the next episode to continue with Bhagawan Krishna’s further accords! Stay tuned! 🙂
The Indian Dharma 