Verses 6.15–6.19🔗

Kṛṣṇa talks here about control of the mind and being established in the Self. He talks about the path and the goal of yoga. The first line of Yoga Sūtras starts with ‘yogaḥ citta vṛtti nirodaḥ.’ It means: Yoga is cessation of the mind. The very first line gives the path and the goal of yoga. The word yoga means uniting with the Divine. To reach the Ultimate, the goal and the path is the practice of Yoga. We have two lives in us. One is the life we want to live–the dream. The other is the life in reality–the life we are living. The meeting of these two lives is what I call Yoga.

You can unite the two either by reducing the depth of fantasies or by increasing the expression of your energy so that reality can come closer to the dream. If you reduce the depth of the fantasy, your expectation, the dream plane and the reality plane will come closer together. On the other hand, if you increase the energy expressed through reality, the reality plane will come closer to the dream plane. The meeting and merging of these two planes is what I call Yoga. The goal is uniting with the Ultimate or experiencing the ultimate spiritual energy, or the Divine and realizing our inherent nature. The path is dropping the mind, which means going beyond thoughts.

We are spiritual beings having a human experience; we are not human beings having a spiritual experience. This is the truth. Bliss is our very nature. All that we need to do is go back to the source and realize our true nature. The mind pulls us towards the temporary happiness that we experienced by pursuing sense pleasures. For example, we may like a particular sweet. We are attracted to its taste. When we sit down to eat it, for a few minutes our mind seems to stop thinking about it. There is a sense of peace when we are eating the sweet. Actually, we are at peace because the number of thoughts has come down for those few minutes.

But we think the peace we experience is due to the sweet itself. Understand that there is nothing wrong with liking the taste of the sweet. But if we think that the sweet is the cause of our fulfillment, then the problem starts, because the next time the same sweet may not give us the same experience of fulfillment. The experience of fulfillment has nothing to do with the object of experience. In the same way, if we hold on to an object that we think gives us bliss, we will create an attachment to that object. But the experience of bliss is different from the object. Bliss is beyond attachment to any object, material or spiritual.

Bliss is beyond the pairs of opposites. When we are happy due to some pleasurable event or person, the momentary joy comes because the number of our thoughts comes down when we meet the person. When the number of our thoughts comes down, bliss happens in us. But the bliss itself comes only from our own being, not from the person who we met. In fact, it continuously happens within us, irrespective of anything that goes on outside. Then why do we not feel the bliss continuously? It is because we are under the control of the mind, which needs the pairs of opposites to survive. We can go beyond the mind.

Dhyāna Yogaḥ Look In, Be Complete Before Any Conclusion 457 When we are completely in reality, in the present, we are complete with Existence and we are in bliss. This is eternal bliss. ‘Nitya’ or ‘eternal’ means the past, present and future all put together, because it is beyond time. Being in the present is what eternity is. The present blissful moment gives birth to the next moment, which will be blissful. But if we try to look for bliss in the future, thinking that we can do various things to create a blissful future, it will never happen. When we are not in reality now, we are creating the blissful future from our fantasies.

So come to terms with reality here and now and be blissful; automatically the future will also be blissful. Bliss is like the water in a river. We can keep our hands open in it and enjoy it. But if we try to hold the water with closed hands, it will simply flow away from us leaving our hands empty. If we want to be in eternal bliss, we need to be blissful this very moment. We should not bother about whether we had bliss in the past or whether we will have it in the future. Just be blissful now. When Kṛṣṇa talks about the mind and the senses being controlled, He is not talking about suppressing the mind and the senses.

That is impossible to do. People who claim to renounce the world and its material aspects still cling to desires. Their efforts result in misery. Instead of directing our senses towards external objects and the pleasure derived from these objects, it is possible to turn our focus inwards and experience inner joy. Once the senses and the mind discover this inner joy, they will give up their attachment to external pleasures. Suppression never works; what works is completion. To be balanced in whatever we do and to act without attachment is the path of a Yogī. Whether it is eating or sleeping or working, we should be sensitive to our body’s intelligence.

Understand, when we are complete, we will be sensitive in all our actions. Only when we are not complete or conscious will we be caught in confusion. Yoga manuals will not tell us what Kṛṣṇa tells Arjuna here. Guidelines on sleeping too much or too little or eating too much or too little is in no way a prescribed method for yoga. Controlling or regulating the senses does not mean we should suppress the senses. Eating too much will only make us lethargic—tāmasic. Eating too little will make us crave more food. If we sleep too much, it will lead to laziness and lethargy, tamas. If we sleep too little, we will end up feeling tired because the body-mind is not rejuvenated enough.

How do we know what is too much or too little? Here, Kṛṣṇa actually refers to our body intelligence. We do not trust our inherent body intelligence. We run our body according to the mind or according to our desires and senses. Otherwise, why would we stay up in the night watching television when our body is begging for some sleep? Why would we overeat? Has anyone seen any animal ever overeat? They eat according to their body intelligence. When the body signals that it needs food, they eat. When the body signals that it needs sleep, they sleep. We have forgotten how to relate with our own body intelligence.

After eating, we should feel energetic. But do we feel energetic after lunch? Why do we feel lazy and sleepy after lunch? It is because we do not eat the right type and amount of food. Most often, we don’t need to eat the amount we do, for our body to run. Just try this for a few days: When you eat, eat just enough until you are about full but not completely full. Try this for a few days and you will see a difference. Similarly, we do not need to sleep for as long as eight hours as most of us do. Even science has established that there are periods in our sleep— the dream and deep sleep states that determine our holistic health.

Actually, it is in the deep sleep state that we access the causal body, the kāraṇa śarīra, where we touch the source of our energy. Touching this layer is what gives us energy and rejuvenates us. This state can be achieved through meditation as well. In the course of an eight-hour sleep cycle, we are in the deep sleep state only for a couple of hours. That is why even a few minutes of meditation can actually refresh us as much as a few hours of sleep, because we access the same energy of the causal body through meditation. We should trust our body intelligence and just try to live by Dhyāna Yogaḥ Look In, Be Complete Before Any Conclusion 459 becoming sensitive to the body, rather than be driven by the mind, the senses.

Kṛṣṇa talks about āhāra in these verses. Āhāra in Saṃskṛit means food. It is the food that is taken in through our five senses, not just the mouth. Pratyāhāra, one of the eight parts of yoga, is the control of sensory inputs. It means going beyond these āhāra, beyond the sense objects, so that the higher level of consciousness can be awakened. When we move away from the senses and experience bliss, we will automatically realize that what we experience through external sense objects is not bliss. What we experience through the senses can be called pleasure or joy. That is why, the opposite of joy that is pain, is bound to follow this temporary pleasure.

Bliss is beyond the pairs of opposites like pleasure and pain; it is not related to external incidents or people. It is an internal happening. The main aim of all our yoga and meditation techniques is to reach the level of our being. When we reach the being, we are in ‘nitya ānanda’ or ‘eternal bliss’. We are in union with the Divine. Bliss is actually what we are running after but we think it can be achieved through money, comforts, relations and what not. We do not realize that all these objects only give us temporary states of pleasure and happiness. Our inherent nature is bliss and that is the reason why we are constantly searching for this state of bliss.

When we realize that bliss is happening inside us all the time, the desires will drop automatically. You cannot drop desires or suppress them because they will surface again with greater intensity. When we are aware of our actions, we can never be addicted to anything. Be very clear, all addictions, whether smoking or drinking, drugs or anything else, cannot exist if we are conscious and aware when weareengagedintheaction.Wetrytosuppressthedesireinsteadofdoing completion with it, and that is where the problem starts. An addiction has power over us because of a feeling of guilt or regret, or unfulfillment. When we drop the guilt pattern by doing completion, many of our repetitive negative behavior patterns drop automatically.

Moreover, we cannot consciously send something harmful into our system. We cannot consciously inhale harmful smoke into our system. To those who come to me for help with addictions, I say, ‘Smoke as much as you want. Drink as much as you want. But do it with awareness. Do it with enjoyment out of completion.’ In a few days, they come back and say they cannot smoke or drink anymore. That is because the innate body intelligence refuses to cooperate with the disastrous activity. Completion is the key to bring the mind under control, because then we become the master of our mind, instead of the mind being our master.

Normally, our mind oscillates between the past and the future just like the flame of a lamp that’s wavering in the wind. When the same lamp is placed in a windless place, it stops flickering. By nature, the mind is in dilemma. We cannot suppress it or control it just by allowing it to wander either. All we can do to still the mind is to stop bothering about it, just witness it and complete with it. So just relax. Be in the Present to be Complete All our patterns, desires, and fears arise because, at the root, we feel that life has some goal, some purpose. Understand that life has no purpose.

It has only meaning. The path itself is the goal; enjoy the path. We think life is as we are living now. Understand that the way we are living life in our world of fantasies is actually like living in our dream world. When we realize the purposelessness of life, we can drop our desires and fears, we can plunge into reality, into the present. The moment we decide to stay in the present space of completion, the mind stops flickering. When the mind does not flicker and stands still in the present, then we reach the state of ‘no-mind’. In this state of ‘no-mind,’ we don’t creates, sustain, or destroy any thought.

We relax from all these three things into the space of no-mind. Our mind is like a lake. When we throw a stone in a lake, many ripples will be created. If we want to stop these ripples, we cannot put our hand in the lake to try to smoothen out the ripples. This is what we end up doing when we try to still our minds. Instead if we just watch the lake, and ensure no more stones are thrown in, the ripples will disappear and the lake will Dhyāna Yogaḥ Look In, Be Complete Before Any Conclusion 461 become still. If we just relax and watch our mind with complete awareness, then no new thoughts will be created.

In Bhārat (India), we say that God has three roles—creator, sustainer and destroyer. Brahma is called the Creator or god of creation. Viṣṇu is known as the Sustainer or the God of maintenance. Śiva is called the Destroyer or the God of rejuvenation. Listen, when our thoughts stop performing these three roles of creation, sustenance and rejuvenation, when we transcend all these three, we become Parabrahma, supreme Self. When there are no new thoughts being created, sustained or destroyed, then the mind is absolutely still. There is a beautiful story described in Śrīmad Bhāgavatam, the history of the various Incarnations of Lord Viṣṇu: Devatā, the demigods were oppressed by the demons and appealed to Lord Viṣṇu for help.

According to His directions, the demigods were to churn the ocean of milk using the Mahā Meru mountain as the staff and Vāsuki, the serpent, as the rope. During the churning, many products emerged out of the ocean of milk including an elephant, a horse, a divine chariot and many other divine things. Then, hālahāla, a deadly poison emerged, that threatened to take the lives of everyone. Lord Śiva came to their rescue by consuming the poison Himself. He drank the poison but did not completely take it in. He just held it in His throat. That is why He is referred to as Nīlakanṭha, the one with a blue throat who has swallowed the poison and holds it in His throat.

Listen. When the churning of the milky ocean started, everyone was waiting only for the nectar. That is why, when the poison emerged, it was a suffering for them. But Mahādeva was waiting for the poison also, that is why it could not bring suffering to Him. Śiva is never surprised by the poison brought to Him. That is why He is Mahādeva, Śiva! This is actually a metaphysical representation. Nīlakanṭha is embodiment of responsibility. Nīlakanṭha is the symbol that Mahādeva is complete with both desires and fears. Life is like the churning of the ocean of milk where we are churned, pulled towards the desires and pushed away from the fears.

There are various products that emerge out of the churning, out of the decisions and choices we make in life. Some of these products appear pleasing while others appear dangerous like poison. When we exist with responsibility without taking in the poison or throwing it out, meaning without running towards the desires or running away from the fears, we become Śiva and live life blissfully as Nityānanda, irrespective of what comes our way. Self Is Satisfied In the Self By The Self