Bhagavad Gita: Meditation

Introduction

The Bhagavad-gita is the highest knowledge, the highest, most direct and clear knowledge ever revealed in the vast history of eternity. If you study it carefully and seriously apply its principles, you will become one of the happiest, most spiritually perfect beings that have ever existed. It doesn’t matter who you are, where you live, what your gender or age is, or what your occupation is. If you take it seriously, your success is guaranteed no matter how disqualified you consider yourself to be.

The spirit-soul is present in the living body, while it is absent in the dead body. So what is actually attractive and meaningful is the spirit-soul, not the material body. Yet, inspite of this simple, easily understood point, we invest practically our entire life’s energy in catering to the demands of the material body, which is a mere covering of the actual self. And we complete ignore the needs of the eternal soul.

Such a misspent life is utter foolishness. It leads to frustration and ultimately devastation at the time of death when everything is ripped away from us. The best thing is to mentally detach ourselves now by understanding and realizing, “I am not this body.” Understanding means to grasp the philosophical concept, and realization means to fully imbibe that understanding in our every thought, word, and deed. In other words, to always think, speak and act on the platform of being a spirit-soul, rather than a material body. One way of doing it is through Meditation.

The Posture
Meditation becomes easier when the mind is relatively free from likes and dislikes as a result of a life of Karma yoga and free from distraction as a result of an alert life. The Gita indicates the seat and posture for meditation in verses 11 to 13 of Chapter VI thus:
Sequestered should he sit,
Steadfastly meditating, solitary,
His thoughts controlled, his passions laid away,
Quit of belongings. In a fair, still spot
Having his fixed abode, - not too much raised,
Not yet too low, - let him abide, his goods
A cloth, a deerskin, and the Kusa-grass.
There, setting hard his mind upon The One,
Restraining heart and senses, silent, calm,
Let him accomplish Yoga, and achieve
Pureness of soul, holding immovable
Body and neck and head, his gaze absorbed
Upon his nose-end rapt from all around,
Tranquil in spirit, free of fear, intent
Upon his Brahmacharya vow, Devout,
Musing on Me, lost in the thought of me.

Invoking the Lord and Mental Worship
After sitting for meditation, place the hands in the lap, lock the fingers, relax the body, close the eyes and turn the mind away from sense objects. The mind is withdrawn from external engagements and is available for whatever you want to do. With the quiet tranquil mind, invoke the Lord; appreciate the One from whom everything has come, by Whom everything is sustained and unto Whom everything goes back. Everything is an expression of the Lord because He is the efficient and material cause of the whole creation.

Om is one of the most chanted sound symbols in India. It has a profound effect on the body and mind of the one who chants, and also on the surroundings. Most mantras and Vedic prayers start with Om. All auspicious actions begin with Om. It is even used as a greeting – Om, Hari Om etc. It can be repeated as a mantra or meditated upon. Its form is worshipped, contemplated upon or used as an auspicious sign. The written form symbolizes Lord Ganesh. The upper curve is the head; the lower larger one, the stomach; the side one, the trunk; and the semi-circular mark with the dot, the Laddu in Lord Ganesh’s hand.

By invoking the Lord, the proud ego surrenders. What remains is a humble ego which is worshipping, prayerful, devoted. And what is an ego that is not asserting? So the pride is taken care of.

The next step is to offer mental worship. Set the mind to the chosen deity or the altar. Offer the mental worship. Create an altar of the Lord in the mind. Conduct Arti and do obeisance.

Japa, repetition of a Mantra
Now we come to Japa or repetition of a mantra. Due to distraction, the mind moves from one object to another by association. But there is a stage between any two thoughts when there is no tangible thought. Now I am thought, now silence. In order to avoid this mechanicalness, I do something special: repetition of the name of the Lord. In Japa one repeats the same mantra again and again, not mechanically but consciously. Thus you avoid the possibility of a build-up, association and development of thought patterns. By being aware of the silence between two successive chants, you avoid being mechanical and you will find that the mind abides naturally in the silence. If you own up the silence between two chants constantly, in course of time you will find that the chants become sandwiched between the silence which is the first and the last. And there is silence when I do not think. This is the natural silence and the silence continues. If a thought arises you can bring back the mantra. Japa itself becomes meditation.

Swami Shivanand used to say that Japa is the sovereign remedy for all worldly ills and the best means of God-Realization. The story of Valmiki, the author of the Ramayana, reflects this. Before he became a saint he was a thief. One day he held up some holy men and demanded everything they owned. They calmly told him, ‘Our greatest wealth is the name of Rama. Please steal it from us’. Valmiki was so perplexed that he could not remember the sacred name correctly and instead repeated the name backwards and recited ‘mara.’ Still he attained and spread his realization through the amazing epic of Lord Rama.

Be Mahadev
Objectify the body. See it as a stone statue. Let us become the “Mahadev” wherever we are - always prepared to quietly and peacefully hold the poison in our throats (neither letting it harm us nor harm anyone else) for the benefit of humanity.
If one wants to advance in spiritual knowledge, he must develop the quality of forgiveness because without this quality one’s mind can never become sufficiently peaceful to be fully absorbed in chanting the holy names of the Lord. Therefore, one should excuse the offenses of others; he should not hold grudges against others within his heart.

Let the mind abide in the truth that you have discovered. You know that you are all joy,
There is no need for you to think. Simply appreciated yourself as formless, shapeless, peaceful awareness that is all silence. Immediately there is a release. When you think of silence, you cannot but be silence. This is the meditation that Krishna teaches Arjuna.

And due to the name of the Lord and the attitude of devotion and surrender associated with it, the ego is destroyed.

Some rules for Meditation
Through repeated meditation practiced regularly, the practitioner no longer feels his self and the world at large as separate from God. When Knower, Knowledge and Object of Knowledge become the same as Brahman, he becomes thoroughly accomplished. The meditator then retains that state of bliss for all times. Whether moving or seated, or engaged in performance of his duties, there is not the slightest deviation from his spiritual state. As the lord said in Verse 31 of Chapter VI
And who thus discerneth Me in all, and all in Me,
I will never let him go, nor loosen his
Hold upon Me; but dwell where he may,
Whate’er his life, in Me he dwells and lives,
Because he knows and worships Me, Who dwell
In all which lives, and cleaves to Me in all.

Awakening of this knowledge to the total exclusion of all unsteadiness of the mind means ‘absorbing of the mind in the intellect’. And when there remains consciousness of the Form of only one God, the Supreme Brahman, who is knowledge itself, the state is known as the ‘absorption of the intellect in cosmic intellect.’ And finally when one reaches the state when God alone, who is consciousness, embodiment of Existence, Knowledge and Bliss, remains – one has absorbed the cosmic intellect in God. This is Samadhi, the last state of realization.

Reflecting at God’s omnipresence, the mind should be fixed on the ascertained Divine Form. Thereafter, wherever the mind goes it sees only God. This practice quickly removes the unsteadiness of the mind.

Conclusion
By karma yoga I destroy the impurities and by worship and japa, I destroy the distraction and restlessness of the mind. My enquiry continues with the study of scriptures and so the ignorance also gets eliminated. Through continued meditation on God, the embodiment of Existence, Knowledge, and Bliss, my heart grows purer and spotless. Realizing for all time the true and infinite happiness, I become satisfied and content. All my sorrows cease. The attainment of this state is the ultimate goal of human existence.

In 1998, Dr. James Austin, a neurologist, wrote the book, Zen and the Brain: towards an Understanding of Meditation and Consciousness. Several mindful researchers cite his book as a reason they became interested in the field. Austin examines consciousness by intertwining his personal experiences with Zen meditation and explanations backed up by hard science. When he describes how meditation can “sculpt” the brain, he means it literally and figuratively.

People who meditate say it induces emotional balance and overall well being. In recent years, a group of neuroscientists have begun investigating the practice, dubbed “mindfulness”. In United States, they are exploring the hypothesis that meditation can actually change the way the brain works. Dr. Stephen Lindsey, head of rheumatology at Ochsner Health Systems in Baton Rouge, La. says, “When you’re meditating, you’re trying to relax your body and get rid of the tension.”

But that apart, we should cultivate the firm conviction that the supreme duty of a man’s life is only to realize God, the embodiment of Existence, Knowledge and Bliss. Renouncing wholly the transient, perishable and artificial enjoyments of the world, we should speedily devote ourselves, with energy and determination, to the practice leading to the state of realization of true happiness.