Let us now see the supreme condition that should be the worshiper’s goal and how that is attained to which the discourse of the Bhagavad Gita reverts again and again.
Lord Krishn sings in Bhagavad Gita:
“I shall tell you briefly of the ultimate state
which knowers of the Ved call the imperishable,
and which is realized by men who aspire for it,
act without desire, and practice continence.”
Continence is uninterrupted concentration on God through a rejection of all external associations from the mind rather than a mere curbing of the sexual urge. Constant meditation is true continence, for it is this that brings about perception of God and the final absolution. Such an exercise is the restraint of not one sense, but of all senses. Men who can do this are true celibates. What Lord Krishn is going to tell Arjun about this discipline is therefore something that is fit to be cherished by all hearts.
“Shutting the doors of all the senses, that is,
restraining them from desire for their objects,
confining his intellect within the Self,
fixing his life-breath within his mind, and absorbed in yog,…”
The necessity of renunciation of desire by a perfect control of the senses is repeatedly stressed. The mind has to be confined within the Self because contemplation and worship are accomplished within the Self, not outside. With the mind so regulating the breath that it is centered between the two eyebrows and, of course, engaged in the practice of yog, for this is an essential prerequisite;-
“He who departs from the body intoning OM,
which is God in word, and remembering me, attains to salvation.”
The sage who dies with the knowledge that the imperishable God is the one reality achieves the state of sublime bliss. Lord Krishn is a yogi, a seer who has achieved awareness of the ultimate truth. As a realized sage, an accomplished teacher, he exhorts Arjun to recite OM, symbol of God, and contemplate him.
All great Souls are known by the name of the entity to which they attain and into which they are finally assimilated. It is for this reason that Lord Krishn prompts Arjun to utter the name of God but remember his own ( Sri Krishn’s ) form.
Let us note that he does not tell Arjun to recite his name. With the passage of time, though, Lord Krishn was deified and men began to recite his name; and they are rewarded but only according to the nature of their dedication. Lord Krishn has told Arjun that it is he who both strengthens the devotion of such worshipers and determines their rewards. But these rewards are destroyed along with their recipients.
It is useful to remember how Lord Shiv, the initiator of yog, insisted on the recitation of the syllable “Ram” that signifies the omnipresent God who can be experienced only as an inner voice.
Sant Kabir is also said to have committed himself to the constant recitation of the two sounds represented by “ra” and “m.” And Lord Krishn here advocates the usefulness of OM. God is known by innumerable names, but only that name which prompts and confirms faith in the one God is worthy of constant remembrance and recitation.
Worshipers are rightly cautioned by Lord Krishn that the name they recite time and again must not be one that might incline or encourage them to believe in a multiplicity of gods and goddesses who are nothing more than a bundle of myth. OM is unique in the sense that it literally betokens that the supreme authority of God inheres in every “me.” So seekers must desist from wandering here and there to find him outside themselves.
The revered Gurudev would often advise his devotees to keep in mind his form while intoning some name like OM, Ram or Shiv: to visualize him and, with him before the mind’s eye, to remember the identical god-the object of their worship. It is an accomplished teacher who is kept in view while meditating. Whether we hold on to a Ram, Krishn, or a hermit who is liberated from all desire and pleasure of the senses, or to any other being according to our inclination, we can know them only by actual experience, after which they disclose to us the way to some contemporary and accomplished teacher whose guidance we should slowly but surely follow to conquer the material world.
Novices utter the deity’s name, but hesitate to do so while calling a sage in human form. They are unable to discard the bias of their inherited beliefs. So they call to mind some other false god instead. But this practice is, as we have seen, forbidden by Yogeshwar Krishn as impious. The proper way is to find refuge in some realized sage, an accomplished or enlightened teacher, who has already gone through the experience.
Fallacious dogmas are then destroyed and the worshiper is enabled to set upon real action as his pious impulses and the capacity to act according to them are rendered sufficiently strong. So, according to Lord Krishn, the mind is restrained and ultimately dissolved by a simultaneous recitation of OM and remembrance of his form.
This is the point at which the accumulated layers of sanskar-of the merits of action- are dissolved and all the relationships of the body severed forever. A man is not rid of the body by just physical death.
Lord Krishn adds:
“The yogi who is firmly devoted to me,
and who constantly remembers me and is absorbed in me,
realizes me with ease.”
Lord Krishn is easily attained to by the worshiper who has no one except him in his mind, and who thinks steadily only of him and always remembers him. The profit of this attainment is portrayed in the next verse.
“Accomplished sages who have attained
to the ultimate state are no longer subject to transient rebirth
which is like a house of sorrows.”
It is only after attaining to the Supreme Spirit that man is not born again.
~Revered Gurudev Swami Adgadanand Jee Paramhans~
©
_/l\_
Humble Wishes.
~mrityunjayanand~
