Bhagavagd Gita - Session 28- Track 2805

There are 3 ways of avoiding dispersion:

One is to love the Divine to such an extent that everything else is found to be meaningless, in which case dispersion won’t take place because the object of love is so powerful that everything else is meaningless and without taste; so one means of avoiding dispersion is to increase the delight in the presence of the Divine. In fact the meaning of Bhakti is nothing but delight in the heart in regard to the presence of the Divine: that is true Bhakti; this is very rare actually. Most of the people who are Bhaktas, it is not that the Divine gives them a great happiness or a pleasure by His presence, but because He may be greatly helping you; therefore Divine is prayed and worshipped; but that is not the true Bhakti. The true Bhakti is inner delight merely in the presence of the Divine. The Divine is before you, and you feel so utterly happy that everything else is found to be meaningless: so, that is one way of avoiding dispersion: this is the most difficult way. Although it is said Bhakti is easiest but in reality I have always found Bhakti to be very difficult, because to get the delight of the presence of the Divine is a very rare phenomenon…anyway.

Second method of avoiding dispersion is: you should always find a time of contemplation, or meditation, or concentration, in which you really bring all your energies at one point, so at least if you spend half an hour in this state of concentration then gradually your capacity of dispersion will become less and less prominent; more and more, wherever you are, you will be more and more concentrated, more and more gathered; but you have to start by having half an hour, one hour, two hours of intense concentration. Once that becomes habitual you will find even that a slight dispersion will cause great discomfort in you. You won’t feel happy whenever there is dispersion, you won’t feel happy; you will feel this is a waste of time. So, this is the second method.

The third is…this is the method appropriate to Karmayoga. The first one was appropriate to Bhaktiyoga. The second one, which I spoke just now is Jnanayoga, the third is Karmayoga, in which you take up an activity…to begin with the activity of knowledge and activity of love, in which mundane activities are much less prominent, and get engaged in those activities which you can do without desire. The more you practise this kind of activity, the greater will be your capacity to remain in the same way even when so called mundane activities become predominant, so that in every activity, at every stage you are truly concentrated: there is no such thing as ‘frequency’ there after. All distraction, all dispersion is basically ‘frequency’; you turn into superficiality of consciousness and in all superficiality you loose concentration. The more you live in the activities of Bhakti or Karma or Jnana, the less you become dispersed afterwards. So, these are the effective means of avoiding dispersion.

All superficiality is an enemy of concentration. Most of us normally live a superficial life: we react superficially; we think superficially; we have our dreams also in a superficial manner; our expectations are also superficial. It is this superficiality which has to be avoided. In every activity, take it seriously. Normally our tendency is to discard things, to unburden ourselves in a superficial ‘frequency’. Instead of that ‘you say that every activity is a play with the Divine’, and this play with the Divine has to be a natural play which is completely concentrated: there is no dispersion possible there. If you dance with the Divine every organ of your body must tune itself with the Divine who is the greatest dancer: Shiva is the greatest dancer and if you want to play with the Shiva, with the dance, you have to see that every movement is so concentrated that you play rhythmically with the dance of Shiva: so no superficiality will work…all right?