Bhagavagd Gita - Session 21- Track 2106

The next verse is nothing but the same statement described in other words:

bandhur ātmātmanas tasya yenātmaivātmanā jitaḥ |
anātmanas tu śatrutve vartetātmaiva śatruvat ||6|| (VI)

“For one who has conquered his very self by his own Self, his very self becomes his friend, but for one who has not conquered his self, his very self will act inimically, as would an actual enemy.”

Now, once you begin to rise above…now the consequent and subsequent statement in the Bhagavad Gita speak to you once again of the state of equality. As you rise in freedom more and more, your capacity to be equal minded becomes greater. You will see through out the Gita, there is constant emphasis on equality, a subject that we discussed last time with all its paraphernalia, with all its delusions, with all its different stages, but ultimately when this freedom is being exercised more and more, then you will be free even in adverse circumstances; you will not be exited even in unfavourable circumstances; and you will take your own stand in which no desire can touch you:

jitātmanaḥ praśāntasya paramātmā samāhitaḥ |
śītoṣṇasukhaduḥkheṣu tathā mānāpamānayoḥ ||7|| (VI)

“One who has conquered his self and has attained tranquillity, who remains balanced in cold-heat, pleasure-pain, and honour-dishonour, his mind is centred on the Supreme Self.”

The 8th, 9th, 10th they are again re-statements of this very position of equality. So, we shall rapidly study them. In the 8th verse it is said:

jñānavijñānatṛptātmā kūṭastho vijitendriyaḥ |
yukta ity ucyate yogī samaloṣṭāśmakāñcanaḥ ||8|| (VI)

“The Yogin whose self is content in knowledge and in realisation, who is immutable, master of his senses and for whom an earth-clod, a stone, a piece of gold are the same, is said to be controlled in Yoga.”

suhṛnmitrāryudāsīnamadhyasthadveṣyabandhuṣu |
sādhuṣv api ca pāpeṣu samabuddhir viśiṣyate ||9|| (VI)

“He who has a balanced mind towards well wishers, friends, enemies, the indifferent, the impartial, the hateful, relatives, saints as well as sinners, he excels.”

yogī yuñjīta satatam ātmānaṁ rahasi sthitaḥ |
ekākī yatacittātmā nirāśīr aparigrahaḥ ||10|| (VI)

“When you begin to rise into this freedom, into the state of equality, you begin to feel greater and greater attraction towards ekākī, you begin to become more and more solitary…yogī yuñjīta satatam ātmānaṁ rahasi sthitaḥ |

ekākī yatacittātmā nirāśīr aparigrahaḥ ||10|| (VI)…you have no personal hopes; you have no desire to collect and store things; your whole mind is concentrated, your citta is concentrated upon the Self; you remain isolated, you remain solitary; and then you remain in a state of equality.”

“A Yogin should constantly concentrate his mind on the Supreme Self remaining in solitude, all alone, with controlled mind and body, free from desires, and craving for possessions.”

Now comes in the next few verses a very important subject. We are now shifting entirely from uddhared ātmanātmānaṁ, you should raise your self from the self. From that subject we are now coming to a new subject, although connected with it. It is said that your citta should be concentrated upon the Self, (upon the higher self), but already earlier Arjuna had raised the question that this citta, this manas, this cancalam, it is too vivacious, so unstable. Even if you want to raise yourself, can you raise yourself? Or is it prakṛtiṁ yānti bhūtāni? So, Sri Krishna now enters into that subject, and gives an exposition of what is called ‘Dhyana Yoga’. Now, this Dhyana Yoga is actually speaking, in our classical system of tradition, is called ‘Raja yoga’.

If you remember earlier we had spoken of Raja yoga many, many weeks ago, at almost the beginning of the Bhagavad Gita because we had said that there is the word Yoga used today, in our normal parlance, and whenever the word Yoga is used, we normally means what was meant by the word Raja yoga in our tradition. Therefore, when we speak of Yoga in the Bhagavad Gita it may give an impression that the book of Bhagavad Gita is nothing but the same Yoga, which is Raja yoga and of which we have spoken today in general parlance, and we had said that the Yoga, the word Yoga is not used in that sense in the Bhagavad Gita. The word Yoga used in the Gita has a larger connotation, has a larger meaning, a larger sweep.