Śrīmad Bhagavadgītā: chapter 6, verses 37 onward — Arjuna's question about the yogī who falls short
The soul has two aspects: the Higher Self and the lower self.
If the lower self develops in its intensity, then you are dropped down.
If the Higher Self develops, you are rescued.
But between the Higher Self and the lower self, there is always a constant war that
goes on until there is victory for the Higher Self.
When there is victory for the Higher Self, we have attained liberation.
purpose of life has been resolved. You saved yourself by yourself.
vasudeva-sutaṃ devaṃ
kaṃsa-cāṇūra-mardanaṃ
devakī-paramānandaṃ
kṛṣṇaṃ vande jagad-gurum
Adorations to Lord Kṛṣṇa, the Preceptor of the Universe, Destroyer of the Forces of
Darkness, Bestower of Immortality.
Śrīmad Bhagavadgītā, chapter six, the Chapter on Ātmasaṃyama Yoga, which broadly
implies controlling the self.
Controlling yourself by yourself, figuring out how to do it.
And the focus is on practice of intense meditation.
Arjuna had asked
How can mind be brought under control when it works like a wind uncontrolled?
and Kṛṣṇa gave the answer:
Abhyāsa and vairāgya.
These must enter your life. Abhyāsa is repeated effort.
Repeated effort, repeating work.
Adopt the principal items of Integral Yoga and do it day by day.
Simple way of saying
Start with your japa, meditation,
get insight into these and how to do them, do some yoga exercises,
and create a plan. Having adopted a plan, that plan includes satsaṅga.
This whole plan must be clear before your mind.
And once you have created a plan that is harmonious, rhythmic,
and delightful to your mind, you adopt it day by day.
Make each of your day delicious.
Don't live with a sense that one day I will be going
to be very happy because I'm practicing yoga. In 6 months I will get success.
That each day is your goal.
Make it as perfect as you can.
But also understand your mind must have a mature
way of looking at things, not childish way.
If things don't work out the way you want it, you are childish,
you begin to cry and all the yoga explodes.
But look at it in a more mature way.
Nothing good that you do can ever be wasted.
Positive movement is the remedy for all that is negative.
so whether it appears to help you the way you want or not.
So with that type of mind and just like no matter how things are you want to eat it.
You want to eat everyday.
No one complains. How long can we go on eating it?
And thinking about minerals, vitamins, this and that.
When will I be free from all this rubbish?
Hello
Just as that part never brings conflict in your mind.
why should
love of God, prayer, japa, meditation, satsaṅga, listening to the glory of sages
and saints—why should these bring any botheration to your mind?
So the mind should feel delightful. How wonderful it is!
Not only are you eating laḍḍus in the physical world,
eating laḍḍus in your mouth.
So, keeping that in view, and while doing so, as abhyāsa goes on, vairāgya develops.
Things that we are leaning upon with so much sense, where
you are so helpless, wanting to have support
in different ways, you are supported by your taste.
different types of gross habits,
Gross companies.
All this constantly depending upon external that support begins to diminish.
You find yourself you are like on a tree.
You are a bird, but somehow you have not grown your wings yet.
And you are at the branch of a tree and everything is terrible for you.
Even a squirrel comes and jumps up and down and you are threatened.
However, as wings develop,
strengthens the soul.
And no matter how limited, full of
Transient values may be about the tree.
You are not supported by it.
You are not supported by the world. That's vairāgya.
The world doesn't have to be always with you.
giving you a field of enjoyment—go on eating,
go on listening, go on touching, go on.
With all types of sense enjoyments, should the world be always, should the soul be
always involved in sense delights?
From advanced point of view it's senseless.
So
And you begin to understand.
Should you be constantly dependent upon people around
you, circumstances, objects, situations?
Should there be a life of constant dependence? No.
a sense of inner freedom.
And that would imply detachment, detaching from all this.
Now the idea, how can you?
Detach, is it reasonable? In fact, it's more than reasonable.
Day by day, the best part of your life is when you go to sleep.
And when you go to sleep, you're completely detached.
Ego that you loved so much, even that ego is thrown away.
Time, space all move away.
Why can't you build up that type of intelligence in your mind that looks for
absolute freedom from all this support?
also understand. Though the ideal is so profound,
And the world seems to grip you all the time.
Now think of another way, be a swimmer.
You are in the world, fine.
But not to be a
that we devoured by the war.
You are in the ocean
Don't sink in it.
Learn to swim.
And sinking again, you will say it's impractical.
You have to be in the world, handle so many things. All right, sink in it.
But not let your nose go down.
Just one point, let them know now.
Don't get suffocated.
always have the buddhi, intellect.
Bride
So, abhyāsa and vairāgya.
And the third point is īśvarapraṇidhāna, surrender to God.
tapas svādhyāya īśvarapraṇidhānāni, Rājayoga says.
And the Gītā has pointed that out by using the term surrendering to God.
tapaḥ relates to physical discipline
svādhyāya relates to japa
and allowing the mind to enjoy study of scriptures, satsaṅga so that there is a
profounder insight gained about your own inner Self.
So when there is austerity, and
japa-type of movement in your mind and surrender to God.
Along with it, abhyāsa and vairāgya.
That becomes the mantra, most powerful method of
attaining success in the form of liberation.
That's the goal of life.
In 37th verse
ayatiḥ śraddhayopeto yogāc calitamānasaḥ aprāpya
yogasaṃsiddhiṃ kāṃ gatiṃ kṛṣṇa gacchati
One who is unable to control himself.
Despite his faith
One whose mind wanders away from the state of yoga.
Thus, failing to attain yogic perfection.
What end does he meet, O Lord?
Now try to
understand from various angles.
Suppose
The idea came to your mind that goal of life's liberation.
Let me therefore
Not allow myself to be just indulgent with all the things around me.
Let me renounce.
Let me get into severe discipline or moderate discipline and let me adopt.
But
Immediately your mind begins to question you.
Suppose your karma is a big forest
How much of that forest can you clean up?
with all your effort.
and your mental mathematics is very poor.
I'm just giving you a more elaborate way of looking at things. But some people
move away from their sadhana.
because of saṃśaya, doubts.
Some are obstructed in their sādhana because they fall sick.
So many things can happen. This is the world of tritāpas.
Misery arising from your body, misery created by the
people, war, politics and all that from outside.
and the misery coming from the heavens. Act of God.
So therefore, no movement in the world is perfectly secured.
But from the point of view of the ego that is
But if you understand that the entire world is God's
creation and the soul is His image in your heart.
Soul and God cannot be separated.
Sun and its reflection in a jar.
They are always in tune.
And reflection in a jar is not a reality in itself.
Your soul is not a separate reality.
But the separation is created by your mind, and the mind has the possibility of
maintaining illusion as well as breaking it.
The process of maintaining illusion is the movement towards avidyā, ignorance.
Breaking illusion, vidyā.
Now let me further explain.
Suppose you started in a healthy way.
And you began to progress in your meditation, in your sādhana.
But
Due to certain karmic process
There are people who have been very bright and they die
while they are just 30, 20, even whatever age.
If that happens.
Now the mind asks.
Wouldn't that person have been better if he had not renounced
and gone into all this intense suffering?
He has lost
the pleasures of the world.
And goal is not attained.
Neither here nor there.
Another way of looking at it, if you are from a little higher rung,
A sense of I did all the best sadhana
But
If life comes under
A distressing challenge.
Life Terminates
Now you have to go into another body.
Will you?
Go through again building up all the sādhana that
you have built up already in this life.
Will that all be wasted?
And you have to begin sādhana again.
losing your sādhana and losing the goal of sādhana,
double aspected loss.
Another point
Under exceeding distress, life presents
Challenging Situations
Situations are perfect
Perplex your mind in a profound way.
You lose memory.
If that has happened.
All that you have done, what has happened?
You lose your senility.
having practiced a lot of meditation, visited lots of satsaṅga.
Will that all be lost?
Another big challenge.
Movement towards death is not easy.
Serious
Sorrows and sufferings are experienced by the mind.
Will the mind sustain its memory of sādhana?
All the sādhana you have done
and death demolishes all.
I will not elaborate any further.
These are the questions of Arjuna
kāṃ gatiṃ kṛṣṇa gacchati? If a person has, without attaining the goal, passed away,
What happens to it?
kaccid nobhaya-vibhraṣṭaś chinnābhram iva naśyati,
apratiṣṭho mahābāho vimūḍho brahmaṇaḥ pathi?
O mighty-armed Kṛṣṇa, since he has fallen from both,
The path of karma and that of jñāna
There's more extension of that falling from both.
Path of karma means if you are doing good karmas,
The result will be heavenly enjoyment.
and you became imperfect in that path of karma
What will happen to you? Will you go to heaven or will you go to hell?
and path of jñāna
jñāna is wisdom
adopted the practice of listening, reflection, meditation,
but didn't come to the state of enlightenment.
Hello
So if you are fallen from both and has been deluded
on the path that leads to Brahman.
Does such a person, does he not perish like a cloud
that has been rent asunder by the wind?
Without any support.
etan me saṃśayaṃ kṛṣṇa chettum arhasy aśeṣataḥ tvad
anyaḥ saṃśayasyāsya chettā na hy upapadyate
This is my doubt, O Kṛṣṇa.
Please rend it asunder.
Because it's not possible for anyone except You to dispel this doubt.
There are several implications.
Doubt known as saṃśaya is a great obstacle in your spiritual movement.
And resolving the doubt requires
Seeking guidance from
A spiritual source, a spiritual personality that inspires you.
Kṛṣṇa here is God incarnate
But still He is just a personality, inspiring personality.
To Arjuna
Arjuna has not understood Kṛṣṇa in all His glory.
So
in spite of Kṛṣṇa being constantly with Arjuna,
Arjuna had been under a lot of illusions.
Simple point, even if you bring yourself to the most enlightened personality,
In close conjunction
And yet
The benefit you receive will depend upon how much you are qualified for.
to bring yourself to the boast of delicious dishes before you.
But how much can you enjoy it will depend upon your appetite.
Arjuna had not received these divine inspirations so far.
But now he's asking, O Kṛṣṇa, please rend it asunder.
And when that type of hunger enters into your heart,
Hunger for understanding.
Having clearer vision, what should be the goal of your life?
And what should be the process of attaining?
When that question develops within your heart, the inquiring heart.
That's called ātmakṛpā. Your soul has become gracious to you.
Because your project is uddhared ātmanātmānam.
Rescue the soul by your own soul.
So far your soul was tumbling your soul into misery.
Soul wants to come up and soul pushes it.
Soul has two aspects: Higher Self, lower self.
lower self develops in its intensity, then you are broken down.
Higher Self develops your rescue.
But between Higher Self and lower self, there is always constant war goes on until
there is victory for the Highest.
When there is victory for the Higher Self, we have attained liberation.
Purpose of life has been resolved. You saved yourself by yourself. Great.
ātmakṛpā
The soul has developed a touch of Divine Grace.
Once that has developed, develop aspiration, a taste for satsaṅga, a need
for being uplifted in a spiritual way.
If that has come, it's not something simple.
Out of thousands of people who are well satisfied with the world.
Some develop that type of aspiration.
because of many good karmas done in many lives that
enables you to develop that much aspiration.
Let me repeat to you about grace.
If you have ātmakṛpā, grace, operating within yourself in the form of
Aspiration
Then you are led to guru.
gurukṛpā
someone who can guide you.
As you receive Guru Kripa
You are further assisted by
śāstrakṛpā
Grace of scriptures. The guru initiates you into scriptures.
The same Gītā, the same Rāmāyaṇa, same Upaniṣad
that you have been reading in the libraries.
Now under guru's guidance,
Gītā, just few words of the Gītā.
they become explosive.
They gain a tremendous power.
And when that happens, you derive great inspiration
from these enlightening scriptures.
Scriptures become your great support, great friend.
They are not just books.
That's called śāstrakṛpā.
And all these are different aspects of īśvarakṛpā, God's grace.
Ultimately, we are led by God's grace to attain liberation.
Now Lord Kṛṣṇa replies:
Hello
pārtha naiveha nāmutra vināśas tasya vidyate na
hi kalyāṇakṛt kaś cid durgatiṃ tāta gacchati
O Arjuna
A Yogi is never destroyed.
neither in this world nor in the next
O friend, whoever does good does not tread the path of grief.
First point
Any effort you have made
to change for the better, to bring
positive changes in your personality—and here I'm not referring to ordinary change,
but a process of transformation—
Whatever degree of change you have brought within yourself, it is never lost.
Any positive step you have taken towards enriching
yourself in a spiritual way, it is never lost.
What happens?
prāpya puṇyakṛtāṃl lokān uṣitvā śāśvatīḥ samāḥ
śucīnāṃ śrīmatāṃ gehe yogabhraṣṭo 'bhijāyate
Having fallen from yoga
After death, a Yogi enjoys heavenly worlds for everlasting years.
And then he is born in the house of those who are pure and prosperous.
The statement is all.
allegorical, because if he is enjoying everlasting years,
it would be impossible to do anything further.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
First to understand
As you practice yoga,
You are in different levels.
In the beginning, you are just trying to remove your mala, gross impurities.
What you are removing your mala
Your understanding about the purpose is not clear.
All that you think that it will give me great joy.
I will enjoy bliss of heaven, svarga.
And therefore I should be kind, I should speak sweetly.
Therefore I should do acts of charity.
and so forth. You become deeply involved in doing good things.
But your intellect is not sharp or intuitively clear.
If that is so,
First point to understand if you continue doing that.
good good involvement in good actions
Suddenly allows you to slip somewhere. Slip for the best.
Come to a state
Let me not hold on to my ego.
Let me turn to the higher power and say, what is best for me? Do that to me.
A higher trust develops. He knows better than I know.
So in the beginning, your 'I', ego is leading you on,
and you are not going beyond the view of ego.
As long as that happens, it's called Sakamya movement. Movement in Pravritti.
Sakāmya movement means you will
Again, lots of good karmas.
Along with it, there will be negative karmas.
Good karmas predominating, they will begin to give you their fruit.
Their fruit is lots of happiness.
And that state of intense joy is called a heaven.
But happiness that does not give you ultimate resolution
to all your problems, but simply delays.
It's just like you have entered into a dream and dream has become so interesting.
You don't want to wake up.
But no matter how interesting your dream, you have to wake up.
Led by good karmas.
without resolving the ego, ego problem.
Then good karmas stay and they give you their result.
In your life, good karmas bring prosperous situations.
But after death,
The enjoyment the good karma brings is much more intense.
That's called svarga
What is the difference?
If intensity of enjoyment comes to you, here again enjoyment is not real.
It's enjoyment the form of
Mental Illusions
So, for example, you suddenly win a big lottery.
a person without much money and suddenly you have 70 million dollars more
People say what a wonderful news. That again gives you a kind of thrill.
that will keep you swimming in that elation.
That's a little example of heaven, but people think of heaven.
Similar experience comes after death.
That experience is
million times greater than the intensity of enjoyment
that you can have in the physical plane. Why?
Because your physical body is not there.
Physical body acts like a restrictive valve.
If your happiness goes beyond certain, your body gets paralyzed.
You can't bear it.
So
You are fortunate as long as what is physical body.
But physical body is not there after death.
Now you are being led by subtle karma.
And soul is with the mind and with all the desires.
And a dream-like experience unfolds based on your good karma.
And that experience is unlimited. So the intensity goes so deep.
that it cannot be described in the terms of ordinary language.
And that's what it is.
draw the attention of people. People are charmed by that idea.
And it is described in the terms of an allegorical language.
First type of legal language, unending happiness.
It's not allegorical.
Its intensity is so much
It's another way, it's a kind of a mystical way of describing.
Heavenly experience is done in the terms of time.
someone experienced for thousand years
in him
Another one who has done better good karma, he experiences a million years.
And when he is born in the world, the from worldly way, it was only few years passed.
Intensity of experience being described in the terms of period of time.
that confuses people when they study scripture. This study how
Umā, the daughter of Himālayas, practiced thousands
of years before she married Śiva.
But the married time she is just young and
All the time doesn't show up through her face.
I'm just giving you the extension to understand scriptures use.
allegorical language.
Likewise, if you have done painful karmas,
Then the path you are following called yātanā-mārga, path of punishment.
It comes while you are alive.
Suddenly we have a plan and we become frustrated.
Trouble comes pouring down from your roof one after another.
Misery doesn't come alone.
It has a whole crowd with it.
And all that again is your own karma, karmic process.
But in spite of all the misery you suffer here.
There are karmas that want you to go into bigger pain than all this.
That's called hell.
Just like with heaven, if you have no body, no nervous system, your experience
goes into a deeper plane and very intense, there is nothing to restrict it.
Human experience of happiness is restricted.
Likewise, pain, if you have pain beyond a certain degree, you simply pass out.
become unconscious. There is a valve controlling it.
After death, that wall is not there.
Until you come back into another body.
So therefore that painful karma puts you into a painful experience that is so
intense that is described in allegorical way that you are thrown into hell fires
and that fires go on burning day and night.
and who remain conscious.
This type of description is if you are under ego's guidance.
Under the umbrella of ego you can go heaven or hell.
But if you have done good karmas, that has opened a window for God's grace.
And a subtle sense has entered your mind.
How can I be led by God?
and not stay with my own mental vision of what I should be.
find surrendering the ego, developing devotion where ego is effaced.
That becomes a greater aspiration, greater ideal than anything else.
Once that has developed, we are moving away from pravṛtti to nivṛtti.
From sakāmya to niṣkāmya
karmas that you do, good karmas with its ego involved in it.
You do the same good karmas now, your sāttvika ego
is involved in it with the understanding.
Let all this bring to me cittaśuddhi, purity of heart.
Your whole attention is how can I become internally closer and closer to God.
Secondary aspect, yes. See your project successful.
And that will happen automatically, more than you can imagine.
But your primary focus
Coming closer to God.
What could be a greater fortune than shaking hands with God?
becoming one with God.
So that is
Now when you are in that state of moving away from sakāmya.
The two types of yogīs. A yogī who has come to this state
of having lots of heavenly qualities, virtuous
karmas that will lead him to heaven.
and the mind has moved away to mokṣa, but has not attained mokṣa, though the insight
has slipped into the mind that all this bhoga is not the goal.
and the goal has not been attained.
What will happen to him? He is called yogabhraṣṭa.
He would have succeeded if he had time enough.
to get away from the pull of pravṛtti, from the pull of these worldly values and
to develop unobstructed flow towards God.
That if he had accomplished, he would have attained success.
But now, due to some obstacle, he falls. What will happen to him?
prāpya puṇyakṛtāṃl lokān uṣitvā śāśvatīḥ samāḥ
śucīnāṃ śrīmatāṃ gehe yogabhraṣṭo 'bhijāyate
Having fallen from yoga, after death,
the yogī enjoys heavenly worlds for everlasting years.
Then he is born in the house of those who are pure and prosperous.
Kaaram prosperous
So if you want to be born
in a prosperous family
and become shining yogīs
Then that should be your qualification. You should have done a lot of good karmas.
But wait, don't get enlightened.
Just get a sniff of the idea.
Don't complete the movement.
Then
In divine plan you are born in a wonderful family.
So prosperous, Buddha is the example.
Born in a royal family, everything is there for him.
But the very same things that make ordinary people
indulgent and completely sunk in worldliness.
The very same prosperity inspired Buddha to develop sensitivity.
How to end the misery of the world?
And that would be your predicament.
Being born in a prosperous family, you begin to develop love of God, and you
prosper as a as King Janaka or whatever.
Voltaine Enlightened
But if you have
passed away having turned to niṣkāmya
Here again, you didn't attain the goal.
but who turned sufficiently away from the path of doing good deeds.
for flourishing in the world.
with a little sniff of the transcendent.
But now you have more sniff of the transcendent.
Now you have full lungs
of transcendental vision
But you have not attained it. And you die.
Now you will not be born in a very prosperous
family with a big display of wealth.
śucīnāṃ śrīmatāṃ gehe
atha vā yoginām eva kule bhavati dhīmatām etad
dhi durlabhataraṃ loke janma yad īdṛśam
or he may be born in the family of the wise yogīs.
Such a birth in this world is most difficult to attain.
So, now this advanced type of people who have
Good insight into transcendental.
They are drawn to family where father, mother, both of them or one of them is
Highly Advanced
Family of the change zhala kha?
the family of Madālasā
cradles the child: śuddho'si buddho'si nirañjano'si.
A family where the child listens to glorious scriptures from the parents.
So not so much display of wealth.
But knowledge enters the mind and the family goes on encouraging the child.
The child may be like Naciketas, who was just a few years old,
and attained enlightenment.
and in that family is characterized by
śrīmatām
whose mati, understanding, is
extremely rich. Not wealth type of richness.
But the richness in the form of clarity of understanding, richness in the form of
daivī sampad, all divine qualities.
In that family you are born
Naturally you are inspired from the beginning and you are that's how your
previous life has led you into
And you have no other choice but to become liberated.
Means spontaneous way
You have inherited it.
And with this I will conclude. Om śāntiḥ.
oṃ pūrṇamadaḥ pūrṇamidaṃ
pūrṇāt pūrṇamudacyate
pūrṇasya pūrṇamādāya
pūrṇamevāvaśiṣyate
oṃ śāntiḥ śāntiḥ śāntiḥ