Gita Satsang: A Dosage of Atma in Place of Adrenalin - By Venkatramani

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A Dosage of Atma in Place of Adrenalin :

By S. H. Venkatramani , The Times of India, Monday, June 14, 1999

 

A whole host of spiritual preachers, straddling the spectrum of the world's

religions, have exhorted man to remain unattached. For instance, the epitome

of spiritual wisdom for the Hindus, the Bhagavad Gita, extols the beatitude

of action without attachment to its fruit.

 

Shri Krshn tells Arjun in the Bhagavad Gita, "O Pandav, he who neither hates

the presence of illumination (sattva), activity (rajas) or delusion (tamas),

nor craves for them when they are absent; he who is seated unconcerned (like

a witness) and is not moved by the three gun(n), who is established and

unshaken, knowing that the gun(n) alone operate; he who is alike in pleasure

and pain, self-possessed, regarding alike a lump of earth, a stone and gold;

who is the same in what is pleasant, in praise and blame, and is steady; he

who is alike in honour and dishonour, the same to friend and foe, giving up

all selfish undertakings, he is said to have crossed beyond the gun(n)."

Shri Krshn essentially wishes man to go through life as a sthitaprajna -- the

English word that comes closest to describing this serene state is

equanimity. It is a mental disposition towards equanimity that Shri Krshn

endeavors to inculcate into Arjun as the prince ventures forth into the

epochal battlefield of Kurukshetr.

 

It is the same philosophy of supreme non-attachment that St. Catherine of

Genoa preaches when she says, "We must not wish anything other than what

happens from moment to moment, all the while, however, exercising ourselves

in goodness." The catch, however, is that the Bhagavad Gita does not hold

before us the example of a lazy lotus-eater's life. The Gita preaches karma

yoga, the philosophy of right action without the bond of attachment.

Enthusiasm for action calls for motivation. It means that some adrenalin has

to flow in your system. The critical question, therefore, is: How can you get

that motivation if you live in a state of supreme non- attachment?

 

In his profound book, The Perennial Philosophy, Aldous Huxley succinctly

explains the subtle concept of yogic non-attachment. "In the practice of

mortification as in most other fields, advance is along a knife-edge. On one

side lurks the Scylla of egocentric austerity, on the other the Charybdis of

an uncaring quietism,"writes Huxley. "The holy indifference inculcated by

the exponents of the Perennial Philosophy is neither stoicism nor mere

passivity. It is rather an active resignation. Self-will is renounced, not

that there may be a total holiday from willing, but that the divine will may

use the mortified mind and body as its instrument for good."

 

Non-attachment and equanimity do not mean the abnegation of will, but the

transcendence of all private desires, so that the individual self can

totally become an instrument of the divine will. As St John of the Cross

explains, "The soul that is attached to anything, however much good there may

be in it, will not arrive at the liberty of divine union. For whether it be

a strong wire rope or a slender and delicate thread that holds the bird, it

matters not, if it really holds fast; for until the cord be broken, the bird

cannot fly. So the soul, held by the bonds of human affections, however

slight they may be, cannot, while they last, make its way to God."

 

In action without attachment, the motivation comes not from the heart's

passions, but from the soul's clear perception of the indivisible oneness of

reality, the advaita of Adi Shankara. In this perception, there is no

dualism between the perceiver and the perceived: you cannot tell the dancer

from the dance, as W B Yeats described it. "The goods of God", said St

John of the Cross, "can only be contained in an empty and solitary heart."You

have to empty yourself of all private purpose so that you may be imbued with

the divine purpose. That is the poverty of the spirit which Jesus Christ

repeatedly spoke about. As the Sufi woman saint, Rabi'a, says feelingly,

"God, if I worship Thee in fear of hell, burn me in hell. And if I worship

Thee in hope of Paradise, exclude me from paradise, but if I worship Thee for

Thine own sake, withhold not Thine everlasting Beauty."When you see that

"everlasting Beauty" with your soul, and yourself as one with it, your action

springs from an awareness born of atma, not of adrenalin.

 

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of research and open discussion. Copyrights, The Times of India.