Bhagawad Gita Ch 2. Verses 61-67 [Swamy Chinmayananda's commentar y]

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taani sarvaaNi sa.nyamya yuk{}ta aasiita matparaH .

vashe hi yasyendriyaaNi tasya praGYaa pratishhThitaa .. 2\.61..

 

61. Having restrained them all, he should sit steadfast, intent on Me;

his Wisdom is steady, whose senses are under control.

 

Since the sense-organs are thus the saboteurs in the

Kingdom of the Spirit that bring the disastrous downfall

of the Empire of the Soul, Arjuna is warned here that, as a

seeker of Self-perfection, he should constantly struggle to

control his sense-organs and their mad lustful

wanderings in their respective fields. Modern psychology would

certainly look down with a squint-eye upon this Geeta theory,

because, according to Freud and others, sensuousness is

instinctive in man, and to curb it would lead to an unnatural

suppression.

 

According to the West, TO CONTROL is TO SUPPRESS, and no

science of mental life can accept that suppression is

psychologically healthy. But the Vedic theory is not

pointing to any mental suppression at all. It is only

advising an inward blossoming, an inner growth and

development, by which one's earlier fields of enjoyments

through the senses, drop out to make room for the perception

of a newer field of ampler joys and more satisfying Bliss.

 

This idea is very well brought out here, when Lord Krishna,

as though in the very same breath, repeats both the negative

and the positive aspects of the technique of Self-development.

He advises not only a withdrawal from the unhealthy gutters of

sensuousness, but he also gives the healthy method of doing so

by explaining the positive technique of Self-perfection. Through a

constant attempt at focussing our attention "ON ME, THE SUPREME,"

he advises the disciples to be steady.

 

In this simple-looking statement of half-a-verse, the Geeta explains

the entire technique of Self-development. Immoral impulses and

unethical instincts, that bring a man down to the level of a

mere brute, are the result of endless lives spent among sensuous

objects, during the infinite number of different manifestations,

through which the embodied soul, the ego in each one of us,

had previously passed. It is humanly impossible for an individual

to erase and transcend in his life-time, the thick coating of mental

impressions gathered along his journey from life to life, from

embodiment to embodiment. Naturally, this is the despair of all the

promoters of ethics, the teachers of morality and the masters of

spirituality. The Rishis of old, in their lived experience, discovered

for themselves a technique, by which, all these mental tendencies could

be eradicated. To expose the mind to the quiet atmosphere of

meditation upon the All-perfect Being, is to heal its ulcers. By

this process, one who has come to gain a complete mastery over his

sense-organs, is considered as one who is 'steadfast-in-Wisdom.'

 

The concealed suggestion in the stanza now becomes quite obvious;

no one, who, with excessive force controls his Indriyas, by sheer

strength of will and sense of abstinence, has any chance of flowering

into a full-blown spiritual beauty. He who has all his sense-organs,

of their own accord, lying tamely surrendered at his feet, who has come

to re-discover the Infinite Perfection in himself, is called a

man-of-Perfection. Neither has he ruined his instruments-of-cognition,

nor has he closed down the arches-of-knowledge in him. A Perfect One

is he whose sway over the animal in him is so complete that the inner

Satan has become, for the Sage in him, a tame Caliban to run errands

and serve faithfully.

 

NOW THE LORD PROCEEDS TO POINT OUT THE SOURCE OF ALL EVIL IN THE

CASE OF THE UNSUCCESSFUL:

 

dhyaayato vishhayaanpu.nsaH saN^gasteshhuupajaayate .

saN^gaatsa.njaayate kaamaH kaamaatkrodho.abhijaayate .. 2\.62..

 

62. When a man thinks of objects, "attachment" for them arises;

from attachment "desire" is born; from desire arises "anger" . . .

 

krodhaadbhavati saMmohaH saMmohaatsmR^itivibhramaH .

smR^itibhra.nshaad.h buddhinaasho buddhinaashaatpraNashyati .. 2\.63..

 

63. From anger comes "delusion" ; from delusion "loss of memory" ; from

loss of memory the "destruction of discrimination" ; from destruction

of discrimination, he "perishes. "

>From this verse onwards, Lord Krishna explains in five noble stanzas,

the Hindu psychological theory of the fall of man from Godhood.

This is only to bring home to Arjuna that he, the mighty-armed, must

try to conquer all his Indriyas from all sides. Such a man, concludes

Krishna, is a-man-of-Perfection as conceived in and contemplated upon,

as explained in and glorified by the scriptural books of the Hindus.

This section also gives us a clear pasttern of the autobiography of all

seekers who have, after long periods of practice, come to wreck

themselves upon the rocks of failure and disappointment. To a true

seeker in Vedanta, no fall is ever possible. Instances of unsuccessful

seekers are not few, and in all of them the mistake that we notice is

that they ultimately fell back to be victims of sense-entanglement;

and in all those cases we also notice that the fallen one

drank the very dregs of it; there is no half-way house for such

victims --- a slip for them means total destruction!!

 

The ladder-of-fall is very beautifully described here. The path of

destruction for a seeker is so elaborately detailed in these stanzas

that, fallen as we are, we shall know how to get back to our

pristine glory and inward perfection.

 

Like a tree emerges from a seed, the source of all evil starts

from our own wrong thinking, or false imaginations. Thought is

creative; it can make us, or mar us. If rightly harnessed, it can be

used for constructive purposes; if misused, it can totally destroy us.

When we constantly think upon a sense-object, the CONSISTENCY OF THOUGHT

creates in us an ATTACHMENT for the object of our thought; and, when

more and more thoughts flow towards an object of attachment, they

crystallize to form a BURNING DESIRE for the possession and

enjoyment of the object-of-attachment. The same force of the motion,

when directed towards obstacles that threaten the non-fulfilment of

our desires, is called anger (Krodha).

 

An intellect fumed with anger (Krodha) comes to experience DELUSION and,

the deluded intellect has no power of discrimination, because it loses all

MEMORIES-OF-THE-PAST.

 

Any one filled with anger is capable of doing acts totally forgetting

himself and his relationship with all others. Sri Shankaracharya says

in this connection that a deluded fool, in this mental condition, might

even fight with his own teachers or parents, forgetting his indebtedness

to these revered persons.

 

Thus, when an individual, through wrong channels of thinking,

becomes ATTACHED to an object, the attachment matures into a

burning DESIRE to posses that object. Then, when an

obstruction to possess that object-of-desire shoots him up

into a fit of ANGER, the mental disturbance caused by the emotion

DELUDES the intellect and makes the individual FORGET

his sense of proportion and his sense of relationship with

things and beings around him. When thus, a deluded intellect

forgets its dignity of culture, it loses its discriminative

capacity, which is called, in common parlance, as 'conscience'

(Buddhi). Conscience is that knowledge enjoyed

for differentiating the good from the evil, which often forms

a standard in ourselves, and, whenever it can, warns the mind

against its lustful sensuousness and animalism.

Once this 'conscience' is dulled, the man becomes a two-legged-animal

with no sense of proportion, and with no ears for any subtler call

in him, than the howling urgent hungers of the flesh. Thereby, he

is guaranteeing for himself a complete destruction inasmuch as such

a bosom cannot come to perceive, or strive for, the Higher, the

Nobler and the Diviner.

 

THE CONTEMPLATION OF SENSE-OBJECTS HAS BEEN DESCRIBED AS THE

SOURCE OF ALL EVILS. NOW THE MEANS OF DELIVERANCE (MOKSHA) IS

DESCRIBED AS FOLLOWS:

 

raagadveshhavimuk{}taistu vishhayaanindriyaishcharan.h .

aatmavashyairvidheyaatmaa prasaadamadhigach{}chhati .. 2\.64..

 

 

64. But the self-controlled man, moving among objects, with his

senses under restraint, and free from both attraction and repulsion,

attains peace.

 

He alone --- who, with perfect self-control, goes through life among the

infinite number of sense-objects, each impinging upon him and trying to

bind him with its charm, and approaches them with neither love nor

hatred --- comes to enjoy PEACE. By running away from the sense-objects,

nobody can assure for himself any inner peace; because, the inner

disturbance depends not upon the presence or the absence of the

sense-objects in the outer-world, but essentially upon the mind's

agitations for procuring the desirable objects, or for getting

rid of the undesirable objects. But a Master-of-Wisdom, with perfect

self-control, moves among the objects of the world with

neither any special love, nor any particular aversion, for them.

Wherever I go, my shadow must play all around me according to the

position of the light; but the shadow can neither entangle me

with love, nor can destroy me with hatred! The outer-world-of-objects

is able to whip that man who lends the power to the objects to

smother him!! Supposing there is a lunatic who is whipping himself

and weeping in pain; his sorrows can be ended only when he is persuaded

not to take the whip in his hand. He could be advised, even if

he kept the whip in his hand, not to swing his arms in the fashion

in which he is doing! Similarly, here, the mind woos the objects and

gets beaten. It is told, as an advice, that an individual who

lives in self-control, will no longer lend his own life's dynamism to

an object to persecute him --- through his own sentimental aversion to,

or love for, that object. When the lunatic is taught not to wield the

whip and strike himself, he is immediately saved from the sorrows of the

whip. Similarly, when a mind is trained in these two aspects:

 

(a) to live in self-control, and (b) to move among the sense-objects,

with neither an attachment for, nor an aversion to them, the

disturbances nd agitations in the mind caused by the sense-enchantments

are all immediately brought under control. This condition of the mind

is called tranquillity or peace (Prasada).

 

This is symbolically represented in the sweet-distribution after very

Puja in all religions, and is called among the Hindus as Prasada

(or Bhog), meaning that, one who has, during the ritual, practised

perfect self-control and God-contemplation, comes to enjoy, as a

result of his action, a tranquillity in the mind which is termed

as Spiritual Grace, or Divine Peace (Ishwara Prasada).

 

Here, as far as a Vedantin is concerned, Prasada is mental

purification. That mind is considered as pure, which feels in

itself the least sense-disturbances. One who has learnt to live

in self-control and has trained himself to live among the sense-objects

in a spirit of the least attachment to, or aversion for them, has

the least disturbance, because of the ineffectiveness of

the sense-objects upon him. Thereby, his mind automatically

becomes more and more calm and tranquil, and is considered as

pure (Prasada) for purposes of the spiritual life.

 

WHAT WILL HAPPEN WHEN PEACE IS ATTAINED? LISTEN:

 

prasaade sarvaduHkhaanaa.n haanirasyopajaayate .

prasannachetaso hyaashu buddhiH paryavatishhThate .. 2\.65..

 

65. In that peace all pains are destroyed; for, the intellect of

the tranquil-minded soon becomes steady.

 

It is natural for an Arjuna-mentality of uncompromising intellectualism

to ask Krishna: "Then what?" And as an answer, the Lord explains why

he should develop and maintain tranquillity of the mind in himself.

"IN TRANQUILLITY ALL SORROWS ARE DESTROYED." This sentence is obviously

commented upon as a definition of happiness. A peaceful mind is

significant of happiness. PEACE IS HAPPINESS; HAPPINESS IS PEACE.

The least-agitated mind is proof against all sorrows inasmuch as

sorrow is nothing but a state of agitation in the mind.

This explanation does not satisfy us completely since Krishna's

assertion is that 'sorrows will be destroyed' (hanih). In order

to bring out clearly the meaning implied in the phrase 'destruction

of sorrows,' we will have to understand it as the "elimination of vasanas."

Earlier, in the introduction, we have said that the vasana granulations,

giving a thick coating to the subjective mind, are the cause for its

delusion which creates all sorrows for the imperfect; while the Perfect

transcends the vasanas through the Buddhi yoga explained earlier.

It is very well-known that all the vasanas existing in an individual

who is facing life constantly, cannot be fully eradicated by him.

The secret of doing so has been explained here by the Lord. Keeping

the mind exposed to an atmosphere of tranquillity (Prasada), consciously

brought about through an intelligent life of self-control, is the secret

whereby all the vasanas can get eliminated.

 

THIS TRANQUILLITY IS EXTOLLED HERE BY LORD KRISHNA:

 

naasti buddhirayuk{}tasya na chaayuk{}tasya bhaavanaa .

na chaabhaavayataH shaantirashaantasya kutaH sukham.h .. 2\.66.

 

66. There is no knowledge (of the Self) to the unsteady; and to the

unsteady no meditation; and to the unmeditative no peace; to the

peaceless, how can there be happiness?

 

Here is an explanation why quietude of the mind is so often and so

insistently emphasised in the literature explaining the Hindu-technique

of Self-perfection. Unless the mind be quiet, the individual will not

have the intellectual leisure for cultural self-development, nor the

inner energy for consistently living spiritual perfections, that a

truly developed man yearns for. Unless there is tranquillity, there

cannot be steadiness of intellectual application to the problems of

life, and without this self-evaluation of life and true observation

with a clear discriminative analysis, we cannot have in us the required

amount of "Devotion to Self-knowledge" (Bhavana). Without

such a glorious Goal before us, constantly beckoning us unto itself,

like a pole star, our life shall be a lost ship in an ocean, going

nowhere, reaching nowhere, and ultimately foundering upon

some treacherous rock.

 

One who has no philosophical goal in life to strive and yearn for,

will not know what peace of mind is, and to one who is thus restless,

"where is happiness?" To live in balance, and sail safely upon the

uncertain waves of the ocean of life, through both its smiling weather

and stormy days, we must have a constant perception of the Real.

Without a drummer, the dancers' foot-work cannot be rhythmic and

cannot keep perfect time.

 

WHY IS THERE NO KNOWLEDGE FOR THE UNSTEADY? LISTEN:

 

indriyaaNaaM hi charataaM yanmano.anuvidhiiyate .

tadasya harati praGYaaM vaayurnaavamivaambhasi .. 2\.67..

 

67. For, the mind, which follows in the wake of the

wandering senses, carries away his discrimination, as the wind

carries away a boat on the waters.

 

As a ship with sails up and helmsman dead would be completely at the

mercy of the fitful storms and reckless waves, and will not reach any

definite harbour, but is destroyed by the very tossings of the waves,

so too, life gets capsized and the individual drowned, if his mind is

unanchored and left to be carried hither and thither by the uncertain

buffets of passionate sense-storms. Therefore, the senses are to be

controlled if man is to live a better and more purposeful

life, designed and planned for enduring success.

 

HAVING EXPLAINED THE PROPOSITION ENUNCIATED EARLIER, THE LORD

CONCLUDES BY RE-AFFIRMING HIS STATEMENT:

 

68. Therefore, O Mighty-armed, his knowledge is steady whose senses are

completely restrained from sense-objects.

 

It is natural, in conversation, that we do not directly give our wise

conclusions upon "the do's and dont's" of life, without giving the logic

of our thoughts leading to our conclusions. Without preparing our friend's

mind to perceive the logic of these conclusions, we dare not declare to

him any truth, however divinely acceptable the declarations are. Arjuna

has been told earlier all the necessary arguments, and here in the stanza,

Krishna re-asserts the same proposition: "Life in self-control alone is

life worth living, if we demand from it anything more than tears, sobs,

sighs and groans." He alone is a man of Wisdom, rooted in joy and bliss,

who has completely restrained all his senses from their wild roamings

among their sense-objects.

 

"BY DESTROYING THE SENSE ORGANS ROAMING IN THE SENSE-OBJECTS," it

does not mean that a man of Self-development should destroy his

capacities for perception of the world outside; nor does it mean

that he is one who has been rendered incapable of enjoying

life. Sense-debility is no sign of better-knowledge. It is

only meant here that the sense-objects filtering through the five

archways of knowledge will not, in a Perfect man, flood his mind to

bring chaos and destruction of his established inner peace and

tranquillity. The ordinary individual, in his ego-centric existence,

becomes victimized by the sense-organs, while he who has conquered the

ego and has transcended his matter-identifications, comes to

live in freedom and perfect control over the tyrannical sense organs.