Gita Satsangh. Chapter 8: Verses 5 to 7

[Guest guest]

Namaste. Om namah sabHabhyaH sabhA-patibhyascha vo namaH.

 

The triad of slokas 5, 6 and 7 of the eighth chapter is Krishna’s

condescending recipe for even the common man who may not want to or

perhaps cannot, rise to the subtleties of Vedanta. In sum, the three

verses say:

He that has thought of Me alone, laying his body, comes forth to Me

and enters into My Being. Doubt this not. But at the hour of death,

while laying off the body if one thinks of something else, he goes to

what he looked for, because he has been in that mood all along.

Therefore O Arjuna, at all times, think of Me and fight! Thou too,

when your heart and mind are fixed on Me, shall surely come to Me.

 

The traditional exponents of scriptures, quote, in this context, the

unusual case of Ajamila, a character in the bhagavatam. In spite of

the fact that he was a totally sinful man, just because he uttered

the word Narayana ( even though he did not intend it to refer to the

Lord), he was claimed by the messengers of the Lord Vishnu to be

eligible to go to the abode of Vishnu rather than to the hell which

is what he deserved from the life he led. This piece from the

bhagavatham containing a long discussion between the messengers of

Vishnu and those of the Lord of Death, is a delightful one to be

read and enjoyed for the purpose of understanding how powerful the

very word of the Lord’s name can turn out to be.

 

The last quarter of sloka 6 is pregnant with meaning. ‘sadA

tad-bhAva-bhAvitaH’ (has been in that mood all along) has two things

to say. One is that though theoretically it may be enough to utter

the word just at the last moment, in practice it will not be possible

for you to think of the name at that moment if you have not always

been in that mood. The second is that, the Lord Himself advises you,

in the next sloka, to think of Him always – ‘ sarveshu kAleshu,

i.e., at all times’ is the expression. This constant awareness of the

Lord is the essence of the teaching of all of Hinduism. And note that

the Lord adds ‘yudhya ca’ meaning, also go and fight. To Arjuna He

says (involving the context): go and fight. To us, general laymen,

the injunction is: Constantly think of Me but keep on doing your

duties. Some schools of thought may emphasize only the ‘think’

(anusmara) part – like the bhakti schools. Some others may emphasize

only the ‘yudhya’ (go and fight, do your duty) part – like Tilak and

his school. But it is important to do both, as is evident from the

‘ca’ (=and) that the Lord has put in.

The word ‘anusmara’ has an important connotation. It means ‘think of

me incessantly, without interruption’. The preposition 'anu'

indicates continuity.

A Tamil Poet, Param-jothi-Munivar of the 17th century in his work

called ‘Tiruvilaiyadar-puranam’ uses a characteristic expression for

the equivalent of this: ‘ninaiyamal ninaindu’, says he, meaning,

'remembering without remembering’. ! How is this possible? The

explanation comes from a modern Tamil writer of the 20th century: Ki

Va Jagannathan. He says: If one forgets, he has to remember. If one

does not forget the name of God ever, then there is no necessity to

recall and remember. Therefore he says it is really, ‘remembering

without recalling’. This is the meaning of the word ‘anusmara’ of the

Lord.

 

Finally one standard question. Don’t we have worldly obligations

like our office duties, domestic responsibilities, social necessities

and personal cares, to take care of? How can we constantly be

remembering the Lord while being thus engaged? This is a very

legitimate doubt. It has to be answered. In one of my expositions –

that was in 1990 at the Shirdi temple in Mylapore, Madras – the

following circumstance caught my fancy and ever since I have used it

as a counterexample to prove that the ordinary layman can remember

the Lord all the time irrespective of his other engagements. The

story probably descends to a very mundane (profane?) level, but the

way it clicks, for this context, is remarkable.

 

The hero of this story is a Non-resident Indian. He is visiting his

native village in a far-fetched place in India, along with his wife

and children. In the village the family naturally pays a visit to

the old temple, that has been a spiritual resource center for all

their ancestors in the family. The whole family naturally leave their

chappals and shoes outside the temple before entering the temple. Our

hero, however, observes, with a little regret, that there is no

provision in the temple for the safe keeping of these items of

footwear left outside the temple. Inside, his wife, who has

(unusually, in his opinion) become very much interested in the

religious and spiritual subtleties of the deities in the temple,

spends a good amount of time trying to visit each sannadhi (altar).

In fact she has started engaging herself in detailed conversations,

at every sannadhi, with the only priest of the temple, who probably

found this his best opportunity to talk eloquently about the temple,

its religious importance and its financial needs. Our hero, though

he feigns, for the sake of courtesy, to resonate with the rest of

the family in taking interest in the conversation accompanied by the

worship of the deities, is in fact all the time worried about the

safety of the costly footwear that has been left outside (and is now

not visible from his location within the temple) and he is repeatedly

trying to have a glance at the gate of the temple to see if there is

any suspicious movement there . At last, the ritual of worship is

over, they come out of the temple and of course, all the items of

footwear are intact. The moral of the story is in the behaviour of

our hero. Though outwardly, he was following the worship in the

temple, inwardly he was only thinking of the footwear left outside.

Can we reverse this circumstance by training ourselves to keep our

mundane thoughts and worries at just the outermost surface of our

mind and inwardly, keep the Lord and His memory at the bottom of

our hearts? If our hero can do that with his footwear in the heart

and the Lord in his outer mind, certainly we can try doing it with a

reversal of roles of the transient with that of the permanent. This

is exactly what Krishna wants when he says: Think of Me all the time

and keep doing your duties! It only means: The inner mind has the

Lord entrenched in it all the time while the outer mind dwells in the

outer world.

 

praNAms to all advaitins

Yours, profvk

 

 

 

 

 

=====

Prof. V. Krishnamurthy

My website on Science and Spirituality is http://www.geocities.com/profvk/

You can access my book on Gems from the Ocean of Hindu Thought Vision and

Practice, and my father R. Visvanatha Sastri's manuscripts from the site.

 

 

 

Health - Feel better, live better

http://health.

[Guest guest]

--- "V. Krishnamurthy" <profvk wrote:

>> The word ‘anusmara’ has an important connotation.

It

> means ‘think of

> me incessantly, without interruption’. The

> preposition 'anu'

> indicates continuity.

> A Tamil Poet, Param-jothi-Munivar of the 17th

> century in his work

> called ‘Tiruvilaiyadar-puranam’ uses a

> characteristic expression for

> the equivalent of this: ‘ninaiyamal ninaindu’, says

> he, meaning,

> 'remembering without remembering’.

 

Namaste all,

wonderful input already so thank you all!!!!!!!!!!

'Remembering without remembering' is another wonderful

phrase like 'the pathless path' and to some extent

this answers my question which is about the nature of

memory.

'Fix your mind on Me' is a simple instruction that may

begin as a totally duallistic approach which is

totally valid. At some point however a great leap is

made; something we have known all along is uncovered.

There is a memory and a feeling both in that instant.

As manas is stilled by giving it some form of the Lord

to concentrate on, or some sruti or some other

practice, buddhi is able to discriminate purely

without the interruptions of the ahamkAra. In the nine

steps of devotion we are directed to the practice of

'smaranam' and I wonder how 'memory' fits into the

tattvas arising out of the SaMkhya tradition.

 

In other words, where/what is this memory (smaram)that

remembers without remembering?

 

Many thanks

 

ken Knight

 

 

 

Health - Feel better, live better

http://health.

[Guest guest]

Enjoyed Prof. VK's story of NRI-hero.

 

Here are several methods that help the mind to train itself in

thinking of the Lord.

 

1. Start the day with the prayer -as soon as one get ups - think of

the Lord.

 

2. End the day with the prayer - before sleeping - think of the Lord

and in fact whatever you have done or not done (commissions and

omissions) offer at his Holy feet.

 

3. Itemize everyday what are the things you need to do for that day -

This is an important technique of time-management taught for all

managers and then prioritize the tasks.

 

4. Now before one start the prioritized tasks one by one think of Him

and freely seek His help to complete the task to the best you can.

After one completes the task and before takes up the next one has to

again offer that to Him.

 

5. Recognize that there is nothing that is mundane in this world.

Consider every task is very important and do it with full shraddha.

The shraddha will come if you consider that you are doing those tasks

for the pleasure of the Lord only. It will be the true prayer. - In

fact that is exactly he advises - yat karoti .... tat kurutvam

madarpanam - what ever you do offer that to Me.

 

6. The by product of this is when you think of Him before and after -

our mind becomes pure in the sense - there will not be baser

tendencies and the motivation becomes purer.

 

7. This applies even to the kaamya karma too - the kaamya part will

get neutralized in the process. The famous story of RamakrishNa's

disciple who was a drunkard and was allowed to drink but was asked to

drink only after offering mentally to His guru. Slowly his mind

shifted from drink to pure Bhakti and the drinking vaasana-s got

eliminated.

 

8. Thoughts automatically flow in the direction of ones vaasana-s

which are grooves formed by repeated thoughts/actions only.

 

9. It is not the action - mundane or supremely important - but it is

the attitude one has towards the action that makes that action as

yoga. This in fact is the essence of karmayoga too.

 

10. Remember the sloka that Nairji quoted - swalpam alpasya..If one

starts doing this even little bit - trayate mahato mahaan - one can

cross this big ocean of samsaar!

 

Hari OM!

sadananda

 

"V. Krishnamurthy" <profvk wrote:

> Finally one standard question. Don’t we have worldly obligations

> like our office duties, domestic responsibilities, social

> necessities

> and personal cares, to take care of? How can we constantly be

> remembering the Lord while being thus engaged? This is a very

> legitimate doubt. It has to be answered. In one of my expositions –

> that was in 1990 at the Shirdi temple in Mylapore, Madras – the

> following circumstance caught my fancy and ever since I have used

> it

> as a counterexample to prove that the ordinary layman can remember

> the Lord all the time irrespective of his other engagements. The

> story probably descends to a very mundane (profane?) level, but the

> way it clicks, for this context, is remarkable.

>

 

=====

What you have is His gift to you and what you do with what you have is your gift

to Him - Swami Chinmayananda.

 

 

 

Sign up for SBC Dial - First Month Free

http://sbc.