Whom does God love? - Part 2

            Krishna adds a few more virtues that attract him. We will take the next couple of verses which elaborate this like careful strokes of a master painter.

यस्मान्नोद्विजते लोको लोकान्नोद्विजते च यः ।
हर्षामर्षभयोद्वेगैर्मुक्तो यः स च मे प्रियः ॥12-15

अनपेक्षः शुचिर्दक्ष उदासीनो गतव्यथः ।
सर्वारम्भपरित्यागी यो मद्भक्तः स मे प्रियः ॥12-16

yasmān no-dvijate loko lokān-no-dvijate ca yah|

harshā-marsha-bhayo-dvegair mukto yah sa ca me priyah||

 

anapeksha shucir daksha udāsino gatavyathah|

sarvārambha parityāgi yo mad-bhaktah sa me priyah||

He, by whom the world is not agitated and who cannot be agitated by the world, and who is freed from joy, anger, fear and anxiety – he is dear to Me.

He who is free from wants, pure, expert, unconcerned, and free from pain, renouncing all undertakings or commencements – he who is (thus) devoted to Me, is dear to Me.

यस्मान्नोद्विजते लोको – From whom the world is not agitated – A person who does not agitate others is one who is not taking sides on issues. It is said that when Buddha walked in a certain mile radius even the tiger will not exhibit its predatory nature. Now this is purely an anecdotal message, which is shared to highlight the nature of Buddha.  But a more recent phenomenon, documented by many, was at the feet of Ramana Maharishi. Many devotees have rushed to his feet with lots of mental turmoil to be meted by his calming silence. This inner calmness radiating from a man of perfection transforms all who come in contact. In fact, the world loves the calming brilliance of such a saint. All creatures love to have peace and are in constant search for it. A saint who has calmed his agitations becomes a powerful source where all agitations coming in contact, within and without, are transformed into peace. 

           This does not imply the man of perfection will have no impact.  Since the actions are not ego centered, even the Silence will be powerful. The World by its nature will be ego centered, but coming in contact with such an individual, the World gains. A skeptical agnostic Narendra blossomed into Swami Vivekananda. An extremely critical atheist Balakrishna Menon shook the Hindu world after coming in contact with Swami Sivananda as Swami Chinmayananda. Such transformations happen only when coming in contact with such men of perfection.

  

लोकान्नोद्विजते – Who does get not agitated by the world - We have seen that all interactions with the world are through the three instruments – body, mind and intellect. The stimuli from the world interact with our vasanas and activate a reaction through these instruments. A typical person is unaware of this subconscious process. As a piece of reed that is tossed in the waters, the world continues to agitate under the vasana pressure. A man of perfection is not only aware of this process but has significantly eliminated the vasanas. All his actions are complete total actions and not reactions of the stimuli with vasanas. As there are no agitations, there are no future vasanas as well, which is a by-product of our actions. 

This does not imply the man of perfection is emotionless and is like a statue. It means that even though such an individual may display emotions, their mind is calm. For instance, if we tie two logs of wood with a thick rope and if the rope catches fire, the burnt ashes may have the appearance of the rope, yet does not function like one. This is why we see many saints and sages going through their Prarabda, yet are unperturbed. We saw this when Ramana Maharishi went through surgeries without anesthesia and never was disturbed by his painful cancer.

हर्षामर्षभयोद्वेगैर्मुक्तो – Devoid of joy, anger, fear and anxiety – This phrase captures the essence of the above trait. A typical reaction (Stimuli interacting with vasanas) is a strong desire for an object (person, thing, situation). Achieving the desired outcome produces joy. Any obstruction that blocks the desired outcome expresses as anger. (Read more at Vāsanās - A key to understand our past, present and future). Even in the event of achieving joy, it immediately is replaced by a fear of losing it. Anxiety fills the mind either in anticipation of the joy or in perceived situations where anger or fear as the potential outcome. A normal mind is thus, tossed constantly due to its attachment of a desired outcome, which not only agitates the mind, but also strengthens the vasanas.

            A man of perfection is free from performing actions that are vasana driven and outcome centric, which makes him free from being tossed by pursuits of joy, outcomes of anger and fear and anxiety of desired outcome. This does not imply such a person is living in the world as a statue. The emotions that may emanate from such an individual are aligned with the Cosmic order and are not tuned to the individual’s desires. They still may choose to behave like a normal person or exhibit eccentricities, yet they are constantly aware of their true nature.

अनपेक्षः – Free from Wants/Desires/Expectations, in short free from dependance – A typical human being, craves for conditions that are conducive to the recreation of one’s vasanas. Vasana memory kindles a lingering fondness of certain favorable conditions which the Body-Mind-Intellect (BMI) complex sets to reconstruct. In that sense, the typical western idea of free-will is entirely baseless and bogus. As long as humans are subject to vasana pressures, free will is a myth, as all the choices are constantly biased by the vasanas. It may not be as evident in the case of a drug addict, yet, the choices we make are constantly shaped by the vasanas. It may be noted that Abrahamic religions when confronted with the conundrum of why God could not direct HIS own creation, invented an idea of Free Will to explain this anamoly. The idea of Vasanas lines up along more scientific lines and explains more deeply than a mere over-arching statement of free will.

शुचि – Pure – The common adage “Cleanliness is next to Godliness” captures the external purity. In India, it is documented since Saraswati Valley Civilization times; emphasis has been given to Purity. Modern science corroborates this correlation between the cleanliness of external environs and productivity/peace of mind. Yet Krishna’s emphasis is purity all around from the depths of the mind which gets reflected exernally as well. It is ironical that in such a civilization where millennia of focus on purity, today we choose to turn a blind eye. A large percentage of the society’s ailments be it disease or pollution or relationships within and without the family can be fixed by just simple tweaks of Purity emphasis.

            External purity may be attained by washing, bathing, taking care of pollution amongst others. Yet internal purity can be achieved by twin efforts – the first is to wage a war against the negatives of the mind like anger, jealousy, greed, sorrow and the second is to simultaneously work on strengthening good virtues to replace them.

दक्ष – Alert, Expert – A man of perfection is always tuned to the vagaries of the world. He is always engaged alertly with the changing world be it external or internal. This is due to the fact no energy is dissipated in the worries of the outcome of action or in preparing suitable reaction for what one is subjected to. This allows a complete attention in every action. The slacking of this quality has led to a very poor standard we uphold in our current Indian society. Corruption has replaced being Daksha.

उदासीन – Unconcerned, Indifference – This is foolishly misunderstood as careless. The person suffering from poor intellect takes this as a direction from Krishna to not worry about adharmic acts going around them. Nothing can be such a travesty. The unconcerned udasina attitude referred is to the undue focus one accords to one’s ego, one’s bodily creature comforts. These create unnecessary energy dissipations which take us away from the task on hand. If we are not fixated on the outcome of the task and if a task is based on our svadharma, then having a detachment to the outcome, yet 100% focus on the task, makes one alert and expert. These qualities are strung together. If we develop one, few others come along with it.

गतव्यथः - Untroubled – Once a desire takes roots in the mind, it gets preoccupied with the attainment of the fruits. This causes a mental turmoil. There is anxiety and fear about the desired outcome. There may also be manifestations of this in the form of disturbances from achieving the goal. A man of perfection is untroubled both by these internal and external disturbances.

सर्वारम्भपरित्यागी – Renouncing every initiative – This is one of the most misinterpreted idea. Hindus have literally taken the direct word meaning and turned into Tamasic nature. Laziness has replaced many who still quote Gita asking them to renounce undertakings. We will take a deeper look into this:

            Every action we perform is a reaction to some thought, word or action from the outside world. We saw how the vasanas come in contact with these stimuli and give birth to desire. Once a desire is birthed, the mind gets attached to it and feels ownership. The sense of ego arrogates itself as the creator and owner. With the fruition of the desire, it only gets stronger, as also with its obstruction. The mind clings on to the desire and feels compelled as its idea, its action. In reality, nothing is 100% our action. From a grand scheme of things, we can see it was a mere response to the stimuli and pre-existing favorable conditions. From the point of Jnana, we can safely understand the futility of ego claiming action. From a Bhakti viewpoint, we can feel that we are mere instruments in the hands of Bhagawan. In any case, we can safely conclude that the ego’s claim of commencing the new initiative is blatantly wrong.

            Krishna suggests that renouncing the ego that feels as the creator and implementer of the idea. When one renounces the ego notion, one operates from a higher principle. In short it is easy to perceive that all the qualities highlighted by Krishna are all centered on the same idea of correctly identifying ourselves as a ray of the Paramatman and not to get swayed by the powerful sway of the ego. 

            When one is not approaching the world from an ego stand point of view, then how else can it be approached is a valid question. If we reduce Consciousness in the Universe, there exists Universal Consciousness and Individual Consciousness. If EGO which is centered on the Individual Consciousness is removed from the focus, it is obvious that the Cosmic Will carries out its actions through the individual. Thus, it becomes obvious from Krishna’s prescription that the ego which is constantly resisting the mighty Cosmic Will gains from aligning itself to it.

            How can one describe the impact of the Cosmic Consciousness being the tailwind?

Om Tat Sat

References / Recommended Reading

·            The Bhagawad Geeta – Swami Chinamayananda

·           The Bhagavad Geeta – Swami Sivananda

·           How to cultivate Virtues and eradicate Vices – Swami Sivananda

Related articles

•  Whom does God love – Part 1?

• Whom does God Love- Concluding part?

  

BMI Chart - Swami Chinmayananda's teaching aid

Swami Chinmayananda - One of the greatest 20^th century Hinduism revivalists, who went to the masses, instead of being sought unlike traditional Hindu Gurus; a towering personality who was able to explain Hinduism to a modern mind, which had been riddled with questions from modern life, science and mostly skeptics. This year, we are celebrating the 100^th year. Above all accolades, his contributions to society stands out in bringing the Bhagavad Gita to the masses, which was usually reserved for an advanced spiritual aspirant. Right next to that monumental contribution, one would argue the BMI chart as a tool to explain Vedanta.

            The genius of great wisdom lies in their simplicity to elucidate great ideas. BMI chart is a prime example. It can be used to introduce vedantic ideas to a novice, even to totally unrelated cultures in a scientific language. It can also be used to impart deeper understanding to advanced aspirants.

What is BMI?

            Human beings are uniquely endowed with a mind and an intellect, apart from a body. Vedanta aggregates the mind and intellect as Antahkarana (Internal Instrument) and the body, inclusive of the sense organs as Bahishkarana (External Instrument). Just like the body deploys the senses as instruments to detect some information in the external world, the mind and intellect are inward facing instruments.

            Human tendency is to have one or more of these instruments dominate the individual. This is not a question of right and wrong. We can simply turn around and see some are concerned about the physical plane, irrespective of other considerations, for example, social workers. Most of us are tossed by the mind and many cannot hold logic oriented discussions. They are emotional in every approach, be it being happy or sad. The bulk of the masses in the current generation will fall in this category. Then there are people who are centered around their intellect. When one thinks of Abdul Kalam or Sri Aurobindo, their intellect comes to the fore, irrespective of their field of knowledge. Though we have this observation, in reality, we may find ourselves an admixture of these traits.

            The importance of understanding these trends are important as they may aid or deter our inward journey to the SELF.

            To fully understand the BMI concept, the idea of Vasanas is central to it. I have given a basic sketch of Vasanas in an earlier article. 

            In Bhagavad Gita, chapter 13, Krishna emphasizes on idea of kshetra (the field) and kshetrajna (the knower). The Body-Mind-Intellect (BMI) is the kshetra where all experiences occur. This is the field that experiences heaven and hell. This field of birth and death is called samsara.

BODY:

            Before we dwell on the SELF or Supreme Consciousness, let us dive deeper into the BMI. The Body Perceives Objects. The perception is centered on the instrument and the biases within. Let us take any object around. A person with myopia will not perceive the same object as one with normal eyesight would. The object being the same, the perception can get distorted by the perceiver of the object. Similarly a person observing the moon with a powerful telescope will have a better perception than a person without it. It is also important to note that the mind has to be engaged during this process.

The mind however fast can only deal with one sense at a time. The senses have a limitation that they can only produce a picture of one kind. In remote sensing satellite, reflected light is captured in different bands. These bands are merged to provide a composite picture, as each wavelength captures a different piece of information. In the same way, the senses are deployed to detect information in different areas of interest. The mind collates and interprets these never-ending newsfeeds.

Amongst the senses deployed also, not all are equal. Science has repeatedly proved how the different senses impact our learning or understanding differently. Before we shift our focus to the next instrument, Mind, let us also understand that object itself operating under different conditions. We know the states of matter will alter the object. But if one were to peer closer to the objects, we see them as bunch of molecules and atoms. Atom is mostly empty space. Reducing further we land into a world of only energy and information package. 

Also interestingly, I see you as an object, but you perceive me as an object. Needless to say that there is a blending of sorts going on.

MIND:

As we just now observed, the object perception is a very biased process, depending on the mind’s level of participation. The Vasanas are the filter through which the mind can perceive any object. But the mind also performs an interesting action. Either as a reaction to a perceived object or situation (present), the memory (past) or the projected understanding (future) the mind feels emotions. This feeling can take diverse expressions. We analyzed this in detail in an earlier post on Desire – A genealogical approach.

INTELLECT:

            This internal equipment is an eastern concept where the rational analyzing faculty is termed as the intellect. The intellect generates thoughts by thinking.

PERCEIVER-FEELER-THINKER (PFT):

            The consciousness or life force in us which enables the Body to Perceive Objects is also behind the Mind to Feel Feelings and the Intellect to Think Thoughts. This Consciousness though it enables all these operations gets comingled with the BMI and identifies itself as the Perceiver-Feeler-Thinker. The lens of vasanas constantly keeps the Consciousness to be separate from the P-F-T. This constant separation is due to the EGO. Consciousness is covered by the three types of dirt, which is proportional to the vasanas – mala (dirt), vikshepa (fickleness) and avarana (dirt). Mala can be scrubbed only by selfless action – Karma Yoga. Vikshepa can be annihilated only by constant devotion to the Supreme Self in some method – Bhakti Yoga. Avarana can be unveiled only by knowledge of the Self – Jnana Yoga.

            As we understood how Consciousness can be approached by removing the dirt covering it, it basically translates to the broad methods prescribed in Sanatana Dharma – Karma, Bhakti and Jnana margas to suit the temperament of people leaning to Body, Mind and Intellect equipments. For the ones who are a mixed pattern, Dhyana Yoga or Meditation was prescribed. Swami Sivananda introduced a simplification to the modern world. Many times we are not any one type. Hence he recommends doing a little in each category every day. A little bit of nishkamya seva, a little bit of reading scriptures (Upanishads, Itihasas, puranas, Bhagavad Gita), a little bit of bhakti, a little bit of meditation, a little bit of atma vichara, a little bit of satsanga. This approach smoothens all our kinks in all areas of life.

OM:

            We already observed from the chart that vasanas play a key role in the perception of Objects by the body, feelings felt by the mind and thoughts thought by the Intellect. But little is understood about the nature of our own life or consciousness. Just like in a mathematical concept, the unknown entity is referred as “X”, let us keep OM to represent Consciousness, which we know nothing about. As we scrub the vasanas and do not let new ones to replace the existing ones, as we increase Satsanga (association with the wise – people who have an understanding of Consciousness are referred as the wise, not to be confused with worldly wisdom, which is nothing but knowledge), we perceive the play of Consciousness everywhere in the Universe.

            Narayana, represented as OM, enlivens in all beings. When EGO obstructs, it mistakes this ray of enlightenment as the individualised Perceiver-Feeler-Thinker. Consciousness can thus be realized only by the eradication of Vasanas. Just like a bright light covered by numerous layers of dirt is invisible, till the layers of dirt is removed; an understanding of Consciousness doesn't arise until the vasanas are scrubbed. Once they are gone, there is nothing that needs to be done to make the Consciousness shine, as it is the light which makes even light visible.

            Till the time one gets a direct understanding of Consciousness, we can either use Shruti (Vedas, Upanishads) or Smriti (Itihasas, Puranas) as a reference, a pointer to the pointer. It may be noted that countless great souls, rishis, realized people have corroborated their experiences to be identical with the ones stated in Shruti. Hence listening to these Wise men have been part of our tradition. 

            All the darshanas and mathas like advaita, visishtadvaita, dvaita have sprung from a simple fact, when these great realized souls after tasting this nectar wanted to share it with the ones who desire to approach the SELF.  This is where the seeming differences crop up.

            So, we have all the aids. We have BMI getting us OET through PFT. We have the scriptures which can corroborate our inner journey milestones. We have Satsanga to assist. We have four major paths guiding us based on our vasana makeup. As long as one desires to understand the real perceiver, the real feeler, the real thinker, one can be on this journey at a moment’s notice. The BMI chart is an excellent tool to any seeker to interpret subtle esoteric vedantic ideas in a common man's language.

            May that Supreme Consciousness grant us the good intellect, a healthy mind and a sound body and guide us on this journey we are all making, with or without our knowledge.

Om-Tat-Sat

References:

•        Swami Chinmayananda Explains Vasanas Through BMI chart