What Lies Beyond Worldly Pleasure?| Essence of the Geeta | Episode 86

You are listening to the essence of the Gita. In this episode, Swamiji explains how meditation helps us move beyond sorrow and discover a deeper lasting peace. Here we upload the importance of practicing with faith, determination and patience. When a mother is trying to put a child to sleep, a child who has been sick and crying all the time and has just tried to keep the child to sleep and the child is just peacefully sleeping at rest. That time, the husband comes and says, I brought you your favorite chocolates. You just start experiencing that peace. You will want no disturbance whatsoever. This is where tons of your vasanas, any thought from inside or outside, comes to disturb you. Compared to that peace, there is nothing that can fascinate your mind. Your mind will instantly reject it. Otherwise, in the world, you might be busy at some work, but somebody says, here is an ice cream. Immediately what you will say, wait, wait, wait. Keep it for me. I will eat it later. Not here. Even a good thought coming into your mind at that time, the moment it disturbs your peace, that's why Guruji said, in that white heat of meditation or in that blissful moment, and this is not yet the absolute bliss, please, you will realize even your favorite thoughts, even your favorite people, even your favorite film actor, comes to your mind. Your mind will instantly want to throw it out. Anything that would disturb or take the mind away from that peace, your mind will instantly drop it, because far superior is this bliss compared to any of your pleasures, atindriya, beyond the senses. It was so true that even when you have experienced that peace and you can see, because it's with you always, then you realize that in seconds you can just withdraw and be into that peace. Neither the world can fascinate you nor anything in the world can disturb you, because nothing is worth your mind indulging in compared to that. Therefore, Sukham atyantikam yattad buddhi graayam atindriyam and once you come to know it, vethi yattranacya eva ayam sthita-chalati tattvatah. Because no other bliss is greater than this union with yourself. You know also, no? When finally this young maiden gets to finally escape from her home to run to her beloved. There's so many such stories of Sohini Mehwal. In between comes the river, in between comes the sister-in-law, in comes anybody, in comes the friends also. Nothing can stop her from meeting her, beloved. That joy is inexplicable. So therefore, having gained that peace, buddhi graayam, those masters who have seen it step by step by step, that final state, there is no buddhi also. That whatever thoughts that are remaining in your mind, the trace of your intellect, which intellect, which now has the thought, aham brahmasmi, I am this infinite self, that is the last trace of the intellect. Where all other erroneous notions, all other thoughts have disappeared. Only the thought aham brahmasmi in that still moment where the sun is reflecting without any thought fluctuation. But the water has become still, the glow of the sun in that still water. It's only the glow, it's only the bliss reflected in the pure intellect that is experienced by the yogi just before realization. And that's what the yogi remembers, because at realization what happened, you cannot even describe it. So buddhi graayam, Shri Ramakrishna Paramhamsa gives an example that when the salt doll approaches the ocean to fathom the ocean or meet its source and having come in front of the ocean, does not just look at the ocean but tries to feel the ocean, embrace the ocean, get close to the ocean. The ocean comes and grabs it and when the salt doll is grabbed into the ocean for that brief second feels the embrace of the ocean from all sides and the next moment it has dissolved to become one with the ocean. This is what happens to a pure intellect. When all other thoughts are gone, only the thought of the truth, reality, self is there that moment, the bliss that is experienced that the intellect cannot think of anymore. It's stupefied in wonder. And wonder is where intellect does not even think. It is not a suppressed controlled intellect. The intellect just goes, means intellect came to a standstill. That moment is the moment of realization. But even the journey at each step is so peaceful. And as your mind becomes quieter and quieter, the amount of bliss you feel is even more. The shine of the sun in the still waters becomes brighter and brighter. And then what is that gain? Yam labdwa cha param labam manyate nadikam tatha Thereafter no gain is greater than that gain. After all gain is to gain happiness. And all our gains in this world, anything we gain, in the gain of any object that we gain, there's always a feeling that there is something more to gain. So therefore, yam labdwa cha param labam manyate nadikam tatha So na adikam labam manyate. That is the highest gain beyond which there is nothing more to gain. That's the state of fulfillment. And yasmin stitva nadukkena guruna api vichalyate And having got established in it, any amount of external sorrows may come. And for those who have been complaining about pain, pain, pain, pain, pain Shankaracharya in this portion says that even if someone were to cut, come and cut off his limb with weapons in front of that bliss here, that loss of a limb, the pain also will mean nothing. That is the level. So yam labdwa cha param labam manyate nadikam tatha Yasmin stitva nadukkena guruna api vichalyate Now again, if you see, when you get one joy in this world, for example, while you are here, you get the news that you got a big business deal, there is a great joy, but the sorrow of your son not passing his examination is not ended with it. See, in the joys of the world, your sorrows don't come to an end. When it is said, no janama janama ke dukhabisarave Such is the bliss that no sorrow can touch that person. No loss is a loss. It reminds me of one of Guruji's jokes. When is loss again? When does loss make you happy? When it is weight loss? Therefore even excruciating sorrows are no sorrows for such a person. So dukhena and dukhena guruna, guru means excruciating, heavy, sorrow. Api vichalyate is not moved by that. Guru Dev said, just like a governor in the city, and when people are just upset because they didn't get something, they burn an effigy of that governor. For example, it happened in India, especially when India loses in cricket from Pakistan. Then whoever is the captain of the team, they will make an effigy of that cricket. And if he wins, they'll make a big poster of him. And that poster that they made because they won the semifinal match and they made these big posters of the captain of the Indian team. That when they lose the finals, they go with soda bottles and they go and then throwing kerosene on it. They get angry and they burn while the captain is sitting in South Africa drinking a glass of beer. He who has realized his immortal self, when the effigy of the body is burning, I think that person will be affected. Guru Naapi na vichalyate. Such a person is not affected. And therefore Bhagawan says, don't make meditation into a suffering. Meditation is your gliding into bliss. And therefore Bhagawan says, tam vidyad dukkasai yoga vyogam. What a beautiful definition Krishna has given. Normally yoga is something very frightening, something very high to attain. What is yoga? Yoga actually is vyoga. Yoga we understand. Yoga means yuj to unite, to make one. That we understand is vyoga. Krishna says, no, no, no, this is a wrong definition. Yoga is not uniting. Yoga is disuniting. Viyoga. Yoga is vyoga. How can yoga be vyoga? This yoga is ayoga. Yoga is not union. It is disunion. Disunion with what? Tam vidyad know this very well. That dukkha samyoga vyogam. Yoga samgitam. That which they call as yoga. Yoga means all included. Karma yoga, sankhya yoga, dhyana yoga. That is called as meditation, which is your disunion with pain or sorrow. So Guru Dev would put it, yoga or meditation is divorce from your wedlock with sorrow. At this moment you are married to sorrow. At this moment you are married to sorrow. Your divorce from everything that gives you sorrow is called as marriage with yourself. You have to divorce with your previous husband to marry, you know. You divorce from your wedlock to sorrow. Now when you try that, you think immediately this wife of yours is going to give you a divorce or this husband of yours is going to give you a divorce. Tell me. Krishna says, tam vidyad dukkha samyoga vyogam, yoga samgitam. That is called as yoga. So don't think, you know, meditation, I have to give up all my pleasures to come for a yoga camp, Gita Marathon camp, Swamiji. My birthday is there. My friend's wedding is there. My business deals are there. I know there's too much work there. Divorce it. Then only you can have a love affair with yourself. Till then not permitted. Because if you are married to sorrow, how can you flirt with happiness? You have no right for it. No? But when you are divorced from sorrow, then only you have a chance to be happy. And Bhagawan says, Therefore, sa nishchayena yoktavya. Thus this meditation should be followed with sincerity, punctuality and with firm conviction. Nishchayena yoktavya. For this yoga should be practiced with determination. Anirvinna cetasa. Anirvinna cetasa is beautifully. Meaning is that with the mind which is steady, which is not despairing, which is cheerful, meditation should not be... It is dissociation with sorrow. It's however long Radha has to wait for Krishna. She does not despair. Because kachche dhage se bande chale aayenge wo, Meera ki tara bulayenge to. Without despair, like a lover waits for his or her beloved to come. Because it has to come. Otherwise I've got nowhere to go. The world is full of sorrow. Where have I to go? Thus I wait. Wait with joyful anticipation and with the faith that my Bhagawan will come. Why? Because my Guru has said so. And perfect example of that in the Ramayana is Shabri. A tribal woman, not educated, but silently, without even the Guru knowing, she goes and serves. The Guru so pleased with the humble service, makes her the indweller of the ashram. Where there are student-wise intelligent brahmins. Not a caste of people, but intelligent. And when the Guru departs from this world, whatever knowledge he may have given to the students, he only trusts Shabri to continue his work. He says, you stay here in this ashram. Because when the Guru is gone, the students will all run away. They got what they wanted. But you stay here waiting. He gives her the Ram Nam Mantra. Sri Ram Jai Ram Jai Jai Ram Sri Ram Jai Ram Jai Jai Ram. And you wait here. Ram himself will come to you and you give him the message to go to Sugriva. She has become old with age. Her eyes may have developed atrack. Yet every day her eyes are fixed on that one path that leads to that ashram, which is now dilapidated. But she keeps it clean and neat. She brooms the path that there would not be a thought. Because who knows that today my Ram will come? And years have passed with each day she cleans. I don't know when he comes, I will clean up. I don't know, he does come. Every day she has kept the path clean. Every day she has kept the asana ready, the seat ready, with only one Shraddha that my Guru has said, you just wait for him and he will come. And therefore when she sees these two princes come in her ripe old age, she sees the two of these princes come. Shama Gaur Sundar Dhubai Shabri ke ashram Pagudhari Shabri dekhirama griha aay Muni ke vachanasamu ji jiye bhai Sarasi jalo chana ba hubi sala Jata mukut ur vana mala When she sees these two princes coming and the Guru had said, she says, but I didn't have the intelligence to understand you that who is Ram, how will I recognize Ram? Even what I heard from you, how will I recognize him? Because you only said he is indescribable. Say that you don't worry. When he comes you will recognize him. And how did she recognize? Because Guru's word, that Muni ke vachanasamu jiye bhai I can't believe, has the Lord of the universe come to me? But Muni ke vachanasamu jiye bhai That indeed my Guru has said, that's why Ram has come to me. And truly he has come. Muni ke vachanasamu ji jiye bhai And then she sees Sarasi jalo chana. She sees his eyes like the lotus petal full of love. And how did she see? Because of her Shraddha. How did she see? Because with that Shraddha she waited. And how did she wait? Each moment thinking, now he is going to come. Anir vinachetasa, not despairing that today he did not come. If today he is not come, which means tomorrow he surely is coming. If today my meditation was not good, which means tomorrow surely it's happening. Very often success is around the corner. Even failures in meditation is only a stepping stone to success. It is said Thomas Edison was a master of failures. So was Abraham Lincoln. And every time his apprentice said, our project has failed 5,622 times. Shouldn't we give up? He said that means that many mistakes we have made, we are that much closer to the goal. See, with that that is called as Anir vinachetasa. Even if you feel that you are not progressing, in fact when you feel you are not progressing, you are progressing the most. Therefore it is not for you to test your progress. You just do. Gurudev said, yours is but to do and die. Not to question, why? So this Anir vinachetasa with a cheerful, anticipating, undispairing mind, because what you are going to gain is worth every weight.