Meditation On Evenness Of Mind (Bhagavad Gita Reading)
Welcome to the reading of the Bhagavad Gita for Daily Living by Eknath Easwaran, Volume 1, Chapter 4 Wisdom in Action, verse 20. I'm Rachael Peoples, and today I'm sharing with you the wisdom and benefits of meditation, what happens when we meditate, and the further challenges and agitations that allow us to continue to grow in our capacity to quiet our minds, even out our emotions, and deepen our practice. You may want to use this track as a meditation or as a study tool to learn about meditation.
Transcript
Welcome to the reading of the Bhagavad Gita for Daily Living by Eknath S.
Warren.
I'm Rachel Peeples,
And today I'm sharing with you the wisdoms and benefits of meditation,
What happens when we meditate,
And the further challenges and agitations that allow us to continue to grow in our capacity to quiet our minds,
Even out our emotions,
And deepen our practice.
You may want to use this track as a meditation or as a study tool to learn about meditation.
If you'd like to use it as a study,
I recommend grabbing your journal and a pen or pencil and pausing the track as needed to jot down pieces that resonate with you or that trigger an emotional reaction for your further reflection.
You may instead want to find a comfortable position to sit or lie down,
Closing your eyes if you are in a safe space to do so,
And simply listen to the words and let them sink into your consciousness.
Let's take a few deep breaths to prepare the mind to receive.
The Bhagavad Gita for Daily Living,
Volume 1,
A verse-by-verse commentary by Eknath S.
Warren.
Chapter 4,
Wisdom in Action,
Verse 20.
The wise man,
Ever satisfied,
Has abandoned all external supports.
His security is unaffected by the results of his action.
Even while acting,
He is only an instrument.
When you have directed your life towards a selfless goal,
Then tyatva karma phalasangam,
Do not get entangled in the result.
In order to undertake the great work for peace that is dear to all of us,
We should have an adequate sense of detachment from the results of our work.
If we are going to get agitated every time there is a rebuff,
Every time there is a reverse,
We ourselves will become violent.
As we all know,
Sometimes even the demonstrators against violence become violent.
In the words of the compassionate Buddha,
Hatred does not cease by hatred at any time.
Hatred ceases by love.
This is an unalterable law.
Similarly,
We can say today,
Violence will not cease by violence.
Violence ceases by nonviolence.
This is an unalterable law.
In order to win over opposition,
To bring people together,
We have to be serene and compassionate whatever the vicissitudes of life may bring us.
Mahatma Gandhi was at his best when seemingly defeated.
He used to say it was from prison that he struck his hardest bargains.
Most of us look upon defeat and reverses as weakening us,
But in karma yoga,
Every time we are defeated,
We seem to go deeper into our consciousness to bring out greater resources.
When we think we've been defeated,
When we come home and tell our family that we've been beaten,
Shri Krishna may say,
In my book,
I say the guy is doing well.
In order to grow,
In order to strengthen our muscles,
We need opposition.
Defeat is found very often in the lives of selfless people as an opening into opportunity.
The Gita says that when you follow the spiritual path,
Living for others,
Very often there come to you increased challenges,
Increased threats to make you go deeper and deeper into your consciousness.
If there were no difficulties,
You would only be skimming on the surface of life.
Gandhiji in a rare statement in which he gave himself away said,
I love storms.
It is a thrill to be in the midst of a storm when you are keeping the welfare of those around you first,
When the lightning is playing around your eyes and thunder is crashing in your ears.
When everything is against you,
You feel so sure that the Lord is within you that you have only to put your hand out and say,
Hold me,
My morale is sinking.
It is not that Gandhiji was not afraid.
He could get as afraid as you and I do under the pressure of circumstances,
But he always knew how to say,
Please take my hand,
See it's trembling.
And Sri Krishna loves trembling fingers when they are stretched towards him.
He does not like those who proudly say,
Feel my hand how steady it is.
When you surrender to him,
When you say,
By myself I am so weak,
So incapable of facing opposition,
But with the Lord supporting me,
What opposition is there that I will not face?
Then he comes to help you.
Niyatrikta means always satisfied.
When we are engaged in a great struggle,
For example,
Against violence,
One day we will gain a small victory.
Then we want to celebrate,
Sing and dance and get very elated.
But on the following day,
There may come defeat.
And on that evening,
There will be wailing and gnashing of teeth.
Here Sri Krishna says,
What kind of equanimity are you observing?
When there is victory,
You should go about quietly repeating my name and at night peacefully fall asleep.
There's nothing to be elated about.
And when there is a reverse,
Why gnash your teeth?
It's not good for them at that time.
Repeat my name and in the evening,
Go to bed and fall asleep in the mantra.
Every movement in the mind is insecurity.
Every movement of the mind,
Whether it is caused by ambition,
Anger,
Fear,
Lust,
Or any other agitation,
Alienates us from our real nature.
This is why the Bible says,
Be still and know that I am God.
When the mind is still,
We have gone beyond the mind.
In meditation,
We try to still the mind,
Which is a very difficult thing to do.
You may have been meditating for half an hour and the mind is fairly calm.
Well,
The mind is still,
We think.
I don't have to concentrate now.
We relax our vigilance and immediately pandemonium bursts loose.
At no time should we allow the mind to be agitated.
Agitation of the mind prevents us from releasing our deeper resources for creative action.
Nitya Tripta also conveys the idea,
Given elsewhere in the Gita,
That in order to be united with the Lord,
In order to discover the indivisible unity of life,
The mind has to be serene and waveless.
In the Gita,
12.
17,
Krishna says the person who never gets excited is very dear to him.
This word,
Exciting,
That has become part and parcel of our advertising paraphernalia is a very dangerous word,
Because its other side is depressing.
We usually see only the facade,
But whenever we see excitement,
We should say,
Turn your back,
Let me see what is written on it,
D-E-P-R-E-S-S-I-O-N.
This is the lettering on the back of excitement.
If we could have excitement without depression,
I would recommend it for everybody,
But so far no one has ever succeeded in separating the two,
And according to the Gita,
This separation is not likely to be affected,
Not even by our best psychologists or technologists.
When John F.
Kennedy was being installed as president,
And all of us were looking forward eagerly to what he had to say,
I remember a journalist going up and asking him,
Mr.
President,
You must be greatly excited today.
It was a very mature reply,
In the Gita tradition,
That he gave,
Excited?
No.
Very interested.
This is the mature attitude.
After all,
One is likely to be very interested when one is moving into the White House.
This mature equanimity that all of us can learn to have is not lack of interest.
It is the mystic who is interested in everything.
There is a photograph of Gandhiji looking through a microscope,
And I do not even think Louis Pasteur could have had that expression of concentration.
Gandhiji was interested in everything,
But not excited by anything at all.
When you and I have a tendency to get excited,
Especially when good things happen,
That is the time to go out for a walk,
Repeating the mantra.
When your ship comes home,
When you see it moving up to the pier,
Don't stand there clapping wildly.
Get off the pier and go for a long walk,
Repeating Rama,
Rama,
Rama,
Or Jesus,
Jesus,
Jesus.
Otherwise,
If you keep on saying,
My ship has come home,
My ship has come home,
Before you know where you are,
You will not be on the pier,
You will be floating about on cloud number nine.
It is alright riding on cloud nine,
But the next day you will be skin diving.
Shri Krishna tells Arjuna,
I am not asking you to avoid excitement,
But when depression comes,
As it must,
Don't ask,
Why did this happen to me?
In order to understand the powerlessness of the intellect,
Talk to people who are just beginning to feel depressed.
If we ask people who have some self-knowledge,
Why do you look like that,
Why are your eyes so glassy,
Why are you so indrawn,
And why can't I hear some of those old chuckles,
They will reply,
Oh,
I'm just feeling a bit low.
And I have often suggested,
You have a bright intellect.
Say I am not feeling depressed,
And pull yourself out.
It doesn't work,
Is their answer.
At that time,
Go for a tearing walk,
Birding up the sidewalk.
Walk as fast as you can,
Repeating the mantra,
And see what just one hour of walking,
Repeating Rama,
Rama,
Rama,
Can do.
When you come back,
You may have even forgotten what you were depressed about.
This is a comment on the powerlessness of the intellect as compared to the immense power of the holy name.
The next objective is even more severe,
Nirashraya,
Without any support.
In order to be the instrument of the Lord,
We must let go of all supports other than the Lord himself.
Now we are prepared to let our right hand go free,
Provided we can hold on with our left.
We all are trying to hold on to something.
If it is not money,
It is food,
Or cigarettes,
Or alcohol.
Others try to draw support and security from prestige and power.
This is the human condition.
We have to hold on to something.
And the Lord says,
Why don't you hold on to me?
I am right inside you.
You don't have to walk miles in the rain.
You don't have to go searching for anything.
You don't have to work hard to make money just to hold on to me and say,
Let me be firm.
The Lord says to all of us through Arjuna,
Let go of all your supports,
Throw yourself at my feet,
And I will protect you.
Almost all of us will call to the Lord,
Help me,
Hold me,
Help me,
But at the same time,
We continue to hold on to external supports.
My grandmother drove this home to me when we went together to see a ballet at Kathakali based on a very moving episode in the Mahabharata.
Draupadi,
Arjuna's wife,
Is being stripped of her clothes in front of a large number of couriers by a revengeful enemy of her husband.
Draupadi,
Whose honor is being violated,
Cries aloud,
Krishna,
Krishna,
Krishna,
Protect me.
Then,
On another part of the stage,
Shri Krishna is seen quietly seated playing on his flute.
Shri Krishna's queen gets very angry at her Lord and says,
What kind of God are you?
Here is your devotee,
A loving,
Beautiful woman,
Being stripped naked in front of a hundred jeering enemies,
And you are seated here,
Playing on your flute,
Have you no love in your heart?
Shri Krishna takes the flute from his lips very leisurely and pointing it,
Says,
Look.
Krishna's queen looks down from their heavenly vantage point and sees that Draupadi is holding on to her sari with one hand while she stretches the other up towards the Lord in supplication.
For a while Shri Krishna and his queen both look at Draupadi until suddenly she lets go of her sari and joins both hands in prayer.
It is a very thrilling moment and when the whole gathering of courtiers gasps with terrible suspense,
Shri Krishna sends down an unending sari.
My grandmother,
Even though she must have seen this scene enacted many times,
Was so thrilled that she said,
Go on,
Keep pulling the sari,
Let us see you exhausted.
And the more the enemy pulled,
The more sari there was.
On the spiritual path,
We are likely to say to the Lord,
We know you are the citadel of security Lord,
But we would prefer to keep 25% in shares,
25% in currency,
And 50% in you.
We shall find that it is in this reservation,
This looking backward,
That keeps us from making rapid progress on the spiritual path.
Never has anyone succeeded in seeing the Lord except by surrendering completely to him.
Those who are the same in victory and defeat,
Who are always loyal to the goal,
Come obstacle,
Come ordeal,
And who do not depend upon any external support,
Do not act at all,
The Lord acts through them.
The Lord will act through us if we only empty ourselves of all self-will,
Of all separateness.
This is what we do when we truly love.
When a husband loves his wife more than himself,
Or a wife loves her husband more than herself,
This is what they are doing,
They are emptying themselves of themselves.
This can be done in every relationship,
And we all have the opportunity to empty ourselves of our selfishness in our relationships,
With our parents,
Partner,
And friends.
Someone once asked me,
Supposing there is someone who doesn't have any of these,
I said,
How about enemies,
Who is there who doesn't have enemies?
It is possible for all of us,
Through unremitting endeavor and the practice of meditation,
To empty ourselves of all that is selfish,
Self-willed,
And separate,
So that we can make a great contribution to the amelioration of the lamentable conditions that exist in the world today.
