The Gita On Meditation: Eagerness, Attachment, Expectations

This is a reading of The Bhagavad Gita for Daily Living, Vol 1, by Eknath Easwaran. Ch 4 Wisdom in Action, verse 21. The commentary that follows the verse shares 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. Quiet reflection can bring home the profound wisdom in these words.

Transcript

Welcome to the reading of the Bhagavad Gita for Daily Living by Eknath S.

Warren.

I'm Rachel Peepuls,

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 21.

Free from expectations and all sense of possession,

With mind and body firmly controlled by the self,

Such a one does not incur sin by the performance of physical action.

To be free in action,

To make his greatest contribution to the welfare of society,

Shri Krishna tells Arjuna,

Nirashi,

He should have no expectations.

It is a difficult concept for us to understand because we think that if we do not have expectations,

We will have no motive for action.

But as long as we are expecting something,

Life can hold us hostage.

Quiet reflection can bring home the profound wisdom of these words.

If you want to go through life free,

Do not expect anything.

Shri Krishna says,

Do not go about begging of life,

Give me this,

Give me that,

Then you are bound.

Say instead,

I don't want anything,

Lord.

If you want to give me defeat,

I am not afraid.

If you want to give me victory,

I won't object.

This is the stature that the human being can reach by becoming aware of the Lord of Love within.

We can function with complete freedom,

Not dependent on what comes to us in the way of success or defeat.

We have only to examine ourselves to see what a catalog of expectations we have in life.

Accordingly,

Disappointed is one of the most frequently used words in our vocabulary.

Almost every day there is some disappointment because,

As the Gita implies,

Expectation and disappointment go together.

In very loving language,

Shri Krishna tells us through Arjuna,

I don't want you to be beggars.

You are my children,

Inheritors of all of my wisdom,

Love,

And beauty.

There is no need for you to go about pinkering for success or apprehensive of defeat.

When we take up a task which contributes to at least one person's welfare,

Without asking,

Will this bring me promotion?

Will this send my image down in history as a great man?

Will this bring me that prize or this profit?

Then we work without anxiety.

To work in this way,

Without expectation,

It is necessary to have complete faith in the Lord of Love within,

Who always sends us what is good for our spiritual development.

If we are to work and live in freedom,

Our body and mind must listen to us.

When we sit down in meditation,

We are slowly teaching the body and mind to listen to us implicitly,

To obey even our gentle hints.

In the early days of meditation,

It is likely that the body will go to sleep.

This is its idea of security.

In order to train our body to keep awake in the deeper stages of meditation,

Every time we get sleepy,

We must draw away from our back support,

Sit up straight,

And make the maximum effort possible to keep awake.

For everybody,

At some time,

There is the problem of drowsiness.

As concentration deepens,

As the words of the inspirational passage begin to go slowly,

The neuromuscular system relaxes.

To see this happening during meditation,

We have only to look at the faces of people who have been tense.

Slowly they start smiling and the lips begin to open in beatitude.

It pains me to say that this is the time when we should jut our chin forward and sit sternly erect.

As for the mind,

For everyone the path of meditation begins with a wealth of distractions,

Because we have always let the mind have its own way.

The compassionate Buddha used to remark that there is nothing so disobedient as an undisciplined mind.

When we do not want to think about something,

The mind will say,

That's exactly what I'm going to think about,

And you can't do anything about it.

None of us like harboring resentful thoughts,

And we all have known times when hostile thoughts have kept boiling in our minds,

And we have tried to tell the mind,

This is not good for me,

But the mind says,

It's good for me,

It may not be good for you,

But I like resentment,

I like agitation,

Because that's what makes me come to life.

For a long,

Long time in meditation,

The main effort is in disciplining the mind,

In bringing it back whenever it wanders away,

In keeping it on the words of the passage in spite of all its attempts to get away from them.

This is drastic and very dull discipline,

But it will pay the richest dividends in the long run.

Even if you sit for an hour in meditation,

Doing nothing but bringing your mind back to the passage 60 times in 60 minutes,

You have made progress on the spiritual path.

Every time the mind runs out,

You run after it,

Pick it up from the restaurant or the bank or the movie theater,

And bring it back.

Then the moment you are not looking,

The mind has run out again.

You again run after it and bring it back.

It is just like following a little child.

For some years in meditation,

There is a real test of your patience.

There are no thrills,

There are no visions,

There is no rapture.

There is just plain tedium.

If your desire for the Lord is great,

You will put up with all this cheerfully.

But if you are meditating just because,

For example,

The Beatles did it,

Your enthusiasm will not last long.

In the next word,

Tayakti sarva parigraha,

The Lord says,

You must not own anything.

I am the owner.

Don't try to put your tag,

Mine,

On anything.

Don't ever say,

This is my exclusive property.

We own nothing because the Lord is the owner.

He is the landlord.

We are just transients.

Here the practical application is that only when we are detached from things can we use them wisely.

Those who are fond of money cannot use it wisely.

Often rich people unfortunately use money to their own detriment because they do not know how to use it for their own and others' benefit.

This does not mean we should give away everything.

Shri Krishna is saying we should not be attached to our wealth and material possessions.

It is possible for a millionaire to be completely detached in his villa in the south of France,

While it is possible for a poor man to be attached to his shack with violent egoism.

It is the attitude that matters here.

In the final stages of meditation,

We become very eager to unify our love,

To give everything to the Lord and be united with Him.

As Shri Ramakrishna puts it,

When our boat is nearing the harbor,

We want to reach the harbor so soon,

We are so eager to be in our home that we start picking up everything and throwing it overboard to lighten the boat.

We start throwing away all of the excess baggage that we have hoarded down the years.

Then our eagerness becomes so great that we may start throwing away the anchor and the sails.

This is where we have to be discriminating.

The spiritual life does not require us to give up reasonable comfort and the necessities of life.

If we live in poverty without having enough food,

Instead of meditating on the Lord,

We will be meditating on food.

It is luxury and the hoarding of things because of selfish attachment that we must give up.

Those who have no expectations,

Who are prepared for weal or woe,

Who have no selfish attachments to things or people,

Who do not even look upon their bodies as their own but as instruments given them by the Lord with which to serve humanity.

Such people do not act,

The Lord acts through them.

Shri Krishna almost implies,

Even when such a person raises his arm,

It is not he who does it,

It is I.

When they do anything,

It is from the deepest level of their consciousness where the Lord dwells all the time.

Instead of acting on the surface level of life,

They allow the Lord to act through them from the deepest level.

Then there is no tension,

No fatigue,

No fear,

And there is immense creative activity which enables them to give their very best even in the most adverse circumstances.