Meditation: Yoga expertise in Cultural life
Madhvacarya
dūreṇa hyavaraṁ karma buddhiyogāddhanaṁjaya
buddhau śaraṇamanviccha kṛpaṇāḥ phalahetavaḥ (2.49)
buddhiyukto jahātīha ubhe sukṛtaduṣkṛte
tasmādyogāya yujyasva yogaḥ karmasu kauśalam (2.50)
Surely, cultural action is by far inferior to intellectual discipline
through yoga. O victor of wealthy countries. One should take shelter
in mystic insight, for how pathetic are those who are motivated by the
promise of results. (2.49)
A person who is disciplined by the reality-piercing insight discards
in each life both pleasant and unpleasant work. Therefore take to the
yogic mood. Yoga gives skill in performance. (2.50)
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Meditation:
For accelerating the application of yoga expertise to social life, one
should, at the end of each meditation, take about 5 minutes to slowly
turn the meditative state of attention to social concerns which arise
in the mind
In deep meditation, one’s attention is disconnected from the social
concerns which are in the mind. Since in meditation, the attention
shifts to another plane, it has to shift back to the normal level for
social interactions. But at time, usually the student yogi is unable
to carry over the equipoise experienced on the transcendental level.
Thus during the last five minutes of meditation, the student should
slowly turn within the mind to face the social energy, and he or she
should do so with equipoise. If one rushes out of meditation without
taking the time to do this, one may leave the equipoise on the
transcendental level and turn to social affairs while assuming the
conventional mentality.
Madhvacarya
When turning to face the social energy, do you acknowledge specific
current situations and people with whom you are involved, or is it
just a gradual winding down and re-entrance while summoning the
equipoise to accompany one beyond the meditation session?
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Question:
When turning to face the social energy, do you acknowledge specific
current situations and people with whom you are involved?
Response:
This depends on two factors:
1. Your acquired strength to resist social urgency
2. Pressure from providence
In the Gita we see that Arjuna was pressured by Providence to
acknowledge the specific social situation which was present before
him. He wanted to turn away but the Person of Providence in the form
of Krishna did not agree and in fact threaten him.
If however there is no pressure from the Person of Providence one
should side-step social situations. We see that in the case of Uddhava
he wanted to continue socially but Krishna, the same Person of
Providence, told him not to get involved again.
Yudhishthira, Arjuna’s eldest brother set a very important example
when he got a signal message from Narad that Krishna was no longer
interested in maintaining any interest in the political history of the
India. As soon as he heard that, Yudhishthira took off his crown and
all royal paraphernalia and left aside all those administrative
responsibilities.
Some people in the City said, “ The king is mad! The King is mad!”
But even if there is no pressure from providence, one will still have
to deal with one’s own ability to resist social urgencies. Lord Buddha
seem to think that there will always be social urgencies and that one
should not use those as an excuse to remain involved in social
affairs.
When some of his relatives wanted to be spared renunciation from
family responsibilities, Buddha would always question them about that
time and place when such responsibilities will be finished. And of
course it is never finished. So then it is a question of when a person
will be finished with them.
Going back to Arjuna, if one is pressured to continue in the social
affairs, then one has to have protection from the Person of
Providence, otherwise one will end up like an infant in a crib, where
one will simple mess oneself because one will do things which one
cannot clean up for oneself. The infant will have to pass stools but
it cannot clean itself, so if the parent is not there who will clean
the infant.
So Arjuna had the Big Daddy to clean up but who will clean up for
others. When Arjuna made a mistake and pledged to give Jayadratha
(pronunciation Jai-drath) capital punishment by sunset, he could not
do it, but lucky for him the Big Daddy owed him a few favors and so
the sun set extra-late that day just to allow him to make the pledge.
When one meditates one does carry over into one’s social life some
residual resistance to social involvement. Therefore the question is
how much can one carry over. Obviously if it is just a little, because
one’s meditation is shallow, then obviously one will not be able to
resist and one will get involved.
If the meditation is deep, then one will carry over a great degree of
resistance and that will permit one to stave off involvement. There is
a statement about this by Krishna when he discussed pratyahara
practice (5th stage of yoga):
The temptations themselves turn away from the disciplinary attitude of
an ascetic, but the memory of previous indulgences remain with him.
When he experiences higher stages, those memories leave him. (2.59)
But unfortunately it is not that easy, and so in the next verse
Krishna reversed himself and said this:
Concerning an aspiring seeker, O son of Kuntī , concerning a discerned
educated person, the senses do torment him. By impulses, the senses do
adjust his mentality. (2.60)*1
So that means that sometimes even a beginner yogi/yogini will have
luck in meditation and will find that the sensual energies slack off
but as soon as the person turns back to the social world, he or she
will find that the torments begin all over again. And the senses will
powerfully adjust one’s mentality so that one acts against one’s
spiritual interest.
So for the purpose of kriya yoga*2, Sri Babaji Mahasaya has said that
the battle of Kurukshetra is a war that is waged in the psyche of the
yogi, a fight between the self and its sensual equipments.
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Question:
Or is it just a gradual winding down and re-entrance while summoning
the equipoise to accompany one beyond the meditation session?
Response:
As one advances it becomes possible to gradually wind down the social
involvements. For that matter, Patanjali gave us a preview of what it
would be like when we reach that stage. This is what he said:
Thus, the subtle material nature, having fulfilled its purpose, its
progressive alterations end. (Yoga Sutras 4.32)*3
At that stage material nature itself backs away from the very same
yogi/yogini who it engaged in a protected internal battle on the
psychological plane.
Initially when the yogi/yogini practices, there is some conquest but
only on the internal level and then over time, as that becomes
established, there are ups and downs on the social external planes.
But if the practice is steady, there comes a time when the social
level decreases its onslaughter and leaves the yogi alone.
In one part of the Gita, Krishna said that he had no reason to do
anything in the material world and that there was nothing here for him
to gain. In consideration any limited being could self-question about
the value of this place and the reason for engagement here. Because if
the Supreme Being does have anything here and doesn’t give a hoot
about it, the interest of anyone else is put to question.
Millions of zeros cannot make up a value unless you add a one
somewhere in the number and the limited people can’t add up to
anything if the Supreme Being is not supportive of what they do.
Books quoted:
*1 http://groups.google.com/group/kriya-yog/web/bhagavad-gita-english
*2 http://groups.google.com/group/kriya-yog/web/kriya-yoga-bhagavad-gita
*3 http://groups.google.com/group/kriya-yog/web/yoga-sutras-of-patanjali