Therefore Be a Yogi, Arjuna

One of the many projects that I have on my desk right now is a translation of a French book on Krishna's teachings in the Bhagavad-gita by a longtime and very worthy Prabhupada disciple named Vishnurata Das. Practically speaking, it is a simplification of the Bhagavad Gita As It Is, seen through the eyes of the author.

I recently went through his sixth chapter, which as you know is the one on rāja-yoga. According to Madhusudana and Vishwanath, this is the last chapter of the first set of six, which deal with karma-yoga.

In Vishnurata's version, the instructions on mind control, etc., have been reduced to practically nothing more than the merest skeleton, and the bulk of the chapter is focused on the impracticability of the practices described in the age of Kali. This is coupled with frequent references to the superiority of bhakti-yoga.

Yoga is seen as an exercise in mind and sense-control, but since there is no practical engagement of the mind and senses in the meditational school, only disengagement, it seems most unlikely that any success can be achieved. Indeed, Arjuna protests near the end of the chapter that controlling the mind is more difficult than capturing the raging wind. Nevertheless, Krishna assures him that with practice and detachment, it is possible. These words, abhyāsa and vairāgya, are echoed near the beginning of the Yoga Sutra (1.12) and indicate a certain universality of application that is relevant for the practice of all yoga systems.

This is certainly the philosophy that I have adopted in coming here. I know it sounds a bit arrogant to talk about kaniṣṭhas and madhyamas, etc., for which I beg forgiveness, but I cannot help but see that this approach is something that urgently needs to be added to the bhakti culture that is current in the West. By this I especially mean japa meditation.

The techniques of rāja-yoga should be applied to chanting Harinam on beads, as well as to the sadly neglected sadhanas related to the diksha mantras. All of these things really form a part of the sadhana stage of sahaja-bhakti-yoga, in which the yogic aspect of sense and mind control come to the fore. Despite the use of the word sahaja, there is no reason to think that the sadhana stage does not require mental and sensory discipline. It simply confirms that the best of yogis is the bhakta; rather, the yogi who is most yukta, or connected to God, is the one who has faith and worships Krishna with the inner being has been entirely consecrated to Him (mad-gatenāntarātmanā ):

tapasvino'dhiko yogī jñānibhyo'pi mato'dhikaḥ karmibhyaś cādhiko yogī tasmād yogī bhavārjuna yoginām api sarveṣāṁ mad-gatenāntarātmanā śraddhāvān bhajate yo mām sa me yuktatamo mataḥ
Swami Veda is leaving for his annual world tour and will be visiting North America and Europe (Partial itinerary. Before leaving, he gave a couple of classes; in the first he gave three new instructions to his gurukula students, one of which caught me a bit by surprise. This was a protracted mānasa-pūjā meditation to a Jyotir Linga in the cave of the heart.

Of course, we have been promoting the use of yogic visualization techniques already, and I am now getting regular newsletters from Tungavidya Devi who is also developing this technique in yoga classes in America. However, I was a little surprised to hear such a nice meditation in the present context. Indeed, the next evening, in the question and answer session in Swamiji's quarters, one sannyasi asked, "What does this have to do with yoga?" Swamiji laughed and answered, "What does your finger have to do with Tattvananda Swami?"

I also asked a question about the relationship of mantra-japa to the mānasī pūjā and the answer was interesting. Swamiji gave the analogy of medieval fortress defenses, when the besieged army with an inferior force would make a pretense of having many more defenders than thought by moving the bowmen from one arrow loop to another very rapidly. So too the mind is capable of many actions at once. It is processing the activities of all the senses as well as internal organs, pleasures, pains and memories, as well as subconscious impressions all at once. It is not really that these are going on simultaneously, but rather that the mind is so quick that it seems like simultaneity. Furthermore, he said, the visualization exercise he had given was simple and not overburdened with detail, so there is no reason why the mantra japa could not go on simultaneously.

Another thing that he said in the other day's lecture cum dhyāna exercise was that everyone should practice 1:2 breathing, i.e., exhale for double the length of the inhalation. This is common enough yogic practice, and a count of 1:4:2 is the customary formula for anuloma-pratiloma prāṇāyāma. Here in the Himalayan tradition, kumbhaka (holding the breath) is not practiced. But Swamiji said, "The secret of meditation is that the concentration increases on the exhalation. This is why the 1:2 ratio should be cultivated."

I spent the next day attempting this. I had previously been practicing chanting the two mantras, which are of almost equal length, on the inhalation and exhalation (See Meditation Discovery). Chanting longer mantras to a single breath is generally discouraged for beginners, but though it was somewhat difficult for me at first, I had more or less arrived at the ability to do it naturally for a sustained period of time. I decided to try doing it to a 1:2 ratio and found it challenging. Nevertheless, I intend to continue with it.

There seemed to be a slight contradiction between this particular practice and the mānasa-pūjā, as well as the instruction Swami Veda gave his disciples to chant five rounds a day of Gayatri mantra along with whatever other practices he had given. Five rounds, he figured, would be the average amount one person could do in one hour. In the course of the ensuing discussion, however, he talked about the progression of mantra meditation. There are different approaches to mantra meditation and breathing, especially where lengthier mantras like the gayatris are involved, including the personal one that I was describing above. On the other hand, he said, when counting mantras other disciplines are involved. For instance, one brahmachari asked about what should one do if one becomes so absorbed in meditation that one forgets to move the hand on the beads, or the beads drop from his hand. Swamiji answered that normally this is good and desirable, but when doing a puraścaraṇa type of practice, one should avoid it.

Swamiji said the difficulty came when one was chanting the mantra mentally as though it were being done with the tongue. He said that when one reaches a certain level of internalization of the mantra, it ceases to be internalized physical sounds and becomes rather more akin to an electric wave (vaidyutik tarang -- I really enjoy his parallel Hindi-English talks) that pervades the mind and body. He demonstrated that he could do a round of gayatris in one or two minutes by this method, though he did not recommend it to beginners.

All this reminded me of Lalita Prasad Thakur, who claimed to chant 8 or 9 lakhs of Harinam a day, to the arrogant disbelief of some mocking Iskcon sannyasis, who saw him slide his hand along the tiny, shiny tulasi mala as though he were stroking a kitten. But even when we asked him about it, he said much the same thing that Swamiji said. Indeed, unless one comes to this kind of assimilated Harinam practice, there is really no possibility of līlā smaraṇa, which is conducted on the waves of the internalized Name.

A big realization that came to me through Sridhar Maharaj was his interpretation of the Chaitanya Charitamrita verse (see Mantra and the Holy Name:

kṛṣṇa-mantra hoite hoy saṁsāra-mocana kṛṣṇa nāma hoite pāi kṛṣṇa-pade prema-dhana

From the Krishna mantra, one is liberated from saṁsāra. From Krishna's name, one attains prema for his lotus feet.

Sridhar Maharaj (in Guru and His Grace) develops Sri Jiva Prabhu's point about the necessity for initiation in the Bhakti-sandarbha, which also brings up the important point about the intersection of the Bhagavata and Pancharatra paths. The Holy Name here represents the Bhagavata path, which is really the main theme of CC Adi 7 (making the Sridhar interpretation debatable--Is this really what Kaviraj Goswami meant by "Krishna mantra"? But anyway...)--

evaṁ-vrataḥ sva-priya-nāma-kīrtyā jātānurāgo druta-citta uccaiḥ hasaty atho roditi rauti gāyaty unmādavan nṛtyati loka-bāhyaḥ

Taking up this vow, when one's love for Krishna awakens through glorifying his dearmost names, the mind melts and one loudly laughs, cries, shouts, sings and dances like a madman with no concern for what anyone thinks.

This is the stage at the end of the bhakti practice, when the Name can finally act on the purified heart and mind. In the beginning, the Name penetrates the cloudy consciousness of the pravartaka and drags him or her kicking and screaming onto the spiritual path. But for the person who is on the path, the real question is what happens in the middle, sādhana stage, when the struggle is to purify the heart and make it a worthy āsana for the Divine Couple to sit on.

This is the concern of all yoga practices, and therefore we must seek whatever techniques are helpful to bring the Divine into contact with the mental instruments that are the crossroad to the soul. We must not lose sight of the goal of prema: love for the personal God in possession of his full potencies, effulgent in full contact with his hlādinī potency, the very central manifestation of his most intimate being. We must not let the practice take primacy over the goal of the practice, but nevertheless, we must not neglect the means by which we attain that goal. That is called yoga, with all its subdivisions ultimately not in mutual opposition, but in mutual harmony. Therefore, O Arjuna, become a yogi.