21 Nov 2010
[Kartika Purnima] The Gita says that equality in situations of happiness and misery is yoga (samatvam yoga…). Generally, people misunderstand this concept. They think that keeping oneself inactive towards happiness and misery without any disturbance like a stone is the meaning of this verse. Such meaning is wrong and is not the actual opinion of the Lord. It is only the misinterpretation of misunderstood heart of the verse. You are not a stone to show such inert behavior. You are a living human being and can never behave like that. You can behave like that by taking some sedative drugs and there is no need of the intensive spiritual effort to achieve such state. The actual opinion of this verse is that you should enjoy both happiness and misery like the sweet and hot dishes in your meals. While taking the hot dish, your tongue vibrates and tears flow from your eyes! But still you enjoy the taste of hot dish in your heart. Similarly, you weep in the situation of misery, but if you are able to enjoy your own weeping, you have achieved the state of continuous enjoyment through entertainment from the creation by which you have attained the state of God. The Gita says that you should enjoy even your death (Eshaa brahmi sthitih…). In fact, the author of the Gita exhibited His own concept in His practical life. The same sweet smile that appeared on the face of the Lord while dancing with the beautiful Gopikas remained on the face of the Lord at the time of His last breath also after shot by an arrow. According to the Veda, God created this world for His entertainment and He enjoys all the scenes of this creation. If you can enjoy all the incidents of your life in a similar way, you have attained the state of God and this is the monism (Advaita) preached by Shankara. Shankara told that the Lordship (Eshwara) is a myth (Mithya) in this context. This means that when God and the soul enjoy the creation equally with continuous entertainment, there is no need of bringing the irrelevant Lordship of creation, ruling and destruction of the world in this context. The peon is seeing the cinema along with the producer and director. The state of producer and director is meaningless to differentiate the peon and producer-cum-director as far as the enjoyment of the cinema as a spectator is concerned. Mithya means neither true nor false. The producer-cum-director sits in the hall and therefore, the state of producer-cum-director is not false. But still, the state of producer-cum-director is unnecessary and irrelevant as far as the common spectatorship is concerned. Therefore, the state of producer-cum-director is neither true nor false. Hence, it is called as Mithya.
You need not show sympathy to the Lord if He broods over some personal misery. From the external weeping, you mistake the Lord as suffering from the misery. In fact, the Lord enjoys His weeping resulted by the misery. You always weep externally and internally due to misery and therefore, you should be consoled. The Lord need not be consoled since He weeps externally and enjoys the weeping internally. You should not judge the Lord on your standards. You should understand the Lord on His standards. Therefore, yoga means the equality in the enjoyment of mind in both happiness and misery like God. The yoga always refers the state of God achieved by you. Whenever a great fortune is achieved, it is denoted by the word yoga. Therefore, you will attain the state of Advaita through yoga only. When such a state is achieved in practice, it is called as karma yoga. When such a state is understood with full clarification, it is called as jnana yoga. When such a state is achieved by you in practice through your powerful liking to God, it is called as bhakti yoga.
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