The Gita: Srimad Bhagwadgita: श्रीमद्भगवद्गीता : Chapter 1:7 – 1:11

प्रथमोSध्यायः… (Continued)

अस्माकं तु विशिष्टा ये तान्निबोध् द्विजोत्तम॥

नायका मम सैन्यस्य संज्ञार्थं तान् ब्रवीमि ते ॥७॥

भवान् भीमश्च कर्णश्च कृपश्च समितिन्न्जयः ॥

अश्वत्थामा विकर्णश्च सौमदत्तिस्तथैव च ॥८॥

अन्ये च बहवः शूरा मदर्थे त्यक्तजीविताः ॥

नानाशस्त्रप्रहरणाः सर्वे युद्धविशारदाः ॥९॥

अपर्याप्तं तद् अस्माकं बलं भीष्माभिरक्षितम्॥

पर्याप्तं त्विदम् एतेषां बलं भीमाभिरक्षितम्॥१०॥

अयनेषु च सर्वेषु यथाभागम् अवस्थिताः॥

भीष्मम् एवाभिरक्षन्तु भवन्तः सर्व एव हि॥११॥

Beloved Souls,

I bow down to the divine seated in your heart.. please accept my salutations.

Duryodhana says to Dronacharya “O twice born! Also know the distinguished ones  from our side. I shall name the commanders of our army for your information.” And then he goes on to say “Yourself, Bhishma, Karna the victorious, Kripa, Samitinjaya, Somadatta, Ashwatthama, Vikarna and many other heroes who have risked their lives for me. They are armed with various weapons and all skilled in warfare. Our army, commanded by Bhishma is invincible, while theirs (Pandava’s) army, protected by Bhima is easy to conquer. Therefore all of you, occupying your respective positions on all fronts, protect only our commander Bhishma”.

Before I elaborate upon the above verses let me pick up few questions and one of them is “The first chapter tells us about Vishaad yoga… What is it and why is the word yoga attached here. Is Vishaad also a way to enlightenment?”. This question has come from Shalini.

Beloved Shalini, No one wants to get into a situation where one will be pained deeply but life is dynamic and it is completely illogical to even dream of it being free of pain, sufferings, isolation and grief. One will inevitably have to go through such phases in life.

What is grief? Grief is a state of mind when you are faced with a negative situation in your life.. totally against your hopes and expectations.. a scenario, which you have no option but to face and live through. Grief is sorrow mixed silent cry of a helpless individual in distress. And you can’t avoid it for there are and would always be things in your life which you can not take for granted, which will never come under insurance cover. Insurance is a financial shock-absorption system but money can not turn your sorrow into happiness in uncountable life-situations. It can not buy you love, it can not restore your broken trust.. there are so many.. your expectations, your desire to be loved, your belief in the immortality of your loved ones are only few to be quoted from that list…

You may take it as cruelty on part of existence but Vishaada or grief is a gift in disguise. And it is good that it can not be avoided.. and that it can only be lived through. This gives you an opportunity to grow. Every time when you are grief-stricken those very experiences, revelations, learning and knowledge is absorbed by your psyche. These are added in your being, so as to say it becomes yujit (added) with your personal experiences and knowledge body. In fact from your birth till your death you go on accumulating, adding experience after experience and at the end of your journey what you carry is Yoga (sum total) of these. Since every experience of life adds something to your being therefore every experience of your life is a moment of Yoga.  Some may differ and may argue it is not Yoga but sanyoga. I advise them to read the word again.. Sanyoga has yoga in it. (laughs) This was linguistic twister on lighter side however on serious note Vishaada is an opportunity for Yoga.

Certain situations in life can be treated as challenges. On such situations you become more solution oriented, you are ready to take the situation head on. You tend to fight back and pave your way through. This results in expansion of your ego.. but not all situations can be handled this way or better but not every person is capable of doing so irrespective of the situation. And every person in life does face such situation where he gives up. He withdraws from the present and gets engaged in a mental dialogue with himself which reiterates the futility of his efforts. For that time the personal ambitions take a back seat.. he starts thinking objectively as if he doesn’t exist. Such moments are precious moments as in these moments in your life you get the glimpse of this world in its correct perspective. For the first time you realize how insignificant is your being, your desire, your insistence, your choices.. only in these moments an individual is able to see himself naked in this world. Such a grieving person is almost in deep meditative state. Grief and Anger have been also treated as meditations by some masters albeit incorrect meditations.

But still there is some similarity. Exactly as in positive meditation you lose your ego in anger too. An angry person forgets his ego and becomes all rage.. all hatred. In fact when anger is there person is not! In ‘grief’ too a person loses his ego completely. However dissolution of identity or ego is not the only phenomenon of correct meditation otherwise all advanced stage Alzheimer patients, people in coma would have been regarded as enlightened. There are other many factors as well. One factor is the direction of energy flow during the meditation. Every meditation creates a particular pattern of energy flow in you. Wrong types of meditations turn the energy flow in undesirable direction. Is almost impossible for a normal person (unless he is a person of great spiritual practice -Advanced Sadhaka) to use meditative states such as grief or anger for his/her own growth. It is not difficult.. in fact extremely difficult because it would mean turning the flow of energy completely in opposite direction. Correct meditations raise the energy upward within you… Anger throws your energy outside your body and Grief moves your energy downward internally.  and since you have no experience of handling your energies. Such emotions definitely create huge currents of energy vibrations in you and in those times if you are in the vicinity of a Master and if he wills so, he can surely turn the direction of this energy flow..! In fact this is the basis “Shaktipaat”… For getting shaktipaat from a Master you must have deepest of faith, unconditional surrender and great love for him. And once you are in such a state the Master just gives correct direction to your heavy energy currents.. these mighty energy currents which were flowing towards Master’s lotus feet or heart are then made to travel inward by him and when it turns inward and in right direction its gigantic flow blows away gates after gates penetrating Chakras after Chakras. Remember! It solely depends on your own personal caliber and potency of your energy as to how many chakras it would be able to cross. And that is why the same Master when gives Shaktipat to different people their experiences differ. Some people start laughing after Shaktipat.. they continue laughing for hours together… no jokes being cracked but they are laughing.. in fact in these people energy has gone up almost till Manipura or Hara. You would be surprised that after Shaktipat some women (even young unmarried girls) despite not being pregnant found their breasts full of milk – Maatri Bhava. Sometimes such a disciple especially when the Master is of opposite sex would develop Veera Bhava. Such a disciple may develop such connection with Master than he or she may start treating the master as his/her partner..

This happened in case of Aurobindo Ghosh and Mirra Alfassa (better known as Mother)!  It was year 1914. Mirra was 36 years of age when she met Aurobindo in Pondichery. Aurobindo was almost 6 years elder to her. Mirra joined him as a disciple and continued her spiritual practices. She was full of love for his master Aurobindo and later it happened so that Aurobindo gave Mirra Shaktipat. Mirra’s energies rose till heart chakra and started vibrating there. She developped  thereafter she could not but treat Aurobindo as her Partner. Although she had to leave Pondichery only to head to France her homeland due to World War but then she was never able to keep herself isolated from his Master. She struggled a lot against her desires to unite with his Master but finally gave up. She came back to Pondichery after 6 years and stayed with Aurobindo for life. And such a Master-Disciple relationship gets such intense that the pull is equally felt by master as well. There is no other reason than this that Aurobindo welcomed her and allowed her to share the same space with him. But remember! You may not be able to understand this kind of a relationship. In fact it confuses most of people because what they see from outside is very close to matrimony however it can not be confined to normal husband-wife relationship. It is far beyond normal matrimony for this purposeful association is first created in astral plane. This kind of intimacy and love is indescribable and mostly misunderstood. In reality it has many phases and ultimately transcends bodies in due course of time and that happens when Master is able to pull up the Disciple to his planes of energies. There after the master and disciples resonate continuously on the same plane. They reflect exactly similar vibrations and even auras are seen connected.

In most of such cases Shaktipat is the reason. The energy of disciple reaches till Anahat (Heart) Chakra and starts resonating there. Only in some rare cases it is able to cross all the obstacles in between and reaches the Crown Chakra. Narendranath Dutta’s case is one which can be quoted in this category. Swami Ramakrishna when gave Shaktipat to Narendra his Crown got ignited and he entered the state of Samadhi. It took only this Shaktipat to convert an ordinary but intelligent lad to a sanyaasi.. Swami Vivekananda.

In Gita also we would see when Krishna uses the similar technique and uses Arjuna’s currents to activate third eye chakra and show him his Virata Roopa (Cosmic form).

Shalini, Yes! Vishaada or grief in company of a Master can be Yoga. In fact in the presence of master any emotional state, any act can be Yoga. For the less fortunate ones it can definitely serve as an opportunity to know themselves better and test their strength.

Enough for today..

– Acharya Agyaatdarshan Anand Nath