PURPOSE OF YOGA IS ACHIEVED
sarvabhootasthamaatmaanam sarvabhotani chaatmani
eekshate yogayuktaatma sarvatra samadarshanah // 6.29 //
With the mind harmonized by Yoga he sees the Self abiding in all beings and all beings in the Self; he sees the same everywhere.
That the perfect man of Self-knowledge or God-Realization is not merely the one who realized his own divinity but is also one who has equally understood and has come to live in the knowledge of divinity inherent in all creatures without any distinction. He sees the same spirit dwelling in all objects. He sees the identity of Atman, the inmost reality of himself, and Brahman, the inmost reality of the universe.
The essence in all names and forms is the same Self which is the substratum in the world of objects just like the clay in all the pots, gold in all the ornaments, ocean in all the waves and electricity in all the gadgets. The Yogi observes oneness or unity of the Self everywhere.
Isa Upanishad says “But he who sees all beings in the Self and the self in all beings, no longer hates anyone”. (6)
yo maam pashyati sarvatra sarvam cha mayi pashyati
tasyaaham na pranashyaami sa cha me na pranashyati // 6.30 //
He who sees Me everywhere and sees everything in Me, never gets separated from Me (by time, space or anything intervening) nor do I get separated from him.
Here the words `I' and `Me" mean the Self. On rediscovering the Self the ego becomes the Self and there is no distinction between the ego and the Self just as the dreamer becomes the waker and the waker is not separate from the dreamer. When we are one with the Divine in us, we become one with the whole stream of life.
sarvabhootasthitam yo maam bhajatyekatwamaasthitah
sarvathaa vartamaano pi sa yogee mayivartate // 6.31 //
He who, being established in oneness, worships Me, who dwells in all beings - that Yogi, in whatever way leads his life, lives in Me.
The Lord dwells in all beings as their inmost Self irrespective of their forms. The Yogi who sees the Lord in all beings and worships him through all beings has attained liberation. No matter how he lives and acts, he is always free. He is no longer under the control of scriptural injunctions.
aatmaupamyena sarvatra samam pashyati yo'rjuna
sukham vaa yadi vaa duhkham sa yogee paramo matah // 6.32 //
I hold him to be a supreme yogi, O Arjuna, who looks on the pleasure and pain of all beings as he looks upon them in himself.
This verse is the golden rule of Hinduism. The highest yogi sees that whatever is pleasant to him is pleasant to all others, including subhuman beings and that whatever is painful to him is painful to all others. Therefore he cannot cause pain to any. He leads a life of complete non-violence. The true Yogi is one who feels the pains and joys of others as if they were his own. He feels the entire universe as his own form.
CONTROL OF MIND IS DIFFICULT BUT POSSIBLE
arjuna uvaacha
yo'yam yogastwayaa proktah saamyena madhusoodana
etasyaaham na pashyaami chanchalatwaat stithim sthiraam // 6.33 //
Arjuna said
This Yoga of equanimity, taught by You, O slayer of Madusudana (Krishna), I do not see how it can long endure, because of the restlessness of the mind.
Perfect equanimity, a mind free from torpidity and restlessness, in all circumstances, conditions and challenges of life seemed an uphill task and impracticable to Arjuna. He says that achieving evenness of mind is day dreaming because the human mind, by its very nature, is restless in its own excitements.
chanchalam hi manah krishna pramaathi balavad dridham
tasyaaham nigraham manye vaayor iva sudushkaram // 6.34 //
The mind verily is restless, turbulent, powerful and unyielding, O Krishna; it seems to me, to control it is as hard as to control the wind.
Arjuna argues that the mind is without doubt restless, turbulent, strong and unyielding and is as difficult to control it as the wind. The characteristics of the mind described in this verse are:
•Restless - Because the mind constantly changes its focus from one object to another.
•Turbulent - Because of the speed in the flow of thoughts and consequent agitations it creates in the body and the senses by bringing them under the control of the sense objects.
•Strong - Because once it gets attached to any sense object, it gains strength in the same attachment and sticks to that object despite logical reasoning to the contrary.
•Unyielding - Because of the impossibility of an individual to pull it back from its fasting journey into the world of sense objects and to make it steady on a predetermined focus.
sri bhagavaan uvaacha
asamshayam mahaabaaho mano durnigraham chalam
abhyaasena tu kaunteya vairaagyena cha grihyate // 6.35 //
Sri Bhagavan said
Undoubtedly, O Mighty Armed, the mind is difficult to control and restless, but, by practice and detachment, O Son of Kunti, it is restrained.
Sri Krishna agrees that mind is unsteady and restless and therefore difficult to control and that the goal cannot be easily reached. But through practice and detachment mind can be brought under control.
Practice is the effort of the mind towards calmness. Practice becomes firmly grounded when it is followed for a long time and unremittingly with devotion. The end is easily achieved with the help of austerity, continence, discrimination and faith. The aspirant must not lose courage in the face of repeated failures.
Detachment is freedom from thirst for any pleasure seen or heard of. It is acquired through a constant perception of evil in sensuous happiness, either of this life or hereafter.
Patanjali Yoga Sutra 1.12 says “abhyasavairagyabhyam tan nirodhaha” meaning that the restless mind, accustomed to act on impulse, can be controlled only by non-attachment and practice. Of these two methods, the attempt to make the mind steady is called practice. (Sutra 1.13)
Bhagavatam explains non-attachment (vairagya) as “When there is earth to lie upon, why trouble about bed? When one’s arm is readily available, why need pillows? When there is the palm of one’s hand, why seek for plates and utensils? When there is the atmosphere, the bark of trees etc., what need is there of silks?”
Yoga Sutra (1.16) says “Supreme or the highest form of dispassion represents absence of thirst for all the three Gunas or modes of Prakriti. It is attained through the Knowledge of Purusha or Spirit, who is altogether different from Prakriti.”
asamyataatmanaa yogo dushpraapa iti me matih
vashyaatmanaa tu yatataa shakyo'vaaptumupaayatah // 6.36 //
Yoga, I think, is hard to attain by one who is not self-controlled but by the self-controlled it is attainable through proper means.
An uncontrolled mind cannot progress in spiritual path unless it discovers the Self. The discovery of the Self is possible by self-control achieved through the withdrawal of sense organs from their respective objects. Yoga can be attained by striving hard to utilize the conserved energies for the Divine purposes.
Yoga is the science of religion. The test of its validity lies in one’s seeing results through actual experimentation. Hence the teachers of yoga emphasize self-control and other disciplines.