In this week’s Bhagavad Gita study group with Swami Tyagananda, we discussed chapter 6 of the Gita, titled The Yoga of Meditation. This semester we will be using the Swami Prabhavananda and Christopher Isherwood translation of the Gita. Swami told us that this translation is not as literal as the one that we used last semester, but he feels that the style makes it more conducive to understanding the text.
Our discussion touched on slokas 1, 3, 5, 10, 13-17, and 32 of the sixth chapter. The first sloka begins, “He who does the task / Dictated by duty, / Caring for nothing / For fruit of the action, / He is a yogi, / A true sannyasin.” These lines evoke the idea of detachment which, as Swami Tyagananda reminded us, does not mean a neglect of work, but, as the lines state, a detachment from the results of work. Swami Tyagananda emphasized that the ideal of detachment does not mean that we should never be attached to anything. For example, when working, we should be attached to the task at hand in the sense that the task has our full concentration, but when we have finished the task we should be able to detach our mind from that task and move on to the next. Thus, we should strive to have control over our mind in both attachment and detachment. This same idea reappears in slokas 10, 13-15 which describe a yogi’s meditation: “…He must exercise control over his mind and body. He must free himself from the hopes and possessions of this world. He should meditate on the Atman unceasingly.”
The fifth sloka of chapter 6 reads:
What is man’s will
And how shall he use it?
Let him put forth its power
To uncover the Atman
Not hide the Atman:
Man’s will is the only
Friend of the Atman:
His will is also
The Atman’s enemy.
Swami Tyagananda explained the apparent contradiction in this sloka by diagram. He showed us that the state of the spiritual seeker could be represented by the relationships between the mind and body with each other and with the rest of the world and the divine spirit. All of these relationships are fraught with tensions which keep us away from our ultimate goal of realizing the Self. The will is our enemy (and Atman’s enemy) in the sense that it creates and perpetuates these tensions. For example, it may be the will of the body that urges us to overeat, but this may be in tension with our mind’s desire to eat moderately. In the same way that it may reinforce tensions, the will is also a source of strength which can help us to resolve our tensions and, in that way, the will is our friend. It is only after we have resolved our tensions with the world around us and the tensions between our mind and body that we can more clearly see the divine spirit and make progress in that direction. Thus, it is valuable to be reflective and to try to identify the various tensions in our lives so that we may have a chance to utilize our will as a friend to resolve these tensions.
During the discussion, we also discussed other ideas regarding meditation, love, and monastic life. I encourage anyone else who attended this week’s reading group to add any thoughts they may have and to correct any points where I have misinterpreted Swami Tyagananda or the text of the Gita.
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