What is Knowledge : Ch-9-12.

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20/05/2017.

Chapter 9: Yoga Meditation -12.

1.

What is yoga, and what is meditation? It is not to assume a very holy attitude, as if we are superior to other people. It is not a question of our being better than anybody else; this is precisely what we should free ourselves from in our thinking. When we take to religion, spirituality, yoga, meditation, or a life of God, as people may think, we are not lifting ourselves to a high, lofty, elevated realm whereby we look down upon the crass Earth of matter. It is an inward adjustment of ourselves with That which really is – and we know what really is there.


2.

We have thought well to appreciate that whatever may be there anywhere is that with which we are connected and, therefore, it is incumbent upon us to be in a state of meditation always, if meditation is our obligation to be in tune with that which is outside us. Else, we will be in a state of restlessness of mood and agony of spirit. Such a simple and humble way of living is yoga.

3.

The humility that is usually associated with great wisdom of life is a necessary consequence that follows from the invariable association of oneself with all things. The superiority complex that may enter into the mind of any unwary person is an unfortunate consequence of not considering all the aspects of one’s associations with the world.

4.

The mind of the human being is made in such a way that it cannot think all things at the same time. There is something which it misses always, and that which it misses becomes the target of its opinion, positive or negative, because there is no need to hold any opinion about that with which we are invariably related.

5.

The life of opinion is transcended automatically by the life of the superior reason, by which we do not have to hold any opinion about anything in the world. That state of affairs does not arise because of the fact that there is nothing on which we have to hold an opinion.

6.

This is the case because that which usually remains as an object on which we have to pass judgment, or regarding which we have to hold an opinion, is no more that which we have to look upon as an extraneous something – because the notion of an extraneous something is the notion of non-yoga, non-meditation.

Swami Krishnananda
To be continued ...


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