STRAY THOUGHTS
6/2014

Dear Friends,

Early childhood provided to me, lots of stories from the epics, lots of sports, daily Geeta path and so on. TV didn’t exist. Movies were a once a month, quota basis, luxury. There were not very many distractions or friends around. Books, cricket and music were close friends.

One of the fascinating and at the same time incongruous seeming stories out of the several that I kept hearing, was that of Bheem doing ‘मल्ल  युद्ध’ (wrestling duel) with Magadh Samrat Jarasandh. What was fascinating was that two very powerful, enormously overpowering personalities were wrestling; whereas, the incongruous part was the repeated tearing apart and  then rejoining of and coming back to life of the oft torn asunder Jarasandh.

Over the years of growing up the wholly unpalatable and totally incongruous part remained just that, unpalatable, until I gradually stopped wrestling with the idea of rationalizing this seemingly unexplainable phenomena. It faded into the background of my mind.

The other day while watching the new version of the epic Mahabharat on the TV, this sequence came up.  I could perceive a distinct clearing of the clouds and a completely phenomenal explanation for this incongruity came to me with the blessings of my Lord and master, my Guru. I am blessed by the kripa.

All of us humans are on the one hand (1) blessed with the need and compulsion for achieving their ultimate goal, their maker, the Lord God निवृति . On the other hand (2) cursed with the virtually insatiable lust for material pleasure. The lust being constantly fed by our sensory organs, mind and ego प्रवृति , overpowers the compulsion to bend towards, and find HIM. He (God) becomes too distant, vague, inessential and clouded to be of any real value or joy. There remains no immediacy to achieving HIM. We therefore push Him and most thoughts of Him into the deep, dark, never visited recesses of our minds, and get on with the “URGENT” though cursed task of acquiring and enjoying the material wealth.

Our scriptures describe the second urge (for material lust) as ‘प्रवृत्ति ’ – tendency, and the second urge (for God) is called ‘निवृत्ति ’- opposite of tendencies, or being free of the tendencies. This is a built in conflict in the human form. Dhritrashtr the blind king, in the very first verse of the Srimad Bhagwat Gita, says …. "धरमक्षेत्रे कुरुक्षेत्रे , समवेता युयुत्सव ! पांडवा मामकाश्चैव किम कुरुवत् सञ्जय ?" He calls the same battlefield by two distinctly different names – 1. Dharamshetr and 2. Kurushetr. The place to be (1)religious and (2) the place to do worldly activities. क्षेत्र शारीर को भी कहा जाता है। 

Maharishi Patanjali in his ashtang (eight) yog also uses the word ‘प्रत्याहार (pratyahar)’. Shetra literally means field also is used to describe the human body. But he goes on to say it is one of the eight pillars of ashtang yog. The first four (or the procedures) are 1. Yam 2. Niyam. 3. Aasan. 4. Pranayama. Pranayam is the regulated breathing practice, which is the most basic foundation of ‘yog’.  Bheem is the son of the Vayu Devta. He is ‘प्राण (pran)’.  With sustained practice of pranayama(प्राणायाम  = प्राण + आयाम)  the yogi achieves the next four stages of ‘yog’, which are as per Maharishi Patanjali : 1. Pratyahar. 2. Dharna. 3. Dhyan. And the final one is 4. Samadhi. Pratyahar is the state of ‘NIVRITI’ which as explained above is achieved with sustained practice of and the strength of PRANAYAM or BHEEM. Unless the jeev(human being) achieves ‘nivriti’ he has to keep fighting his tendencies, and thereby his yogic progress is blocked.

The power of pranayam separates the tendencies from ‘nivriti’ (the tearing asunder (into two) of the body of Jarasandh (human being) जरासंध = जरा + संध . Other than pranayama there is no other method to achieve this state. But initially even after achieving ‘nivriti’, the moment one stops pranayam, the ‘tendencies’ overpower and takeover the mind once again (rejoining of the torn apart parts of the body). This is a normal behavior of the tendencies with those humans who have not achieved the stable state of Samadhi (paravastha). With the blessings of Lord Krishn, Bheem learns the technique of retaining the state of Nivriti, undisturbed and unchallenged by the normally powerful tendencies. This is a higher yogic oriya.

This unpalatable suddenly became so brilliantly enlivening and palatable.
Keep trying to make your Nivriti overpower your pravriti.

God Bless
Jai Guru
Gurukripa yachak
Jitendra


   

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