The Process of Yoga: 5.7. - Swami Krishnananda.

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Friday 21, February 2025, 11:45.
Yoga and Meditation
The Process of Yoga:
Swami Krishnananda
Chapter 5: The Stages of Practice - 7.

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Why are we afraid of detachment and vairagya? We fear them because we think that we lose all centres of pleasure. “If I became a virakta, if I do not enjoy pleasures, I am going to be the loser.” But you are not going to be a loser in the same way, again to give an analogy, as when you wake up into the consciousness of the world from a dream enjoyment of an emperorship, you are not a loser. Suppose you are a king in dream. You have mastery over a vast kingdom, and you wake up suddenly from your dream; do you think you are a loser?

“Oh, I was a king. Why did I wake up to this small Mr. so-and-so? This small Mr. so-and-so in the waking state is a better condition than my kingship in dream.” Which is better, to be a beggar in waking or to be a king in dream? It is better to be a beggar in waking because it is qualitatively a higher reality, though it is a beggar's condition, than the qualitatively inferior condition of imagining a kingship in dream. All your enjoyments in this world are like dream enjoyments. They appear to be all right as long as they are there.

But you are not going to be a loser when you rise to a higher awakening, so do not be afraid of losing anything. All these pleasures of the world will be given to you in a real form. Sankaracharya gives an analogy, a comparison, in one of his minor works. When you are to enjoy a meal, you would like have the meal in its originality and not as a reflection. Suppose a lunch is reflected in a mirror and shown to you; you are not going to enjoy that meal. It is there; you can see all the items in the mirror, but you cannot enjoy it. You can try to grab it, but you cannot really grab it, because it is a reflection. The reflected enjoyment is not a real enjoyment. If you garland yourself in front of a mirror, do you garland the person in the mirror because it is seen there? You garland yourself outside the mirror; you do not garland the reflection. Just because you are seen there, it does not mean that you are there. Similarly, just because the objects are there outside, it does not mean that they are really there. They are somewhere else.

You are thoroughly mistaken in thinking that what you see is really there. It is not there in the same sense as you are not in the mirror. You are somewhere else. You are an invisible object. The person that is reflected in the mirror is invisible to one's own self. But the visible is not the real; the invisible is the real. So when you want to enjoy an object, do not go to that which is seen, because that which is seen is not there; it is somewhere else. Just as when you garland the invisible personality rather than the visible one reflected in a mirror, the reflected person is also automatically garlanded, when the original is beautified, the reflection is automatically beautified; when the original is satisfied, the reflection is also automatically satisfied, and when that original Absolute is satisfied and contemplated, the whole world is satisfied.

Do not try to run after the objects of the world and try to please people in the world. They are only reflections of an original which is somewhere else. When you touch the bottom of things, the surface is automatically touched. To serve God is to serve all humanity. To please the Absolute is to please the whole of creation. All this is ethically described in a story in the Mahabharata, where it is said that when Sri Krishna Bhagavan took a leaf of vegetable from the vessel in which Draupadi used to cook her meal, the world was satisfied. 

This is because Sri Krishna represented the root of the cosmos, and when that was satisfied the entire tree of samsara, the whole creation, was satisfied. So do not be under the impression that when you are virakta or when you practice vairagya, self-discipline – when you detach yourself from objects of pleasure – you are going to be a loser. You are going to be an immense gainer by spiritual practice.

Thus, contemplation on the wonderful consequences of self-discipline and self-control allows the emotions of the satisfaction of the objects of sense to come down. The mind will come down automatically. “Oh, it is such a wonderful thing that I am going to get. I am going to be a great master, a magnificent being. Why should I be a silly person of this mortal world? I am going to be the great, magnanimous, magnificent wonder of creation by the practice of yoga.” When the mind is taught this lesson and told this, automatically the emotions of love and hatred, pleasure and pain subside. This is another method by which you can control the emotions by operating upon the subtle causative base.

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Continued

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