Meditation Yoga
Chapter 6, Verse 20
yatroparamate cittaṁ
niruddhaṁ yoga-sevayā
yatra caivātmanā’tmānaṁ
paśyann-ātmani tuṣyati
When the mind, restrained by the practice of yoga, attains that infinite bliss, and when seeing the Self by the mind, one is satisfied by the Self alone.
The mind of a yogi, who is fully established in God, naturally withdraws itself completely from the outside world. In that state, the outside world no longer finds its place in the mind of a yogi. This is the state of Samadhi. Samadhi is not only achieved in meditation. Once one has attained Samadhi in meditation, even if one dwells in the outside world, one is always fully in Samadhi. One does all one’s actions, whatever one needs to do, in the same state of Samadhi. One doesn’t run away from doing outer action, but one is also fully absorbed in God. Even if it appears on the outside that one is a normal human being, in reality one is not normal, one is fully in God Himself. He does everything in a state of complete detachment at all times. Such a mind is said to be still and in “infinite bliss.”
When one is sitting in meditation and attains God-Realisation, “seeing the Self by the mind,” the mind is not dwelling on the outside reality anymore, it is not dwelling on the objects of the senses. Here the Self reveals to the mind who He is: “one is satisfied by the Self alone”, because one perceives the Divine Light. When Bhagavan Krishna says that “one is satisfied by the Self alone,” He means that one perceives one’s unity with God: one perceives that one’s own Atma is the Paramatma; one sees that there is no difference between the Atma and Narayana. The Atma has all the qualities of Narayana; only the quantity is different. The Supreme has limited Himself to be present in the Atma. Within the Atma, one perceives all the divine qualities, one perceives God. For such a yogi, there is no difference between the Atma and God. The mind is completely settled, purified and the soul rejoices in God only. The mind also doesn’t rejoice elsewhere, only in the Self, in the Divine.
In your sadhana, when you are fully concentrated on a certain deity, on your Ishtadev for example, the deity reveals that there is no difference between the deity and you. This is their duty, their connection with you. So if you are fully absorbed in Krishna, you won’t see Krishna as separate from you. He is the core of everything. He is the Ultimate. The mind doesn’t rejoice anywhere else. If you have seen the most wonderful thing of your life only one time, just by closing your eyes, you will always see it, no? Your mind will never forget about it. Have you seen the Mona Lisa?Everybody whose mind is focused on the outside reality will say, “How beautiful! How beautiful! How beautiful!” But if one has seen something much more beautiful, then the Mona Lisa will be put away, thrown in a corner somewhere. Then the supreme beauty will be ever-present. That’s what happened in the life of Annamacharya.
Annamacharya was always looking at the eyes of his two wives, praising them and singing their glory, “How beautiful are your eyes! How beautiful are your eyes! Such beautiful eyes do not exist anywhere else in the world! I have never seen such almond-shaped eyes in this world...”
Up in Vaikunta, the Lord was looking at him saying, “My goodness! I did not send you there for that!” Imagine what the Lord is going through in the Vaikunta deep inside your heart. He is saying, “My goodness! I have sent you to Earth to realise Me. Why are you looking outside yourself? Why are you looking at ‘Mona Lisa’ out there? Look inside! The beauty that you have inside you is much more beautiful!” Looking at the state of Annamacharya, the Lord said, “Oh my goodness! I have to go down there and remind this poor guy.” The Lord left Vaikunta in a rush and manifested Himself in this world.
Annamacharya was taking a walk with his wives. Do you know how he was walking? His two wives were walking side by side and he was walking backwards so that he wouldn’t lose sight of his wives’ eyes. The Lord said to Himself, “My goodness! My dear Annamacharya, I sent you there to spread My Love and look at what you are doing. I must remind you who you are.” Annamacharya was in reality the incarnation of the sword of Narayana. In truth, everybody is an incarnation of Narayana, a manifestation of Narayana. The Lord says, “By listening to the Gita, I am reminding you who you are. You are here listening to the Gita. Awake!”
The Lord came to Earth and appeared to Annamacharya disguised as a Brahmin. Since Annamacharya was walking backwards, he could not see who was behind him, so the Lord purposely stood behind him. Annamacharya bumped into Him, turned and said, “Oh! Sorry! I didn’t see where I was walking!” The Lord said, “Of course you didn’t! You were walking backwards! How could you see? You don’t have eyes in the back of your head! What are you doing, My dear?” Annamacharya replied, “I am looking at my beautiful wives.” The Lord said, “What are you looking at that is so beautiful? These are just two bags of bones.' Annamacharya was shocked!
The Lord continued, “The body is made of panchatattva, the 5 elements. Nothing else. Once it is burned, it becomes ash. It decays. There is nothing permanent in it. You are praising your wives, right? How beautiful are their eyes! How beautiful are their faces! But when these get old, what will you do? Will you still praise them? The eyelashes will probably not even open? Will you still praise those eyes then? No, you won’t praise them.” Who praises an old lady? Nobody! It’s true! This is the reality! Who praises an old man? Nobody! You only praise an old man when he is a Guru. When the Guru gets old, it doesn’t matter: the Guru is centred in the Divine, so you praise him. Lord Krishna says to Arjuna, “Everybody looks at the one who has achieved the Divine state, and they also try to be like that. But nobody cares about the ones who have doomed themselves.” You come here, you live your life, you die, and nobody even remembers you. What have you done in life? Nothing! But, it’s not about whether people remember you or not. It’s about if you have done your dharma while you were here. When you do your dharma, you will achieve the Lord; then you will be eternally with Him.
The Lord said to Annamacharya, “What a waste of time, My dear! Why are you praising these bags of bones, which will only last for a limited time and then…be finished? When their eyes drop…finish!” Then He said, “Come! I will show you a pair of eyes which are even more beautiful than these eyes. Here you are looking at four eyes. I will show you only two.”
So the Lord took Annamacharya to the Lord’s Balaji Temple in Tirupati. The temple was closed, so Annamacharya waited outside. When the temple doors opened, Annamacharya’s eyes and Lord Balaji’s eyes met, and Annamacharya perceived the whole universe in Lord Balaji’s eyes, just by looking at Him. At that moment, he received full Realisation: his eyes had turned from the outside perception to the cosmic eyes of the Lord.
Lord Krishna says in the Gita, “Don’t let yourself be fooled by outside appearances. You have to first perceive the Lord within the core of yourself. Once you have perceived that beauty within yourself, then you will look at the whole creation of God with the eyes of knowledge. The Supreme Being will be visible in all His creation. Then you will not just look at perishable matter, but you will look at the imperishable One, the ever-existing One, the Ultimate, the One who pervades everything, man and woman, the trees, the animals, the whole of creation. This is the state of a yogi. This is the state Krishna referred to when He says, “…seeing the Self by the mind, one is satisfied by the Self alone,” because one perceives that reality within oneself and in everything.
After the Lord showed Annamacharya His Divine eyes, Annamacharya perceived the Reality beyond the outer reality. His perception of the four eyes of his wives completely changed. He perceived the Lord, who is the Supreme, in his own wives. He saw the divinity not only in himself, but he also saw the divinity in them. He said, “Mothers, I worship you! You have relieved me from the bondage of suffering and made me see the Lord.”
The same thing happened with Goswami Tulsidas and his wife. Tulsidas was a saint who lived in India in the 16th century. His love for Lord Rama was so great that, wherever he looked, he would see only Rama. At that time in India, as now, people followed the caste system. There was the Brahmin caste, the highest caste, and the Shudra caste, the lowest caste. When Tulsidas’ parents died, nobody looked after him: wherever he went, people would go away from him, because he was from a low caste. But Tulsidas’s love for Rama was so great that he always carried a small statue of Lord Rama with him.
One day Tulsidas’ Guru took him to his ashram and said to the people there, “You always think that you know God, but you only know Him through scriptures, only through what is said in the books. But the Lord Sri Hari is above all this. He loves everybody and everybody is equal to Him. He is with anybody who calls Him with sincere heart.” So the Guru took Tulsidas under his care and looked after him. Tulsidas grew up and became well-versed in Sanskrit. His main aim was to give the Ramacharitamanas, “The Story of Lord Rama”, to the people in their own language.
He started to compose poems and sing the Ramacharitamanas in Awadhi, a local dialect of Hindi. The Brahmins didn’t like this at all, because they said that Sanskrit was the language of the devas, of the gods. Well, that’s what they said. Similarly, some people think that God only speaks Latin. Tulsidas’ main aim was to write the “The Story of Lord Rama” into Awadhi and give it to the people, to everybody, equally. But because of that, he had many enemies.
When the time came for Tulsidas to get married, one of his brothers who was against him said “I will marry the girl you have chosen. Not you!” But the girl’s father wanted Tulsidas to get married to his daughter, Ratnavali. Finally, they married and were very happy. They went to get the blessing of the Guru. The Guru gave Tulsidas the small statue of Rama which he had brought to the ashram when he was very small and told him, “I don’t have anything to give you on this special day, but take this statue of Rama and never forget about Him!” Tulsidas replied, “Guruji, how could I ever forget about Rama?” He took the statue of Rama home, put it on the altar and from that moment on, he completely forgot about Rama, because his mind was focused only on his wife. He got so obsessed with his wife that she became everything to him.
Every moment, day and night, he only wanted to be next to his wife.
Tulsidas and his wife had a clothing shop which was given to them as a wedding present by his wife’s father. One day Tulsidas had to go to another town to get some clothes for the shop. In the morning he said goodbye to his wife and went to the other shops to buy his things. During the day, his wife got a message that her father was not well and he asked to see her for the last time before he died. She quickly rushed to her father’s bedside. When Tulsidas came home and didn’t find his wife, he became angry. He found a note on the bed saying, “I have gone to my father’s place. I need some time for myself, because I have seen how obsessed you are with me and because my father is ill.” Tulsidas could not bear this and went to his father-in-law’s place. On the way, there was a big storm and he had to swim across a river. When he finally arrived, he saw that the door was locked and wondered how to go inside. So he started climbing over the wall of the house.
On the wall there was a snake. He pulled the snake, thinking that it was a rope. He took it with him inside the house and then realised that it was a snake! His wife said, “Look at what you have done because of the obsession that you have for this bag of bones! If you would have had the same obsession for Rama, He would have delivered you and you would have attained Him by now.” At that moment, the truth of those words hit Tulsidas and he remembered that his Guru had told him to always look after Rama. He had told him to never let go of the Name of Rama. But due to delusion, he had forgotten about it and his wife had acted as a guru, reminding him of his dharma.
At that moment, Tulsidas let go of everything and surrendered to Rama. He started looking for Rama everywhere saying, “What is the use of not finding you. You are the Lord of the universe. Let me see You! What is the use of life, if I don’t see You? Praised be my wife who has reminded me of Your Love.” Later on, the wife of Goswami Tulsidas became one of his greatest devotees.
Such a wife is worthy to be praised, because she supports her husband. She forgets about her own personal wishes or desires. Sri Paramahansa Ramakrishna was always praising Sarada Devi, because in Sarada Devi, a dedicated wife, he would always remember the Divine Mother. This is the greatness of women, when they become a source of support for the spiritual benefit of all.
Bhagavad Gita
