Chapter 5, Verse 13
sarva karmāṇi manasā
sannyasyāste sukhaṁ vaśī
nava-dvāre pure dehī
naiva kurvan-na kārayan
The embodied soul, perfectly controlling its nature, having renounced all its actions by the mind, sits serenely in its nine-gated city, neither doing nor causing to be done.
When the mind is fully controlled, not attached to the outside reality, but attached to the Divine; constantly focused on God through meditation; fully absorbed in the Divine Consciousness; in the service of God; then the Great Observer reveals Itself.
“… sits serenely in its nine-gated city…” The nine gates represent the nine openings of the body: the two eyes, the two nostrils, the mouth, the two ears, anus and urethra. When one realises that one is not the body, one becomes the Greater Observer inwardly free from the outside reality.
“... neither doing nor causing to be done.” Since one is fully absorbed in the Divine Self, one has renounced all the activity of the mind through discrimination and reasoning. One doesn’t claim to be the doer. One attains complete control of the mind and the senses. One is absorbed and established in true happiness, in Satchitananda, the state of bliss.
The state of perfection is not to just sit in the Self or to be aware of the Self. No. It is to become blissful! And this bliss, this Satchitananda Swarupa, is the Lord Himself, the Soul of souls, the Supersoul. When one abides in the Supersoul, one attains God-Realisation. In this state, when you do your sadhana, when you do your Atma Kriya Yoga, when you do your meditation, you will not be aware of the outside reality. You will lose yourself in the Divine. Even the Observer will lose Itself in the Divine, because everything rests upon the Divine alone. Through Him alone, there is true Existence.
Krishna says, “By mere renunciation of the mind, one gets attached to the ‘nine-gated city’, the body.” But when the mind is fully absorbed in the Divine through service, when the mind is tamed and controlled through discrimination and reasoning, it turns automatically within. Then, when the mind turns within, the intellect awakens and through this intellect, through this wisdom, the heart opens up to Love. And through that Love one is fully absorbed in the Supersoul, in the God Consciousness within one’s soul. In this state, it is the soul itself that is perceiving: at first the mind was looking at the soul, and now the soul is looking at the Supersoul.
Usually the human mind hangs very much onto the outside reality, but when the mind is tamed, it starts to look within. Then, the focus of the mind is towards the true knowledge of the soul. When you sit in meditation, the mind starts to perceive everything in a different way; the mind looks up to the soul, to the Great Observer. And when the soul is turned into itself, it rests in the greater Supersoul, who is Narayana. When the soul rests in the Supersoul, it still continues its activities in the world, but it is the Supersoul who is doing this activity. At this point, one is fully absorbed into the Supersoul. One is fully absorbed into this awareness, that God alone is the Reality, nothing else.
Bhagavad Gita
