Our Nature – In Gita Verse 8.7 Therefore, Arjuna, you should always think of Me in the form of Kṛṣṇa and at the same time carry out your prescribed duty of fighting. With your activities dedicated to Me and your mind and intelligence fixed on Me, you will attain Me without doubt.
Krishna is saying to Arjuna, right now this moment you are in the middle of the battlefield, if you become a witness to the whole war, if you witness yourself, you can carry out your prescribed duty of fighting.
With this verse, let’s also look into these questions which all of us have.
What is the relationship between meditation and witnessing?
In what way are minds and ego dissolved by them?
Human life can be divided into four circles.
The first circle is of action, the world of doing. It is the outermost. Moving within a little we come to the world of thought. Move a little further in, we come to the world of feeling, devotion, love. Moving still further within we reach the center – the world of the witness.
The witness is our nature, because there is no way to go beyond it. No one ever has, and no one ever can. To become the witness of the witness is impossible. The witness is simply the witness.
You cannot go deeper than it. It is our foundation. Our house is built on the foundation of witnessing – built of feeling, of thought, of action.
This is why there are three Yogas: Karma Yoga, Gyan Yoga, Bhakti Yoga – the Yogas of action, knowledge and devotion. These are the three methods of meditation. Through these three one can make efforts to reach the witness.
The Yoga of action means action plus meditation. Karma Yoga is the effort to go directly from doing to witnessing.
Meditation is the process and witnessing is the goal.
What is the relationship between meditation and witnessing? – Meditation is the path, witnessing is the destination.
Witnessing is the culmination of meditation. And meditation is the beginning of witnessing.
A Karma Yogi is one who adds meditation to doing, who links meditation to the world of action – action plus meditation.
Then Gyan Yogi is one who adds meditation to thought. He links meditation to the world of thought. He begins to think meditatively. A new practice is added: whatever one does is done with awareness. When the state of thought plus meditation is established the journey towards witnessing begins.
Meditation is a change of direction.
Whatever meditation is joined to becomes a vehicle for moving towards witnessing.
And the third path is Bhakti Yoga – adding meditation to emotion, a deep joining of meditation and emotion, the whirlpool of meditation and feeling! While feeling – become meditative.
Through these three paths one can approach the witness. But the method that brings you is meditation, the fundamental thing is meditation. It is just like a doctor giving you medicine, saying to take it with honey, and you say you don’t eat honey, you are a Jaina. Then he says to take it with milk, and you say you cannot drink milk because milk is a form of blood, you are a strict Quaker – you don’t drink milk, it is like eating meat. So the doctor says take it with water. But the medicine is the same – honey, milk or water, it doesn’t make any difference. They are only to help swallow the medicine, to get it down the throat. Medicine won’t go down by itself.
Meditation is medicine.
These differences between bhakti, karma and gyan are not differences in medicine. The medicine is one.
The other question: In what way are minds and ego dissolved by them? – They are not dissolved. If they existed, they would be dissolved. In witnessing you find out, “Idiot, you are needlessly lost! Your own imagination has projected mirages – it was all imagination.” They don’t dissolve. In witnessing you become alert and find out that they never existed.
Krishna says to drop straight into witnessing. These crutches are no use – this medicine can be swallowed directly. Drop these crutches, drop these vehicles – you can run directly. You can be the witness directly.
Once you are witness – your activities dedicated to Me and your mind and intelligence fixed on Me, you will attain Me without doubt.
Mind and ego are not dissolved by witnessing: in witnessing you find out that they never existed. They can be dissolved only if they exist.
Tags: Our Nature
