Every Moment of Our Life is Yoga

Divine Life Society Publication: Sri Krishna as Revealed in All Levels of Reality by Sri Swami Krishnananda

Ātmaiva hyātmano bandhur ātmaiva ripur ātmanaḥ (Gita 6.5). Our environment is our friend, and our environment is also our enemy. The inimical character which seems to be manifest in our environment is the opposition that we are facing in our life. This happens because the environment, the atmosphere in which we are placed, which is our so-called chariot, is constituted of such characteristics as are not easily reconcilable with the vehement affirmations of our egoistic personality. The assertions of our egoism stand in the way of this coming into a blend or union with that which stands outside as our opponent. It is Sri Krishna himself that is opposing you. Your larger personality stands outside you as the atmosphere outside. It is not really outside; it is a larger expansion of your own being, and so when you fight with the world you are fighting with your own self. And this larger being is the Sri Krishna who includes Arjuna also within himself because the particular is swallowed up by the universal, as it includes the universal. As the individual is in the universal, the environment should not stand outside you. You have to be in union with that atmosphere.

Now, what is the atmosphere we are speaking of? It is nothing but the particular level in which you find yourself. And what are these levels? We are, at the present moment, in the political, social, and physical levels of existence. We are overly concerned with our political associations, requirements and involvements. Whatever be our spiritual, moral or philosophical longing in our leisure hours, there is no gainsaying that as a citizen of a particular nation a person is conscious of his or her involvement in what is called the national setup. So right from the outward social involvement which is a location in which we find ourselves, we have to raise our spirits gradually to the higher dimensions thereof until we scale the ladder of evolution inwardly through the practice of yoga and reap that perfect unanimity and uniformity of being where the supreme Krishna, the eternal universality, engulfs the individuality of Arjuna. And in the Viratsvarupa, Arjuna himself finds himself vanishing, as it were.

Thus, the yoga of the Bhagavadgita is a cosmic performance expected of every individual, every human being in every walk of life, in every profession, in every undertaking, and at every moment of time. Thus, there is no moment in our life when it cannot be a yoga. There is no outside atmosphere which we are confronting with which we cannot attune ourselves if only we have a mind to do that.

Here is a point of view which may require our further consideration and meditation, a point of view which seems to emanate spontaneously from the well-known meaning of the last verse of the Bhagavadgita: yatra yogeśvaraḥ kṛṣṇo yatra pārtho dhanurdharaḥ, tatra śrīr vijayo bhūtir dhruvā nītir matir mama. Perfection is the goal of life, and we have to be perfect in every one of our undertakings. Our every thought, every speech and every mode of conduct should be a specimen of a perfect attitude. Yoga is perfection, yoga is communion, and yoga is the conversation, the discourse between Krishna and Arjuna, śrīkṛṣṇārjunasaṁvāde. It is the confluence of the mortal and the immortal, Arjuna and Krishna. This confluence is the yoga of the Bhagavadgita, and this is the yoga of all life, of every kind of life, intended for everyone under every circumstance, and it stands supreme as the perfect prescription for every one of us for the problems we face in our day-to-day existence.

Every Moment of Our Life is Yoga - Sri Krishna as Revealed in All Levels of Reality by Sri Swami Krishnananda