The Unity of Oneself with One’s own Self

Divine Life Society Publication: The Spiritual Import of the Mahabharata and the Bhagavadgita by Sri Swami Krishnananda

In a single verse which occurs in the fifth chapter of the Bhagavadgita, the gradual stages of the ascent of human perspective are given to us. Yoga-yukto visuddhatma vijitatma jitendriyah, sarvabhuttmabhutatma kurvann api na lipyate. Jitendriyah: ‘One who has restrained the senses.’

The very same chapter in the Gita gives us an insight into the futility of the search for pleasure in objects. Ye hi samsparsaja bhoga duhkha-yonaya eva te, ady-antavantah kaunteya na tesu ramate budhah. There is a beginning and an end for the pleasures of sense. There is anxiety permeating this search for pleasure in objects; anxiety which is equivalent to sorrow, which is present continuously from the beginning to the end in one’s search for pleasure through objects. Wise people do not indulge themselves in this search for object experience. Na tesu ramate budhah: It is the blind senses that, like moths rushing to fire, go headlong into external contact; a contact which they can never establish in this life, for reasons beyond their expectation and knowledge. Hence, it is necessary to control the senses.

A self-controlled person is also a sense-controlled person, and vice versa. The one is the same as the other, but the matter is not over here. There is an establishment of the mind in pure sattva when there is the withdrawal of sense energy into the mind by way of consideration and an establishment of oneself in non-distracted attention or concentration. All concentration of sense is distracted attention, but the concentration that we attain to when the senses are withdrawn into the mind is not distracted—it is sattvica. Therefore that state is referred to as visuddhtmta. We become pure in the literal sense, not only in the ethical or social sense. It is not the ethical righteousness that is spoken of here, but the purity that is of a spiritual character. The resplendence of sattvaguna, the equilibrated condition of the psyche where the Atman within gets reflected as the sun is reflected in a clean mirror, that unity of oneself with one’s own Self is called yoga—yogayuko.

Yogayukto visuddhatma vijitatma jitendriyah. Such a person who has established himself in the Self by means of the withdrawal of the senses from the objects by way of controlling the mind, by means of establishment of oneself in sattva or purity, by getting uniting with the reality within, becomes united with all things in the world.

To be united with your Self is equivalent to uniting with everything else. This is the magnificent outcome of the practice of yoga—to know your Self is to know everybody. This is a wonder indeed, that knowledge which is of the Self—Self-knowledge—is the same as world knowledge. It is equivalent to Universal knowledge. It is brahmasakshatkara. You become sarvabhutatmabhutatma. “He becomes the Self of all beings.” One who has become the Self of one’s own self has, at the same time, become the Self of all beings. To know my Self is to know you and everybody. Such a person acts not while acting, because actions cease to be actions in the case of a person who has ceased to be a person and thereby has ceased to be an agent of action, therefore evoking no consequence of action. This is Universal action; this is the great vision of karma yoga that the Bhagavadgita places before us in a concentrated verse in the fifth chapter. For this attainment, deep meditation is necessary.

Excerpts from

The Unity of Oneself with One’s Own Self - The Spiritual Import of the Mahabharata and the Bhagavadgita by Sri Swami Krishnananda