Bhagavadgita -Radhakrishnan 156

The Bhagavadgita -S. Radhakrishnan

CHAPTER 6 The True Yoga Plato's Mena begins with the question, "Can you tell me, Socrates, is virtue to be taught?" The answer of Socrates is, that virtue is not taught but "recollected." Recollection is a gathering of one's self together, a retreat into one's soul. The doctrine of "recollection" suggests that each individual should enquire within himself. He is his own centre and possesses the truth in himself. What is needed is that he should have the will and the per-severance to follow it up. The function of the teacher is not to teach but to help to put the learner in possession of himself. The questioner has the true answer in himself, if only he can be delivered of it. Every man is in possession of the truth and is dispossessed of it by his entanglement in the objective world. By identifying ourselves with the objective world, we are ejected or alienated from our true nature. Lost in the outer world, we desert the deeps. In transcending the object, physical and mental, we find ourselves in the realm of freedom. Iasi: free from desires. Worry about daily needs, about earning and spending money, disturbs meditation and takes us away from the life of the spirit. So we are asked to be free from desire and anxiety born of it, from greed and fear. The seeker should try to tear himself away from these psychic fetters and get detached from all distractions and prejudices. He must put away all clinging to mental preferences, vital aims, attachment to family and friends. He must expect nothing, insist on nothing. aparigrahah: free from longing for possessions. This freedom is a spiritual state, not a material condition We must control the appetite for possessions, free ourselves from the tyranny of belongings. One cannot hear God's voice, if one is restless and self-centred, if one is dominated by feelings of pride, self-will or possessiveness. The it points out that true happiness is inward. It invites our attention to the manner of our life, the state of human consciousness, which does not depend on the outward machinery of life. The body may die and the world pass away but the life in spirit endures. Our treasures are not the things of the world that perish but the knowledge and love of God that endure. We must get out of the slavery to things to gain the glad freedom of spirit. </poem>