The Ideal Disciple
Speaking to a group devoted to the study of the Bhagavad Gita, Bhagavan Sri Sathya Sai Baba calls the spiritual treatise the greatest harmonizer of all yogas. Baba urges us to embrace, practice, and integrate the teachings of the Gita in our lives. That alone, He emphasizes, grants prasanthi—supreme peace.
Swami Vidyananda, in his address now, welcomed Me to Nainital [hill station in North India], describing its beautiful scenery and praising its climate. Well, that is taking Me to be an outsider, who has to be formally invited and welcomed. I am in your satsang [holy gathering] for wherever the Gita is studied, I am and will be present. I do not care for the external beauty of nature as much as the beauty of character and of conduct which you are seeking to acquire by the constant study of the Gita.
I came to the Gita satsang to see all of you because I bless all efforts by man to raise himself through study and sadhana [spiritual effort]. “Madbhaktah yatra gayanti, tatra tishthami Narada” is the declaration—“Wherever My devotees sing of Me, there I install Myself.” In fact, the Lord is always there and everywhere, whether you sing of Him or not. The singing only makes Him manifest, like the radio receiver that catches the tune from the ether when it is switched to the correct wave length. The current is ever flowing; when you connect it to the bulb, you get the light.
The Bhagavad Gita is a text book for all mankind, laying out the secrets of spiritual science in clear and simple terms. But it will be useful only when the reader has as much detachment as Arjuna had when Krishna gave the discourse. If you have as much vishada (despair) as Arjuna had, you have the adhikara (right) to get the teaching, which freed him of the grief. Only a patient ailing from a disease is entitled to the specific medicine that will cure it. What business do others have with it? What profit can they draw from it? The Gita will act on the mental system only when the symptoms of grief are strong.
God’s response to spiritual surrender
Arjuna, the greatest bowman of those days, suddenly became disinterested in everything that he thought precious until that moment (despite his deep anger at the wicked Kauravas and their vendetta.) “Of what avail is victory in the field of battle?” asks this hero of a thousand encounters. “Nor do I see any good from killing kinsmen in battle,” says the warrior who had vowed to wipe out the Kuru [Kaurava] clan. “I do not wish to kill them though they may wish to kill me; I shall lay down my arms; I shall die unresisting,” wails this foremost kshatriya (warrior); “I would rather beg from door to door and live on alms,” says this scion of an imperial line.
In short, his [Arjuna’s] mind has become ripe for illumination. He has the Lord Himself as guru by his side and he knows it. He asks Krishna: “I am struggling in ignorance; I am confused; I do not know which [act] is dharma [righteous] and which is adharma [not righteous].” He seeks disciple-hood and lays himself at the feet of Krishna in self-surrender.
Anyone anywhere who reaches that stage of spiritual surrender will get the response from Krishna, and He will teach the Gita from the chariot that He drives, that is [an individual’s] own heart.
End delusion to recognize the Self
The purpose of the Gita is to remove the delusion that overwhelmed Arjuna and made him feel that he was the doer, whereas the truth was that he was just an instrument. So Krishna asks him at the very end of the discourse, “Has the delusion born out of ignorance been fully destroyed in you?” Like a good teacher, Krishna was evidently quite willing to resort to some other means or to discourse a little longer in order to make the pupil understand the teaching. But Arjuna was a good student; he declared, “Destroyed is the delusion. I have gained recognition.” Now, what is the recognition he has gained? It is the recognition of the Self or atma. He has seen himself as basically the Self, and the world and all objects as superimpositions on the Self due to ignorance or maya.
An emperor, while sleeping, dreams that he is a beggar. He wears tattered clothes and begs piteously at other people’s doors for a morsel of food. No one listens to his clamor. He can no longer contain his sorrow. He weeps aloud, waking up his mother. She wakes him up from that dream. Now, the mother need not tell him, “Listen to me, you are the emperor. You are not a beggar.” He knows it as soon as he awakens. The recognition of the Self happens as soon as the delusion goes, the delusion that this dream-world is real.
A prince who falls into the hands of a forest tribe while yet a child and behaves like one of them does not thereby lose his prince-hood. When rescued, he knows he is a prince. So too, Arjuna says, “I got back my memory; I have gained recognition. I know myself; I am Thyself!”
Gita is the harmonizer of all yogas
The study of the Gita must end in this result [recognizing that one is the atma]; your satsang must have this consummation as your goal. Do not be enamored by the skill exhibited by some pundit who can recite the Gita in record time, or write the entire Gita on a post card, or recite it backwards, or reel off commentaries. A man walks on the beach, plays with the waves, and has a dip in the water; so his feet will surely get wet—there is no miracle in this! This is what happens to many a scholar who wades in the sea of the Gita.
When a King of a small principality enters his court for audience, the courtiers announce his polysyllabic titles, but they address him by his nickname in private conversations. Similarly, the pundit may be treated with great pomp before others but in the privacy of his own conscience, he knows that he is a small man indeed. Greatness depends upon the spiritual discipline and its success depends on firmly adhering to religious austerities and in putting them into practice.
“Awake, arise, and stop not till the goal is reached,” it is said. But one need not march toward the goal. It is not some place where you have to go. It is just the opening of the eye, the removal of the veil, the waking from the dream, and the lighting of the lamp of spiritual wisdom.
To get this fruit of reading the Gita, it is essential to have one-pointed concentration. Krishna asks Arjuna, “Has this been heard by you with an attentive mind? Have you heard it without distraction?” The reason is the battlefield had plenty of distractions to disturb the concentration of Arjuna’s mind from the invaluable lesson he was receiving from Krishna. It is really admirable that Arjuna, seated in the chariot between the two armies, manages to master his mind and rid it of all the passions when he rode in for the fray. Truly, he is an ideal disciple. You should thank him for eliciting the Bhagavad Gita for humanity.
There are people who argue that the Gita teaches one yoga [the path to union with God] more than any other. That shows only their partisan nature. Once you begin to practice the Gita, propounding new theories and meanings that exhibit your superior scholarship vanish. The Gita is the greatest harmonizer of all yogas.
As a matter of fact, once the Gita is made the guiding star of your life, the way you act will be karma yoga [path of action], the way you feel will be bhakti yoga [path of devotion], and the way you reason will be jnana yoga [path of wisdom]. It will automatically become so. What you do must be in line with dharma; what you feel must foster prema [love]; what you think must reveal sathyam [truth]. Then this satsang will be blessed with santhi [peace], with even prasanthi [supreme peace].
Source: Sathya Sai Speaks, Vol. 2
