When to Retire / Pursue Spiritual Practice

Meditationtime Forum Post

Date:  Posted 3 years before Jun 11, 2016

MiBeloved 3 years ago

Email inquiry:

Since yoga/meditation makes you defocused/decentralized from your social duties, while those duties require attention and focus for their efficient and satisfactory performance, then how do you reconcile an attentive worldly life with a detached yogic one?

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MiBeloved's Response:

This question was asked by Arjuna in this format (my translation into English):

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अर्जुन उवाच

ज्यायसी चेत्कर्मणस्ते

मता बुद्धिर्जनार्दन ।

तत्किं कर्मणि घोरे मां

नियोजयसि केशव ॥३.१॥

arjuna uvāca

jyāyasī cetkarmaṇaste

matā buddhirjanārdana

tatkiṁ karmaṇi ghore māṁ

niyojayasi keśava (3.1)

arjuna — Arjuna; uvāca — contested; jyāyasī — is better; cet = ced — if; karmaṇaḥ — than physical action; te — your; matā — idea; buddhirjanārdana = buddhiḥ — mental action + janārdana — motivator of men; tatkiṁ = tat (tad) — them + kiṁ — why; karmaṇi — in action; ghore — in horrible; māṁ — me; niyojayasi — you urge; keśava — handsome-haired one

Arjuna contested: O motivator of men, if it is Your idea that the mental approach is better than the physically-active one, then why do You urge me to commit horrible action, O handsome-haired One? (3.1)

व्यामिश्रेणैव वाक्येन

बुद्धिं मोहयसीव मे ।

तदेकं वद निश्चित्य

येन श्रेयोऽहमाप्नुयाम् ॥३.२॥

vyāmiśreṇaiva vākyena

buddhiṁ mohayasīva me

tadekaṁ vada niścitya

yena śreyo'hamāpnuyām (3.2)

vyāmiśreṇaiva = vyāmiśreṇa — with this two-way + iva — like this; vākyena — with a proposal; buddhiṁ — intelligence; mohayasīva = mohayasi — you baffle + iva — like this; me — of me; tad — this; ekaṁ — one; vada — tell; niścitya — surely; yena — by which; śreyo = śreyaḥ — the best; 'ham = aham — I; āpnuyām — I should get

You baffle my intelligence with this two-way proposal. Mention one priority, by which I would surely get the best result. (3.2)

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It was after this that Krishna explained to Arjuna, about the teaching of two spiritual methods of karma yoga and jnana yoga. Arjuna wanted Krishna to give an instruction for one of these paths, not both at the same time. Arjuna felt that Karma yoga was the path of modified social activities (punya karma), and that the path of jnana yoga was the path of detached contemplation (nirvana) about the uselessness of such social activities.

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First of all it is a matter of what you have to do. If you must do something then crying about it and asking about alternatives is senseless. If you must do something then you are better off just completing that activity and then once that is finished you may see about alternatives.

However if one spends the entire life just seeing to social activities, one will hardly be able to give some thought to the spiritual reality which is beyond the material world.

In the Bhagavad Gita, Krishna prohibited Arjuna from going to meditate, leaving aside social activities but in the Uddhava Gita we see that the same Krishna prohibited Uddhava from taking up social activities and compelled Uddhava to take to the detached contemplative life (jnana yoga) on the basis of Uddhava’s devotion to Krishna (bhakti yoga).

So what should the individual do? It depends on the circumstances of the individual yogi or devotee. If there was only one method, obviously there would not be different instructions for Arjuna and for Uddhava. And in fact near the end of their lives after the battle and after their assumption of rulership, Arjuna and his brothers on the recommendation of their spiritual teachers, renounced their social life, left it apart.

Someone says that he cannot renounce his family and that it is wrong to do so but can you explain why as righteous a person as Yudhishthira (Arjuna’s eldest brother) left aside not just his wife, and brothers but his government responsibility as king. How reckless an action was that, by a person who was supposed to be Righteous Personified (Dharmaraj)? Still today some Indian men the world over proudly speak about not having to renounce their families and that the spiritual success will come from supporting the family and giving donations to the religious causes.

I suggest that instead of waiting till you retire to go to a dharmashala or tirtha to chant holy names, do agnihotra, you should now put aside at least 30 minutes per day to spiritual cultivation.

What method should you use?

That is up to you. The point is to have some method and make a sincere effort now to budget your daily time so that you give at least half hour to that practice. This could snow-ball in time so that it increases as the years go by.

If you do not invest in a business it won’t prosper. It is the same with spiritual practice. If you do not invest in it, invest your time and interest, then it won’t develop.

No one gets a decent retirement if he does not work for years in a company or save up money or invest his money in some financial interest which pays returns in old age. It is the same with spiritual cultivation. You get out of it what you put into it.

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Now if you put little into it, you will get something out of it but that will be a little also. If you put in more into it, you will get more benefit. Karma yoga in the Bhagavad Gita as practiced by Arjuna was the circumspect control and monitoring of his social activities based on his yoga meditation powers of self-control and insight.

Arjuna practiced yoga and mastered it before the battle of Kurukshetra. Karma yoga for him was not seva donations to a mandir and giving superficial time to a lecture on DVD by a sadhu.

Karma yoga means yoga expertise as it is applied to our mandatory duties. Arjuna wanted Krishna to explain why anyone should be involved in ghore, which are horrible social activities, not seva nice acts with sadhus and mandir.

For Arjuna family life was vicious business because he was in a political family in a time of civil conflict. So you can do karma yoga but for you to do that the way Arjuna did, you have to master yoga meditation practice to develop self-control and supernatural insight.

First you master this and then we can talk about karma yoga as Arjuna practiced it on the battlefield of Kurukshetra.

Social life is there by the grace of nature and in fact, we are gifted from birth to manage it. Even the animals like the lions organize themselves socially by the grace of nature. But yoga is different. We have to put aside time to learn that separately. If we cannot do that then we cannot have the expertise of it. Arjuna had to do it. It is not that Krishna gave Arjuna the expertise of yoga. That did not happen. Arjuna actually did it before the Gita was spoken to him. Please check the Mahabharata carefully and get the right facts of Arjuna’s biography.

If you do not have the time to learn this yoga, then you cannot get the results of practicing karma yoga unless we want to change the definition of it as Arjuna practiced it and was taught it by Krishna.

Alfredo 3 years ago

now...what a treatise Michael!

Thanks so much!

That's why I have dutifully saved, cataloged, hundreds of your teachings and answers since I came onto this site. And yes, by topic.

What for? I have this feeling that it will come down to me to place them at the feet of future generations. Please correct me if I am arrogant.

I have studied in detail for many years the teachings of Sri Aurobindo. I often meet with people who purport to know these teachings well. They do not. For the teachings of that great sage are contained in his letters to disciples. It is in these letters, and their details, that he opened himself to others.