BG6.27

Sri Krishna appeared in this world and has offered the nectar of Gita. He is also gracing from various temples so that devotees could worship Him at all times. Predominantly these temples are 40 in Chola region, 18 in Pandya, 12 in Northern, 13 in Kerala, 2 in Middle [Nadu] and 22 in Thondai regions. Sri Vaikuntam is the last. Of these 106 are in this earth, which can be visited by us. The !07th Kshetram of Thirupparkadal [Milk ocean] can not be seen by us. But the 108th Kshetram of Vaikuntam could be seen by us on some day. Bhagavad Gita tells us the method to reach that place. It also teaches how to make our lives similar to what we could experience in Vaikuntam. Gita shows the good life we can have here; it also shows the route to reach Vaikuntam; and it also shows the eternal bliss there in Vaikuntam. Perhaps, symbolically representing these three, the Lord is present in three forms in this Kshetram! Thirumangai Alwar says that other than the Sri Manikkunram Perumal, he can not praise others. He says the Lord is like a huge mountain made of Gold! So, all gods worship this Lord. Sri Krishna Himself says in Gita that He is Meru among mountains. It is believed that Meru is golden and its peaks are all diamond like. We may not be able to see Meru, but we all can easily see the Lord here. It is said that the Lord was earlier in a place called Salimedu and later He got transferred and is gracing from the present place. We will now proceed to 26th sloka. In 24th and 25th slokas, Sri Krishna explained how to practice yoga. To practice that we have to disregard mamakaram or possessiveness or attachment. If we have attachments, then it is very difficult to withdraw our mind from those materials. Till the mind is withdrawn from them, we can not think of atman. Without thinking of atman, yoga can not be accomplished. Therefore, fundamentally we have to drop out our attachments on worldly matters. This can not be achieved overnight. That is why Sri Krishna tells that slowly, slowly the mind has to be withdrawn from those. How this is to be done is explained in sloka 26:

yato yato niscalati
manas cancalam asthiram
tatas tato niyamyaitad
atmany eva vasam nayet

"From wherever the mind wanders due to its flickering and unsteady nature, one must certainly withdraw it and bring it back under the control of the self."

Yato yato = in which[ objects], niscalati = [mind] gets involved or is interested. If our organs go after all unwanted things, mind goes after them. Mind has the natural quality of unstablity and always wanders. Mind changes every day and every hour. So it goes after undesirable acts. Cancalam = changing or wandering. Asthiram = unstable. We may think here that cancalam and asthiram convey the same meaning. But Sri Krishna has used the words with a purpose. Cancalam indictes the natural quality of mind vacillating. But asthiram is used to specifically denote its special quality of not involving itself in atman steadily. Mind jumps from one to another and that is its nature. Over and above that, the mind at least for sometime will be stable on some objects; but in case of atman, even that stability is not found. Tatas tata = from all those [objects], niyamyi = withdrawn, atman eva = only on atman, vasam nayet = [the mind] has to be got attracted or engaged. Mind has to be slowly withdrawn from all those objects in which it wanders, and engage the mind in atman. The underlying meaning is that whatever pleasure the mind gets in those objects, would be available in atman. This is the command our intellect has to give to the mind. Let us see some examples. We may be interested in gambling. Swami Vedanta Desika says that there can be two types. One gambling is just for the sport of it and the other is involving betting money. Mere entertainment or play means we may be able to break the game anytime. But once money is involved, our involvement is too severe. This we see in today's sports also. As long as money involvement is nil or small, the game is played with all skills. But when money dominates, we see fights, misunderstandings, scheming, and what not? When a child spends some time in games we welcome it as it is good for health and mind. In the present example, if we want to gamble, then we have to list in our mind all the pros and cons. We have to think how by gambling Yudhishtra suffered and how the Kauravas, even after winning the game, lost their lives. So, at least as a first step we should think to play the game without any wager. Another example is gossiping. We may be interested in gossip and make comments about others. This could happen in our jogging or when meeting friends. Here the mind wants to talk freely about others. If we could devote that time for talking about the Lord, then our desire for gossiping is fulfilled and simultaneously time is spent in eradicating our sins. So we have to command our mind to good things by going its way. Our mind may be interested to see some undesirable dance. At that time we have to give a command to imagine the dances of Sri Krishna in Vraja bhoomi. Therefore, we have to go along the mind and get it engaged in good things and later divert it on atman. With this we will now shift to the third temple of Sri Thanjayali Perumal.