BHAGAVAD GITA 17.16: PENANCE OF MIND [मानसं तपः MANASA TAPAH]

2017 079 29  Bhagavad Gita 17.16: Penance of Mind [मानसं तपः Manasam Tapah] 

मनःप्रसादः सौम्यत्वं मौनं आत्मविनिग्रहः   |
भाव संशुद्धिः इति एतत्तपः  मानसं उच्यते  ||         BG 17.16

manahprasadah saumyatvam maunam atma-vinigrahah

bhava-samsuddhi ity etat tapah manasam ucyate             

Cheerfulness of mind, placidity or gentleness, calmness and contemplation, mastery over mind, purity of thought—these together constitute penance of mind.

1] मनःप्रसादः manahprasadah: Cheerfulness of mind: Manah-prasadah is mental cheerfulness. A discipline, which helps you acquire and maintain mental cheerfulness, is called manasa tapas. 

It involves a prayerful attitude, and an acceptance of yourself and of the situation in which you find yourself. This includes acceptance of the past, and of the world as we find it. Futuristic conjectures are also resolved in an attitude of surrender and simple appreciation.

When you get up in the morning, acknowledge that it is nice being alive. It is one more day for celebration. Anything that you do is a celebration. ‘I am alive today. It is nice being alive. It is nice doing what I do.’ That is what the attitude is. This is manah-prasadah. 

2] सौम्यत्वं saumyatvam: Saumyatvam: When manaprasada is there, there is an external expression evident on the face, and that is what they call saumyatva. It reveals a cheerfulness in the mind. From the mouth, eyes, eyebrows, words, the whole demeanour of the person, you infer that he is pleased.

The tapas here is, when you are displeased, you bring back a pleased condition of mind, which will bring about a smile. This is not a behavioural modification, but a change that comes about by a process of thinking. 

3] मौनं maunam:  Calmness and Contemplation:  Mauna is restraint in speaking. Even though it is a discipline of the organ of speech, and might be included in the discussion of vak tapas, here it is considered as a mental discipline. Why? Speaking properly, and sometimes not speaking, is possible only when you have mauna inside.

The effect of the absence of a necessity to talk is externally expressed as mauna. Generally there is always a pressure to talk. We build it up. The absence of such a pressure to talk to another person is what is called mauna.

This silence at the level of speech is because of the mind being silent. It is a tapas because it can be accomplished only by discipline. There is an attempt involved, by proper thinking, to bring about mauna.

4] आत्मविनिग्रहः atma-vinigrahah:  Mastery over Mind:   Atma vinigraha is mastery over the ways of the mind, in general. There is no ambiguity about the meaning of the word atma here. Since the topic is mental tapas, it can only mean mind. Mauna is a particular aspect of this tapas with reference to speech. But atma vinigraha is mastery with reference to everything.

By proper discipline, one gains a certain mastery over the ways of thinking and is not carried away by a thought process. Whatever is necessary in following this discipline is called tapas.

All your emotions have to be put in order, and whatever you do to accomplish that comes under atma vinigraha. Anything you do for the sake of mental health is a sadhana. It is not outside yoga. 

5] भाव संशुद्धिः bhava-samsuddhi: Purity of Thought:  Bhava-samsuddhi is clean intentions when you are dealing with people. Whether your motives are understood by others or not, they are clean. The motive is at the level of the mind, not action. If the motive is not clean, we analyse why this is so, and thereby, get rid of the particular type of thinking that allowed such a motive to come. All these together constitute manasam tapas.  

BHAGAVAD GITA 17.16: CHEERFULNESS OF MIND [मनःप्रसादः]

2017 0709 28  Bhagavad Gita 17.16: Cheerfulness of Mind [मनःप्रसादः]

Swami Dayananda Saraswati [1930-2015]

[I was going through Pujyashri Dayananda Saraswathi Swamiji's Bhagavad Gita Home Study Course BG Ch 17 Sloka 16 and was deeply impressed by his explanation of "manah-prasadah" [मनःप्रसादः] which I wanted to share with you all.]

Manah-prasadah is mental cheerfulness. The word, ‘mental’ is used deliberately here because, sometimes you can put on an appearance of cheerfulness, but not be mentally cheerful at all.

A discipline, which helps you acquire and maintain mental cheerfulness, is tapas. It involves a prayerful attitude, and an acceptance of yourself and of the situation in which you find yourself. 

This includes acceptance of the past, and of the world as we find it. Futuristic conjectures are also resolved in an attitude of surrender and simple appreciation.

I do not need to prove myself to anybody.  These are all simple things. But then, these things count a lot, because, it is the simple things that bring about cheerfulness. It involves living one day at a time. 

Today I am alive, and what is to be done this day, I just do. The future can take care of itself. If I can manage today, tomorrow I have only one day to manage. This is the truth about life. Your whole life, all you have to manage is one day. 

If yesterday, you made a mistake; that is fine. You are wiser for it. If you are worried about it today, not only yesterday but today also is wasted in worrying. With reference to what is to be done, a certain surrender allows you to live happily.  

The future will take care of itself. I may plan for the future, but I do what I can do today. That is all. Today's plan is like this, and tomorrow's plan may be the same, or I may revise it. This ‘one day at a time’ never goes away. These are the attitudes that bring about surrender. 

Then there is a law that ‘What will be, will be—bhavatavyam bhavatyeva!’ This is an important shock absorber. What is to happen will happen; I do what I can. That is the truth about living.

What is to happen to you, your own prarabdha and that of others, are all intertwined. This is how things happen. If you have understood and assimilated even what has happened so far, you have an attitude that is ready for surprises. That is mental cheerfulness, manah-prasadah.  A number of things are involved in this.

Whenever concern or anxiety arises, you resolve it by bringing back the proper attitude. Just remind yourself that it is nice being yourself. Say to yourself, ‘It is nice being myself.’ In whichever area you have to change, make efforts to change. If necessary, take help, even the help of God, in the form of prayer. I do not have to prove myself to anybody. If another person thinks ill of me, it is his problem. I just accept myself as I am. 

[What follows is adapted from  "Sadaka Sanjivini" commentary on Bhagavad Gita by Swami Ramsukhdas which also will be found to be very relevant.] 

Cheerfulness of the mind is called "manah-prasadah" [मनःप्रसादः]. Cheerfulness which is caused by contact with persons and things is not permanent. Cheerfulness which is revealed by staying away from evils remains permanent. And this leads to serenity of mind. 

1] One who is free from attachments and aversions to persons and circumstances;

2] One who is not partial nor selfish nor proud;

3] One who if full of divine traits such as compassion, forgiveness, generosity, etc;

4] One who always feels for the welfare of all beings; and

5] One who is temperate in food, sleep and recreations according to ordinance of scriptures, such a striver attains cheerfulness of mind and serenity speedily.

Bhagavad Gita Home Study Course: Swami Dayananda Saraswathi Ch 14 to 18:
[Click Here]

YouTube Video: Practical Application of Bhagavad Gita in Daily Life:
Swami Tejomayananda, Global Head of Chinmaya Mission; [Click Here]

THIRUKKURAL: CHAPTER 22: DUTY TO SOCIETY [ஒப்புரவு அறிதல்]

2017 0702 27  ThirukkuraL: Ch.22:  Duty to Society  [ஒப்புரவு அறிதல்]

The purpose of one’s hard-earned money is
to be deployed to help the deserving.                                            T 212

The wealth of the wise one who loves, and is loved by, the world,
is like a public pond brimming with water.                                      T 215


What harm can come out of beneficence? Such harm
deserves to be bought even by selling oneself.                             T 220




தாள் ஆற்றித் தந்த பொருள் எல்லாம் தக்கார்க்கு 
வேளாண்மை செய்தற் பொருட்டு.                                                             T 212 

 ஊருணி நீர் நிறைந்தற்றே உலகு அவாம் 
பேர் அறிவாளன் திரு.                                                                                     T 215

ஒப்புரவினால் வரும் கேடு எனின் அஃது ஒருவன் 
விற்றுக் கோள் தக்கது உடைத்து.                                                               T 220

ThiurukkuraL  Ch.22  Duty to Society: Full Text: [Click Here]

ThiurukkuraL  in English  Full Text: [Click Here]

THIRUKKURAL: 5 VIRTUES PILLARING PERFECTION OF CHARACTER

2017 0625 26  ThirukkuraL: 5 Virtues Pillaring Perfection of Character 

Visualize an edifice [building] supported by five grand pillars!  Likewise, 

"Perfection of Character" [சான்றாண்மை saandraanmai], 

is pillared by five great virtues, namely, 

1] universal love [அன்பு anbu], 

2] modesty [நாண் naaN], 

3] beneficence [ஒப்புரவு oppuravu], 

4] compassion [கண்ணோட்டம் kannottam], and 

5] truthfulness [வாய்மை vaimai]!

Says Saint Poet Thruvalluvar, in ThirukkuraL 983:  

அன்பு நாண் ஒப்புரவு கண்ணோட்டம் வாய்மையொடு 

ஐந்து சால்பு ஊன்றிய தூண்.     [T 983]

ThiurukkuraL  Ch.99  Saandraanmai [Nobleness of Character] Full Text: [Click Here]

  ThiurukkuraL  in English  Full Text: [Click Here]

  

GEMS FROM READER'S DIGEST: THE NIGHT I MET EINSTEIN: JEROME WEIDMAN

2017 0618 25  Gems From Reader's Digest: The Night I Met Einstein: Gerome Weidman

This Reader's Digest Classic of "My Most Unforgettable Character" offers a lesson in life—and music—from the most brilliant mind in the world. [Reader's Digest, Nov 1955]

Jerome Weidman [1900-1998]

When I was a very young man, I was invited to dine at the home of a distinguished New York philanthropist. After dinner, our hostess led us to an enormous drawing room for an evening of chamber music. I sat down, and when the music started, I fixed my face in an expression of intelligent appreciation, closed my ears from the inside.

After a while, I heard a gentle voice on my right: “You are fond of Bach?” I was sitting next to Albert Einstein. This was a man to whom you did not tell a lie, however small. “I don’t know anything about Bach,” I said awkwardly. “I’ve never heard any of his music.”

Dr Albert Einstein [1879-1955]

“Please,” he said abruptly, “You will come with me?” He led me upstairs. On the floor above, he opened the door into a book-lined study, drew me in, and shut the door.

“Tell me, please,” he said. “Is there any kind of music that you do like?” “Well,” I answered, “I like songs that have words, and the kind of music where I can follow the tune.”

He went to a corner of the room, opened a phonograph, and put a record on, and in a moment, the study was filled with the relaxed, lilting strains of Bing Crosby’s “When the Blue of the Night Meets the Gold of the Day.” 

“Now,” he said. “Will you tell me, please, what you have just heard?” The simplest answer seemed to be to sing the lines. I did just that. You see!” he cried with delight when I finished. “You do have an ear!”

Einstein picked up the Bing Crosby record. “This simple, charming little song is like simple addition or subtraction. You have mastered it. Now we go on to something more complicated.”

He found another record and set it going. The golden voice of John McCormack singing “The Trumpeter” filled the room. Einstein stopped the record. He said, “You will sing that back to me, please?” I did—with a good deal of self-consciousness but with, for me, a surprising degree of accuracy.

Einstein stared at me with a look on his face that I had seen only once before in my life: on the face of my father as he listened to me deliver the valedictory address at my high school graduation ceremony. “Excellent!” Einstein remarked when I finished. “Wonderful! Now this!”

“This” turned out to be Caruso in what was to me a completely unrecognizable fragment from Cavalleria Rusticana, a one-act opera. Nevertheless, I managed to reproduce an approximation of the sounds the famous tenor had made. Einstein beamed his approval. Caruso was followed by at least a dozen others. 

We came at last to recordings of music without words, which I was instructed to reproduce by humming. When I reached for a high note, Einstein’s mouth opened, and his head went back as if to help me attain what seemed unattainable. Evidently I came close enough, for he suddenly turned off the phonograph.

“Now, young man,” he said, putting his arm through mine. “We are ready for Bach!” As we returned to our seats in the drawing room, the players were tuning up for a new selection. Einstein smiled and gave me a reassuring pat on the knee. “Just allow yourself to listen,” he whispered. “That is all.”

When the concert was finished, I added my genuine applause to that of the others.

“I’m so sorry, Dr. Einstein, that you missed so much of the performance,”  our hostess said. “I am sorry too,” he said; “My young friend here and I, however, were engaged in the greatest activity of which man is capable.” And Einstein uttered ten words that—for at least one person who is in his endless debt—are his epitaph: “Opening up yet another fragment of the frontier of beauty.”

Jerome Weidman was a novelist, screenwriter, and Pulitzer Prize–winning playwright. “The Night I Met Einstein” first appeared in Reader’s Digest in November 1955 and is one of the most requested pieces from the RD archives. 

The Night I Met Dr Einstein: Jerome Weidman: Full Text: [Click Here]

GEMS FROM READER'S DIGEST: "MAN OVERBOARD" : GEORGE H GRANT

2017 0611 24  Gems from Reader's Digest:  "Man Overboard": George H Grant

Man OverBoard!  by  Captain  George H. Grant 

(This appeared in the Reader's Digest, May 1955. What a  story and what a compliment!) 

Caption George H. Grant

As we learned a few hours later, the boy fell overboard a little after 7 a.m. No one saw him fall. He had been  clearing a scupper and lost his balance.  When he hit the water he fought against the wild surge and suck along the vessel's hull. The propeller missed him by inches. As the choking water eased its tug, he broke the surface and  saw the blue sky  overhead. 

For a moment a feeling of relief relaxed him. The Mate must  have seen him fall and he would be picked up quickly. But the vessel kept going at full speed, and he threshed the water in panic, trying to overcome  her. 

Suddenly he remembered something the Captain had said one day after a boat drill: "If you ever get in a tight spot, keep your head.  If you panic, you'll lose it sure's this vessel's got a keel.  You'll run round and round like a chicken with its head chopped off. So keep you head, and think!" 

The boy steadied the paddling of  hands and feet and thought: I didn't know I could swim but I'm not sinking.  I'm swimming!   He managed to kick off his heavy pants and boots. He realized then that he was paddling as he had seen dogs do at his farm home in Maine. 

But the vessel kept going away. He could now barely see her funnel and masts when he was heaved up on a high wave.   He looked anxiously around.  He did not know for what.  There was nothing to see but the water and empty sky. A breaking wave slapped him in the face, choking him. Salt burned his eyes. 

The sailors were at breakfast when they missed the boy.  "Where is he?"  one asked.  Another remarked:  "Funny. He never called the watch. I'd better go look for him."  He searched through the forecastles, the lavatories. His footsteps quickened as his anxiety increased; his voice became querulous, now demanding. "You'd better tell the Old Man," someone suggested. 

The Captain was talking to the Third Mate on the bridge. His vessel was on a safe course, 100 miles eastward of Jacksonville  and steaming at full speed in the Gulf Stream. The Captain was making up time lost at sailing. He turned to the sailor who raced up a ladder, shouting: "Sir!  The boy. We can't find him! We've looked everywhere. He's lost!"--and he waved a hand out over the sea. 

The Captain summoned the Chief Mate from the dining room. The boy had been on his watch.

The Chief recalled that he had order the boy to clear the starboard scupper. What time?  It was after the boy brought coffee to the bridge--say about 7:10. 

The Captain glanced at his watch.  8:21.  An hour and 11 minutes, 18 miles astern. Quick orders were issued. Some fuel oil was pumped onto the sea. The vessel held her course for a few seconds, until the oil had laid a path behind her. When that was well defined, the vessel reversed her course and steamed back along the oil path exactly the way she had come.  "We have to go back 20 miles from here," the Captain said.  "One hour and 20 minutes. Watch the time!" 

The boy kept paddling slowly, facing in the direction of the vanished ship.  He was weakening and he wanted to cry.  He would have cried but the Captain was before him on the deck again addressing the men:  "The Sea's a hard life. Emergencies pop up, in storms in fogs, and you can't go running to the Five and Ten for a piece of  string or a box of nails to fix things. You've got to use your head.  Remember, more men get lost by losing their heads than for any other reason!" 

It was all right for the Captain  to say that, he thought. He had never fallen overboard.  Or had he?  He had been at sea a long time; he must have experienced everything that could happen to a man.  He tried to think of himself as the Captain, and he began to say the things the Captain had said, over and over again as if addressing a group of men in the water around him. Then a series of broken waves washed over him, half-drowning him, and he struggled in a smother of foam and fear. 

The Captain did not expect to find the boy   Cross winds and currents cause drift, and a head is such a small object to spot  in a vast area of roughened water. Men panic and drown so quickly. What chance had a boy who, he had been told, could not swim? 

He glanced at his watch. A few more minutes to go.  "Pass the word we're nearly there," he said to the Third Mate.  "Reduce speed to slow.:  His head swung continuously from side to side, his eyes sweeping the sea, pausing, moving on. 

"Suddenly he shouted: "Stop the engines! Full astern!  Stand by to get the boat away!"  He had seen the tiny head, bobbing up, sinking down, not more than 100 yards away. 

The boy saw the vessel stop, saw the lifeboat come toward him. Just as his ebbing strength seemed exhausted, strong hands grabbed him. They yanked him over the gunwale and laid him on blankets. 

The boy looked at the faces of the men at the oars.  One shouted: "Swimmin'!" The sea's for sailing boats, not swimmin'!"   Another said: "You're going to get hell, m'lad. The Old Man's sore. Three hours and you've got to go swimmin'!" 

He knew they were teasing him. He wanted to nod, to smile, to let them know he understood; but nausea gripped him and he retched with pain.": Cut out the chatter,"  the Second Mate said;  "We've got to get him back. Hurry!" 

Half of the story was gleaned later, from the boy; half of it was known to me from the beginning for, you see, I was the Captain. 

When the vessel  was back on course I went down to see the boy.  Wrapped in blankets he look much younger than his 17 years.  Tears came to his eyes and he murmured: "Sir, I'm sorry if I've made you late." 

I reassured him as best I could, and prescribed some rest. 

On the day before our arrival at Boston, I asked him:  "You couldn't swim and you were in the water over two and a half hours. How did you ever managed to keep afloat?" 

"You told me to, sir." 

"I?" 

"Yes, sir. You told me to use my head. You tell everyone that, sir. And I knew you would come back." 

"How the devil did you know that?"  I asked. 

He glanced up and said quietly,  "Because you are like that, sir.": 

Because you are like that!  The boy didn't know it but, with his words, he bestowed on  me a reward greater than any gift of government  or kings.

"Man Overboard" by Captain George H. Grant: Full Text: [Click Here]:

DR. SCHINDLER: LIVE 365 DAYS A YEAR: 12 GUIDING PRINCIPLES

2017 0604 23  Dr. Schindler: Live 365 Days A Year:
12 Guiding Principles To Make Your Life Richer 

What are the 12 guiding principles of Dr Schindler to make your life richer?
from his masterpiece "How To Live 365 Days A Year"

Dr John A Schindler

12 Guiding Principles To Make Your Life Richer [p.97]

01  Keep life simple

02  Avoid watching for a knock in your motor

03  Learn to like work

04  Have a good hobby

05  Learn to be satisfied

06  Like people and join the human enterprise

07  Get the habit of saying the cheerful, pleasant thing

08  Meet adversity by turning defeat into victory

09  Meet your problems with decision

10  Make the present moment a success

11  Always be planning something

12  Say "Nuts" to irritations

YouTube Video: How to live 365 days a year: [Click Here]