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BHAGAVAD GITA basic disciplines of the complex religious inheritance of India. The Sārkhya, a Brāhmanized form of the old pre-Aryan dualism of life and matter, was, in essence, something very different from the all-affirming monism of the Vedic tradition, and yet the latter, as matured and introverted by the contemplative sages of the period of the Upanişads, was also a way of jñāna. Hence the two could be brought together; and in the Bhagavad Gitā the union is achieved-the Sārkhya idea of the pluralism of the life-monads being accepted as a preliminary view, represcnting the standpoint of the manifested world. But the theism of the Vedas also remains-as a convenient support for the mind during the earlier stages of its difficult progress toward detachment: the way of bhakti is taught, consequently, though no longer linked necessarily to the specific rituals of the earlier cult of exterior, material sacrifice. It is developed rather in its more personal and introverted, Tântric form-as we shall observe in a later chapter. And finally, since the goal of all these disciplines is knowledge, the direct path of the absolutely introverted yogi is also accepted as an effective way. “Having in a cleanly spot established his seat, firm, neither too high nor too low, made of a cloth, a skin, and kuśa-grass, arranged in the proper way. there seated on that seat, making the mind onepointed and subduing the action of the imagining faculty and the senses, let him practice yoga for the purification of the hcart. Let him bold his body firmly, head and neck erect and still, gazing at the tip of his nose and not looking around. With the heart serene and fearless, firm in the vow of continence, with the mind controlled and ever thinking of Me, let him sit, having Me as his supreme goal.120 Thus always keeping the mind
128 Compare Patañjali: "By sacrificing all to Isvara comes samadhi" (Yoga-sútras 2. 44). A primary aim of yoga, as we have seen, is to steady the mind by withdrawing the senses from the outer sphere and thus putting them to rest. The mind can be concentrated on an inner object
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