Gita 06.28 – To get the best happiness, connect with God, not sense objects

Yunjan evam sadatmanam yogivigata kalmasaha sukhena brahma sansparasyam atyantam sukham asnute so here krishna is now progressively describing higher and higher stages of yogic perfection so yunjan evam sadatmanam the same phrase has come earlier in 6.15a yunjan evam sadatmanam the remaining three lines are different over there there it was yogi niyatamanasa by thus practicing yunjan evam sadatmanam by steady practice there it was said that yogi niyatamanasa, yogi controls the mind here it is said yogivigata kalmasaha yogi becomes freed from all contaminations nowadays contamination that causes agitation the consciousness in its natural state is calm and composed but when the consciousness goes into contaminated state when the consciousness becomes agitated so to the extent we can keep our consciousness in a pure state or we can purify our consciousness to that extent we will be able to experience higher happiness as is mentioned in the next part sukhena brahmasam sparsham sukhena brahmasam sparsham brahmasam sparsham is contact with brahman contact with higher spiritual reality atyantam sukham ashnate it is mentioned by this contact what does it do it brings atyantam sukham it brings the highest happiness so the contrast here comes out between the condition stage where the soul seeks samsparsha jaabhoga the soul seeks the happiness of sense gratification and contrast with that is brahmasam sparsham so samsparsha sparsha it can be used either for touch as it is done often in vernaculars in India or it can refer to more generally to the contact so touch is one kind of contact smell is another kind of contact taste is another kind of contact sukhena brahmasam sparsham atyantam sukham ashnate all of us in this world are seeking for happiness and depending on our conception we shape the direction of our quest for happiness so for a child the conception is largely of say plague in a child the sexual senses are not developed and the sexual sense is also not developed the sexual senses yes in a male and female given child yes there are certain bodily organs that are different but those senses have not have not yet started functioning as sexual organs they primarily are functioning as only excretory organs so the sexual senses are not developed for doing sexual function and similarly the sexual sense is also not developed sexual sense means the awareness oh this is a female and this is a I am a boy or I am a girl and that is that is the person of the opposite sex and that person is of sexual interest to me or I am of sexual interest to that person that all this is a sexual sense so neither the sexual senses nor the sexual sense is developed in the child so for a child the direction of the for the quest of happiness is based largely on its conceptions of plague so for example if the child is grown up in a culture where children play cricket then the child will play cricket if the child is grown up in a culture where children all go out and fish then the child will go out and fish with others and if the child has come up in a family of say hunters or people who are quite brutal then beating animals, killing animals is what the child sees others doing and the child may delight in that also so the point is our conceptions which are often determined by our culture our upbringing, our surroundings our conceptions determine the direction of our quest for happiness so that same child may play in the childhood and as the child grows up then the child's conceptions may change and I think that now my sense of happiness becomes if I come first in my class if my teacher congratulates me, if my parents congratulate me if in awarding ceremony I am felicitated if my name is announced, then that's where I get happiness and then say that child is a female and child is puberty then how many heads turn and how many mouths fall open and how many people are attracted to me when I enter into a room that becomes my sense of pleasure so the point is that again we could go on with these kind of examples but the essential point is that our conceptions of pleasure our conceptions of life the purpose of life our conceptions of what is enjoyable determine where our search for pleasure goes so accordingly for most people during most of their lives their conceptions of pleasure are centered largely on largely on contact of the senses with the sense objects and such a conception of pleasure when they have then they cannot they are so captivated by the idea that the contact of senses and sense objects will lead to pleasure that even if this idea is falsified somehow by experience then there is some pleasure when the senses come in contact with the sense objects but that pleasure is flickering it is as Prahlad Maharaj says in the Bhagavatam it is honey but it is love it is a small fraction it definitely does not last anywhere near what is depicted in the movies and the novels and of course the fantasies of our own minds so it turns out to be an adverse and anticlimax and yet despite this disappointment despite this let down the person keeps searching for the same pleasure again because of not knowing anything better now only when only when the person grows only when the person grows spiritually through spiritual wisdom, through spiritual realization through spiritual purification then the person starts recognizing that there is a higher happiness and the person starts seeking higher happiness so now the purer we are the higher is the happiness that we seek so for example this is brutal I mean this is quite a distasteful frame of analysis but there are people who are very perverted often they delight by causing pain to others that is called as sadism sadists are those who beat others, whip others and when they see others crying and trembling and writhing in pain that gives them some perverse pleasure so Mrigari was that kind of person who got sadistic pleasure in half killing animals and seeing them writhing and squirming in agony and there can be sexual sadism also where where more than the sexual pleasure the person gets pleasure in dominating someone else and making the other person feel pain so again the point is that this is at a very low level there is not even sexual pleasure this is actually quite a it is sadistic pleasure it is tamasic, it is in the mode of ignorance if the impurities are not so deep then there is sexual pleasure which is largely romantic it is mostly in the mode of passion where the two partners fancy themselves in loving to each other and then they seek pleasure and that is in passion in general when a person comes to goodness then there is love of ideas love of ideas means that it may be in art, it may be in music it may be in science, it may be in business it may even be in politics in terms of some political school of thought but a person gets an idea and then the person becomes ready to live and die for that idea now that idea in and of itself may not have anything spiritual to it but person is attracted to that idea and thinks that this idea is what in writing about this idea, speaking about this idea in sharing this idea, in implementing this idea I will give myself up to this idea so in this idea there can be values like freedom equality and such things so this is sattvic so then that person person's quest for happiness is directed accordingly and beyond this is transcendence where the person understands that actually ultimately what I am looking for is eternal love and I am eternal and I want love but the love of this world is temporary the love of this world is not going to satisfy me if I am to be satisfied what I need is undying love and that undying love will be found only in relationship with God and therefore the person starts doing Brahma Jigyasa and then goes beyond Brahma Jigyasa to understand being Brahman in the highest platform as Bhagwan and falling in love with Bhagwan and that Bhagwat Prem that Krishna Prem brings about the highest level of Brahma Samparshan so the contact with Brahman can happen with the conception of Brahman as Brahma Jyoti with the conception of Brahman as Paramatma or with the conception of Brahman as Bhagwan so in this chapters flow of thought itself Krishna will talk in 6.47 how the highest yogis are those who meditate on Krishna in 6.47 within themselves they think of me so Krishna describes in this verse that the progression of yoga is meant to give us higher happiness and that higher happiness if we are impure we cannot relish higher happiness the extent we become pure to that extent we can relish more and more elevated forms of happiness and as we become more and more spiritualized in our consciousness then we can relish higher and higher spiritual happiness and when there is contact with Brahma in the pure consciousness then there is there is eternal happiness the ultimate happiness, the supreme happiness because Krishna is the reservoir of unlimited happiness and contact with Krishna through love opens the doors of the heart of the lover for the flood of love of God to inundate the heart and to take the heart to ecstasy and to give that heart the potency to have Krishna manifest through his surroundings and to enable others also to experience similar ecstasy so in this way Krishna is in this verse telling us about yogic perfection and is also indicating to Arjuna how he should ultimately aim for this attain this ultimate happiness by the determined practice of yoga.