Gita 08.14 – What is difficult in one perspective is easy in another perspective
Bhagavad-gita 8.14 ananya chetah sadatam yo mam smriti nityah tasyaham sulabhah partha ittayuktasya yoginah ananya chetah without the distraction consciousness sadatam always yo mam smriti nityah who always remembers me tasyaham sulabhah partha for that person sulabhah I am easily attained ittayuktasya yoginah nityayuktasya one who is well engaged constantly engaged this is the only verse in the Bhagavad-gita practically speaking where Krishna says he is easily attained tasyaham sulabhah partha sulabhah easily attained earlier Krishna has stated at least twice that he is quite difficult to attain he stated that in 7.3 first when he said manushyanaam sahasreshu kashchid yathati siddhaye yathatam api siddhanam kashchin maam vetti tattvataham millions of people few thousands of people few endeavour to know him and even among those who endeavour very few actually strive to among the few who endeavour for transcendence very few come to the summit of transcendental reality that is Krishna so clearly knowing Krishna is rare and again in 7.19 he had said that those who understand Krishna they are sudurlabhah ahunam janmanam ante gyanavan maam prapadyate vasudeva sarvamiti samatma sudurlabhaham so those who understand that Krishna is everything vasudeva sarvamiti and those who surrender to him prapadyate maam prapadyate they are sudurlabhaham sudurlabhaham is rare su is a further intensifier so labhah is to gain durlabhah is difficult to gain sudurlabhah is extremely difficult to gain sudurlabhah if you remove the dur from there sudurlabhah is what Krishna is using here, he is stating here that tasyaham sudurlabhaham partha sudurlabhaham easily attained for whom so this declaration that Krishna is easily attained is itself a very reassuring declaration but for whom is easily attained he says nanyacetasatatam yomam smriti nityah the one who without any distracted deviated consciousness nanyacetasatatam always yomam smriti nityah always he remembers me tasyaham sudurlabhaham for him I am easily attained nityayuktasya yoginah such yogis who are nityayukta always engaged now this might seem like a prohibitively forbidding condition that Krishna is actually using the word nanyacetasatatam nityah four times he is saying constant undistracted so is this promise of ease somewhat deceptive suppose someone tells us that you can easily lose 10 kg if you just fast for 25 days now easily lose 10 kg yes anybody can lose weight if they don't eat but not eating for 25 days might say yes it's ok it's maybe possible biologically for the body to survive without food for that much time based on the reserve energy present in the body but practically for most people it would be impossible it would be excruciating torture and there would be absolutely nothing easy about that kind of method for weight loss so is Krishna prescribing something extremely difficult and then saying that if you do this you will easily attain me what is Krishna doing actually here yes for us when we read the Bhagavad Gita's verses without understanding the context in which it is being spoken this might seem to be like a very demanding thing to always remember Krishna how is it possible that someone can always remember Krishna that something will be attained after we always remember Krishna and that's quite a difficult thing not an easy thing at all may feel and our feeling based on our present experience is in one way right but the Gita is especially this verse is spoken in a particular context and in this context Krishna is stating that Krishna is actually comparing Bhakti Yoga with Ashtang Yoga and Ashtang Yoga requires even tougher things to do Ashtang Yoga requires that one should look at everyone with equal vision one should renounce the world one should fix one's consciousness at the tip of the nose between the eyebrows and like that so much that is spoken by Arjuna about the process of Ashtang Yoga the demands are so excruciating and even after that one may not be successful in one life and it may take many lifetimes as Krishna outlined from 6.40 to 6.45 Prayatnalita manastu yogi samshuddha kilvishad anek janma samsiddhas sato yati paramgatim so prayatnalita manastu after endeavouring determinately yogi samshuddha kilvishad yogi becomes completely purified of all contaminations anek janma samsiddhas after practicing for many lives the yogi samsiddhas the yogi attains perfection so it is by no means an easy process you could say it is excruciatingly difficult process and having understood this how difficult it is that it may extend over many many lifetimes and even within those many lifetimes one has to actually if one is practicing Ashtang Yoga without the element of bhakti in it then one has to not only undergo a lot of physical austerity and difficulty in terms of renouncing the world, staying alone in a forest but also one has to exert an excruciating level of concentration on an object that is not inherently interesting there is nothing really attractive about the tip of the nose or the space between the eyebrows and further even if one does succeed and then turns inwards still there is no guarantee that one will be able to discover what is the reality within so it is a long journey through an inner darkness and wilderness when something is dark we don't know what is where but if it is not only darkness but also wilderness that means there are also dangerous predators wandering around in the forest in that wilderness so like that when the yogi embarks on an inner journey it is not only darkness about what lies inside the inner territory but also there is wilderness there are many dangerous anarthas which can drag a person away and going through all that to ultimately attain yogic perfection which is attainment of Krishna that is an excruciating difficult process as contrasted with that the process of bhakti which involves fixing on Krishna is much much easier Krishna is a living loving person endowed with innumerable attractive qualities, he is the all attractive supreme person the all loving lord of our heart so although thinking of him constantly is difficult for other sadhakas still both in principle and in practice thinking about him is far easier than thinking about the tip of the nose or some searching for some unknown object of meditation in the inner dark land Krishna has a profound message he performs wonderful pastimes he manifests in various attractive forms and so meditating on him is is a mind nourishing experience not a mind starving experience sometimes just as we have hunger for the body similarly there is a hunger of the mind to know new things to think of new things to contemplate new things and if we force the mind to stay fixed on one object the mind may resent against it as if it were a terrible sentence the mind may make us feel as if we are starving not being able to think about anything else but when we fix the mind on Krishna because Krishna encompasses everything and Krishna transcends everything so meditating on him is a fresh refreshing and relishable experience Yama Acharya says that ever since I started meditating on Krishna then that I am constantly relishing newer and newer rasa so going onwards from this perspective that as compared to the object of meditation prescribed by prescribed in Ashtang Yoga which is unattractive and initially and unknown for most of the journey till one understands that it is Vishnu who is to be meditated on and even then when Vishnu is meditated on in a non devotional way as simply a tool for meditation then meditation on Vishnu may also not be very satisfying so overall it's quite a difficult process as compared to that meditating on Krishna is relatively much easier it's much more joyful and especially if we associate with devotees who are attracted to Krishna and in their association we also become attracted to Krishna then attraction spontaneously kindles meditation just as those who are cricket fans actually think of cricket those who are nationalists they naturally think of their nation so like that if we become attracted to Krishna with devotion then we will naturally think of Krishna and then with that devotion and thinking about Krishna and thinking about him constantly has become natural then we understand that oh yes by this natural and joyful process if I just continue it then I can attain Krishna oh that is truly as compared to the alternatives it is definitely eminently gloriously easy.