ABHIMANYU
Date: 23 January 2023
Durations: 21 minutes at 10:21 AM & 46 minutes at 10:26 PM
Depth:
I have memory of the content of the morning session. The morning session was blessed with a thick Peace. There was imagery. There was depth of mind. Also, there was surface level memory collection.
The moment I finished the nightly session, I knew I had nothing to write about. I couldn’t recall anything about the meditation, immediately after having spent a quarter of an hour meditating.
Last evening, long before the nightly session and long after the morning session, I thought about Jayadratha again. He has been passing my attention on some days for the last few months.
Jayadratha is one of the characters in the epic Mahabharata. He participates in the battle of Kurukshetra from the wrong side. I also want to add that the Bhagwad Gita is a conversation between God Krishna and warrior-devotee friend Arjuna in the middle of the battlefield of Kurukshetra.
The more I know about Jayadratha, the more I am convinced that he personifies the amygdala and its functions. Amygdala, situated in the human brain, decides whether we should flight or fight or freeze in a fearful situation. It applies instinct to memories that leads up to the decision it takes.
The amygdala can be stubbornly over-reactive in case the memory base of any given fear is vast. If you were to google the word, you would also be suggested to read about ‘amygdala hijack’. That’s the trickery with regards our fear responses. Our fear responses can hijack all sane thought.
Amygdala’s super power in plane sight is just this. The moment you have felt fear and thereafter gone with one of the 3 or 4 options in the amygdala box, you are caught in the box. In choosing between flighting or fighting, you have missed the opportunity to choose immortality. You have chosen a method of survival and given up all methods of life forever.
Jayadratha is amygdala personified in the sense that he can keep evoking one of the 3 or 4 responses from the warrior who engages in his battle formations. I’ll have to read an in-depth commentary on the Mahabharata to confirm if Jayadratha had just about 3 to 4 battle formations up his sleeve.
Guess who dies, from the good side, fighting through the ever changing circular battle formations commanded by Jayadratha? Arjuna’s son, Abhimanyu. It seems to me that ‘flight’ or ‘freeze’ aren’t responses one can evoke from Abhimanyu. He is wired to choose ‘fight’ alone. He is better than his father, on this count.
The first chapter of the Bhagwad Gita presents ace archer Arjuna in a state so depressed that he wants to lay his arms down and be a shameless coward. Abhimanyu is so much better than his father.
Yesterday, Jayadratha‘s nature passed my mind. Yesterday, more than Arjuna, I was curious about Abhimanyu. When I googled for ‘paramahansa yogananda quote Abhimanyu’, I landed up on a website I visit often for Gurudev Paramahansa Yogananda’s quotes. I was pleasantly surprised to find ‘Abhimanyu’ mentioned under an explanation for Patanjali’s meditational step of Dharana.
Other than the character of Jayadratha, I have mentioned Raja Yoga’s step of Dharana a few times in this blog. I have mentioned Abhimanyu only briefly once before. Not only am I pleasantly surprised to find Paramahansa Yogananda speak of Abhimanyu in the highest manner possible, but also that the name is being used as a verb for illumination.
Dharana or fixity of mind isn’t simply experiencing a still, silent and motionless mind. That’s probably how Abhimanyu’s experience of the eye of the battle cyclone is described as. Dharana is when all the stillness, silence and motionlessness is used to invite that which you know will blow your mind to smithereens.
Dharana is about replacing every fear of an unknown God with love. It is about allowing one’s divinity to take everyday decisions. It is about telling one’s amygdala to submit their resignation letter.
I think the amygdala is so disconnected from the rest of the brain that it feels threatened when a better part of the brain begins discussing immortality. The amygdala can’t quite consider possibilities other than survival-mode. The amygdala can’t help but celebrate any thoughts of suicide.
Arjuna takes on Jayadratha’s battle formations after mourning his glorious son’s death. He vows to commit suicide by evening if he can’t kill Jayadratha through the day on the battlefield. After fighting for long hours, he is tired. Bhagwan Krishna sets a solar eclipse in motion. The eclipse creates a false evening. Jayadratha raises his head in celebration, Arjuna doesn’t miss his mark.
Here is a copy-paste from my oft visited website:
“By reference in the Gita text to Abhimanyu's metronymic, Saubhadra, we are directed to the meaning of Subhadra, "glorious, splendid." Thus Abhimanyu is that self-mastery which bestows light or illumination.”
-- Read more: http://yogananda.com.au/patanjali/yoga_sutras00.html
