The Atma Jyoti Blog

Man who is the crown and culmination of God’s creation, must not be like a frog which sinks below water and rises above water repeatedly. This human life is not a comparison to that of the frog. (From Nityananda’s “Chidakasha Gita”)

One of the most horrible things I ever saw was in a restaurant that had a huge aquarium. In the aquarium was a kind of miniature frog. Anyone with sense would have realized that it could not just be dropped into the water. It needed a solid area above water so it could breathe and rest. Of course, then it could have hopped out of the aquarium. So the miserable little creature would frantically kick itself to the surface of the water, breathe a moment, and then apparently pass out and sink down. In a fraction of a minute, it would regain consciousness and again desperately impel itself upward to breathe. This terrible spectacle went on and on, over and over.

I have never forgotten that unfortunate frog, so when I read Nityananda’s statement that our life cannot be like a frog’s: sometimes out of the water and sometimes in the water–sometimes out of the complete control of samsara and sometimes totally immersed in samsara–I thought of that frog and understood. So many religious people live in this pendulum swing, swinging back and forth from spiritual high to spiritual low, between pure exalted consciousness and degraded low consciousness. This is not a truly human mode of life, either.

True yoga clears up this dilemma, but fake or wrongly practiced yoga does not. The same with true and false religion. (A religion without yoga is no religion at all, but an illusion, a fraud.)

We have recently posted a large amount of Swami Nirmalananda’s Commentary on the Chidakasha Gita. It can be read at the following pages:

• Commentary on Verses 56-62
• Commentary on Verses 63-66
• Commentary on Verses 67-70
• Commentary on Verses 71-80
• Commentary on Verses 81-92
• Commentary on Verses 93-108
• Commentary on Verses 109-121
• Commentary on Verses 122-129