Attaining God

Excerpts from God Talks with Arjuna: The Bhagavad Gita
by Paramahansa Yogananda

The Divine Dispassion (vairagya)

(50) O Son of Kunti (Arjuna), hear from Me, in brief, how he who gains such perfection finds Brahman, the supreme culmination of wisdom.

(51) Absorbed in a completely purified intellect, subjugating the body and the senses by resolute patience, forsaking (as much as possible) sound and all other sense entanglements, relinquishing attachment and repulsion;

(52) Remaining in a sequestered place, eating lightly, controlling body, speech, and mind; ever absorbed in divine meditation and in soul-uniting yoga; possessing dispassion;

(53) Peaceful, renouncing egotism, power, vanity, lust, anger, possessions, and the "me and mine" consciousness—he is qualified to become one with Brahman.
— The Bhagavad Gita XVIII:50-53

That devotee is qualified to attain Brahman, Spirit, whose discriminative intelligence (buddhi) is wholly free from the adulteration of sense entanglements, cognizant only of the purity of soul bliss; who with resolute patience (dhriti) keeps his perception centered on the Self, remaining established in soul consciousness without ever being identified with the physical ego and its bodily instrumentalities; who abandons all luxuries of the five senses (beginning with enticing conversation with others—the desire to hear and be heard); and who, free of likes and dislikes, is satisfied by only the bare necessities for sustaining life.

Such a yogi, possessing the divine dispassion (vairagya) of detachment from worldly objects and desires, observes the sattvic discipline of austerity of body, speech, and mind. In the conduct of his holy life, he not only remains in an outwardly quiet place conducive to meditation and spiritual calm, but also, perceiving in yoga meditation the soul, mind, and life force in their innermost subtle spinal tunnel of escape from the body (brahmanadi), remains there, experiencing the real sense-tumult-free seclusion leading into the omnipresence of Spirit. (bg.1070-1072)