Chapter 6 · opening

The Yoga of Meditation

Atma Samyama Yoga

6.1 ☆ Who acts in duty without depending on fruit — that one is the true sannyāsī and yogī, not the fireless or the inactive.
6.2 What they call sannyāsa — know it as yoga, O Pāṇḍava — for none becomes a yogī without renouncing saṃkalpa.
6.3 For the aspiring muni, action is the means to yoga; for the one ascended to yoga, stillness (śama) is the means.
6.4 When unattached to sense objects and to actions, and all saṃkalpas are renounced — then one is called yogārūḍha.
6.5 ★ Lift the self by the Self; let not the self drown itself — you alone are your own friend and your own foe.
6.6 ★ Your own mind is your best friend when mastered; your worst enemy when not.
6.7 ☆ The self-conquered yogi finds the Supreme Self equally present through cold, heat, joy, pain, honour and dishonour.
6.8 ☆ Satisfied by knowledge and realisation, senses mastered, gold and mud equally seen — this is the true steadfast yogi.
6.9 Who sees friend, foe, stranger, kin, the righteous and the sinner with truly equal eyes — that one excels.
6.10 ☆ The yogi practises constantly in solitude — alone, mind and body subdued, free from craving and possessiveness.
6.11 A clean spot, a firm seat — grass, skin, cloth in layers — not too high, not too low: this is where practice begins.
6.12 There on the seat — mind made one-pointed, senses restrained — practise yoga for the purification of the self.
6.13 Hold body, neck, head erect and still — gaze toward the nose-tip, not looking around: the posture of meditation.
6.14 ☆ Peaceful, fearless, vowed to brahmacharya, mind on Krishna — yoked in practice, with the Supreme as the final goal.
6.15 ☆ Practising thus always, with a controlled mind — the yogi reaches the supreme peace of nirvāṇa, abiding in the Supreme.
6.16 Yoga fails for those who eat or fast to excess — and equally for those who sleep too much or too little. Regulate.
6.17 Regulate food, recreation, effort and sleep — and yoga becomes the destroyer of all pain.
6.18 ☆ When the completely controlled mind rests serenely in the Self alone, free from all desire-pull — that is called yoga.
6.19 ★ As a lamp in a windless place does not flicker — so is the mind of the yogi who practises the yoga of the Self.
6.20 ☆ Where the mind ceases, stilled by yoga — where the Self sees itself and rests content in itself: this is samādhi.
6.21 ☆ Boundless joy beyond the senses, grasped by the purified intellect — once known, one never moves from the Reality.
6.22 ☆ Once that joy is found, no other gain seems greater — established in it, even the heaviest sorrow cannot shake you.
6.23 ☆ Yoga is the disconnection from suffering — practise it with firm resolve and a mind that does not despond.
6.24 ☆ Abandon all desires born of mental planning — without remainder — and restrain the senses completely, by the mind alone.
6.25 Gradually, gradually — with patience gripping the intellect — settle the mind into the Self and think of nothing at all.
6.26 ☆ Wherever the restless, unsteady mind wanders — from there and there, bring it back under the Self's control. Every time.
6.27 ☆ Supreme bliss comes naturally to the yogi whose mind is fully at peace, passion quieted, stainless — Brahman-become.
6.28 The yogi, constantly engaging thus and freed from taint, attains infinite bliss of Brahman-contact — with ease.
6.29 ☆ Equal vision everywhere: the yogi sees the Self in all beings, and all beings within the Self — the same, everywhere.
6.30 ★ Who sees Me everywhere and all in Me — I am never lost to that one, nor that one to Me.
6.31 ☆ Established in unity, worshipping Me as dwelling in all beings — whatever the mode of life, that yogi abides in Me.
6.32 ☆ Who measures others' joy and pain by the standard of their own — seeing the same everywhere — is the supreme yogi.
6.33 ☆ O Madhusūdana — I see no stable foundation for this yoga: the mind's restlessness defeats all steadiness.
6.34 ☆ Restless, turbulent, strong, unyielding — O Krishna, restraining the mind is as hard as restraining the wind.
6.35 ★ Yes, the mind is restless and hard to restrain — but through abhyāsa and vairāgya, it is governed.
6.36 Yoga is hard for the uncontrolled self — but for the self-controlled one striving by right means, it is attainable.
6.37 ☆ O Krishna — the faithful yogi who fell short of yoga's perfection through wandering mind: what is their destination?
6.38 Fallen from both worlds, without support — does the wandering yogi simply perish, like a torn cloud, O mighty-armed?
6.39 O Krishna — cut this doubt of mine completely, without remainder. No one other than You can resolve what I am asking.
6.40 ☆ O Pārtha — no destruction for that one, neither here nor hereafter. For never does any doer of good come to an evil end.
6.41 ☆ After worlds of merit, the fallen yogi is reborn in a pure and prosperous family — conditions for resuming practice.
6.42 Or: born into a family of wise yogis — rarer still, the most auspicious birth this world can offer.
6.43 ☆ In the new birth, one recovers the former body's intelligence — and strives even more than before toward perfection.
6.44 ☆ Past practice carries the yogi forward involuntarily — even the yoga-inquirer surpasses the Vedic ritualist.
6.45 ☆ Striving through many births, fully purified, the yogi — perfected across lifetimes — reaches the highest goal.
6.46 ☆ The yogi surpasses the ascetic, the scholar, the ritualist — therefore, O Arjuna, be a yogi!
6.47 ★ Of all yogis, the one whose inner self is merged in Me, worshipping with śraddhā — that one I hold to be most united.