The discipline of meditation

6.1Krishna

Krishna said: One who performs the action that must be done without depending on its fruit is both a renunciant and a yogin, not someone who merely abandons the sacrificial fire or ceases to act.

6.2

Know that what is called renunciation is yoga, son of Pandu. No one becomes a yogin without relinquishing desire-driven intentions.

6.3

For a contemplative wishing to ascend to yoga, action is said to be the means. For that same person established in yoga, tranquillity is said to be the means.

6.4

When one is attached neither to sense objects nor to actions, and has relinquished all desire-driven intentions, one is said to be established in yoga.

6.5

One should lift oneself by oneself, and not let oneself sink. For the self alone is the self’s friend, and the self alone is the self’s enemy.

6.6

The self is a friend to the person who has mastered the self through the self. For one who lacks self-mastery, that very self acts with the hostility of an enemy.

6.7

For one who has mastered the self and become peaceful, the highest self is steady in cold and heat, pleasure and pain, honour and dishonour.

Paramātman can indicate the highest Self or the self in its highest condition. The relation between individual self and supreme Self is understood differently across Vedanta traditions. The translation keeps that philosophical question open.

6.8

A yogin satisfied with knowledge and direct understanding, unwavering and master of the senses, who regards earth, stone, and gold alike, is said to be joined in yoga.

6.9

One whose understanding remains equal toward well-wishers, friends, enemies, the indifferent, mediators, the hateful, relatives, the good, and wrongdoers excels.

6.10

Let the yogin continually gather the self in a secluded place, alone, governing mind and body, free from expectation and possessions.

6.11

In a clean place, let the yogin establish a firm seat, neither too high nor too low, with cloth and antelope skin over kusha grass.

The seat described belongs to an ancient ascetic setting. The verse reports cloth, antelope skin, and kusha grass; it does not require a modern reader to acquire an animal skin in order to meditate.

6.12

Seated there, with the mind one-pointed and the activities of mind and senses restrained, let the yogin practise yoga for inner purification.

6.13

Holding body, head, and neck upright, steady and unmoving, let the yogin direct the gaze toward the tip of the nose without looking around.

6.14

Peaceful within, without fear, established in the vow of celibate discipline, governing the mind and directing it toward me, let the yogin sit gathered, with me as the highest aim.

6.15

Continually disciplining the self in this way, with the mind governed, the yogin attains peace that culminates in liberation and rests in me.

6.16

Yoga is not for one who eats too much or who does not eat at all, Arjuna; nor for one accustomed to excessive sleep or continual wakefulness.

6.17

For one measured in food and recreation, measured in effort at work, and measured in sleep and wakefulness, yoga becomes the destroyer of suffering.

6.18

When the well-governed mind rests in the self alone, without longing for any desired object, a person is then said to be joined in yoga.

6.19

A lamp that does not flicker in a windless place is the comparison given for the yogin whose mind is governed and who practises the yoga of the self.

6.20

There the mind grows quiet, restrained through the practice of yoga; there, seeing the self through the self, one is content in the self.

Verses 6.20–23 form one unfolding description of meditative fulfilment. The separate verse numbers do not turn its successive clauses into unrelated promises.

6.21

There one knows boundless happiness, grasped by understanding and beyond the senses; established there, one does not move away from reality.

6.22

Having gained this, one considers no other gain greater. Established in it, one is not shaken even by profound suffering.

6.23

Know this separation from union with suffering as what is called yoga. This yoga must be practised with resolve and an undiscouraged mind.

6.24

Relinquishing without exception all desires born of imagining, and governing the entire company of senses through the mind on every side,

6.25

one should gradually become quiet through understanding held firm by resolve. Having placed the mind in the self, one should think of nothing else.

6.26

Wherever the restless and unsteady mind wanders, restraining it from there, one should bring it under control in the self.

6.27

The highest happiness comes to this yogin whose mind is peaceful, whose passion has quieted, who is free from fault and has become one with Brahman.

'Become one with Brahman' renders brahma-bhūta. Traditions explain this as identity with Brahman, participation in its condition, or realization of the self's spiritual nature. It does not have only one uncontested doctrinal sense.

6.28

Continually gathering the self in this way, the yogin, free from fault, readily enjoys the boundless happiness of contact with Brahman.

6.29

One joined in yoga, seeing equally everywhere, sees the self present in all beings and all beings in the self.

6.30

For one who sees me everywhere and sees everything in me, I am never lost, nor is that person ever lost to me.

6.31

The yogin who worships me as present in all beings, resting in oneness, lives in me, however that person may live.

6.32

The yogin who, by comparison with oneself, sees pleasure and pain equally everywhere, Arjuna, is considered the highest.

6.33Arjuna

Arjuna said: This yoga that you have taught as evenness, Madhusudana, I cannot see remaining steady because the mind is restless.

6.34

For the mind is restless, Krishna, turbulent, powerful, and stubborn. I consider restraining it as difficult as restraining the wind.

6.35Krishna

Without doubt, mighty-armed one, the mind is restless and hard to restrain. Yet through practice and dispassion, son of Kunti, it is held.

6.36

In my view, yoga is difficult to attain for one without self-restraint. But one whose self is governed and who strives can attain it through appropriate means.

6.37Arjuna

Arjuna asked: What destination does a person reach, Krishna, who has trust but insufficient effort, whose mind strays from yoga before attaining its fulfilment?

6.38

Having fallen away from both paths, does that person perish like a torn cloud, without support and bewildered on the way to Brahman, mighty-armed one?

6.39

Please cut away this doubt of mine completely, Krishna. No one other than you can resolve it.

6.40Krishna

Krishna said: Partha, there is no destruction for that person here or hereafter. No one who does good comes to a harmful destination, dear one.

6.41

After reaching the worlds of those who do good and dwelling there for many years, one who has fallen from yoga is born into a pure and prosperous household.

6.42

Or that person is born into a family of discerning yogins. Such a birth is very difficult to obtain in this world.

6.43

There that person recovers the connection with understanding from the previous life and strives again toward fulfilment, joy of the Kurus.

6.44

That earlier practice carries the person forward, even without deliberate choice. Even one who seeks to understand yoga passes beyond the Veda's ritual word.

Śabda-brahman is Brahman in the form of sacred word. Here the phrase is read in relation to the Veda's ritual domain; passing beyond it does not mean that every sacred text or act of study is worthless.

6.45

But the yogin who strives earnestly, purified of faults and brought to fulfilment through many births, then reaches the highest destination.

6.46

The yogin is held to be greater than ascetics, greater even than those possessing knowledge, and greater than performers of ritual actions. Therefore become a yogin, Arjuna.

6.47

And among all yogis, the one who, with the inner self directed toward me, worships me in faith is considered by me the most deeply united.