Adhyāya 6 — Ātma-Saṁyama Yogaḥ
The Yoga by Meditation on the Self · 47 verses
Overview
from Q&A with KnAKṛṣṇa turns to the practical craft of meditation. He declares that the true renouncer and the true yogi are one and the same, for neither can arise without giving up saṅkalpa — the self-willed resolve of the ego. He describes the one “established in yoga” (yogārūḍha), and gives the famous counsel that a man must lift himself by himself, being his own friend or his own enemy. Then comes the classic method: a clean, steady seat; the erect body; the calm, inward-turned mind fixed on the Self; the middle way in food, sleep and effort; the lamp unflickering in a windless place. The fruit is the vision of the Self in all beings and all beings in the Self, and the supreme yogi who feels others' joy and pain as his own. Arjuna protests that the mind is restless as the wind; Kṛṣṇa concedes it, but insists it is tamed by practice (abhyāsa) and dispassion (vairāgya), and promises the fallen yogi that no sincere effort is ever lost.