CHAPTER 6: DHYANA YOGA

The Blessed Lord said:

All needful actions who performs,
Regardless of their fruit, is he
A Yogi and a Sanyasi,
Not he who fire and acts discards.

What is renunciation called,
Is verily Yoga, O Pandava;
A Yogi none can ever be
Without renouncing all desire.

The sage who seeks to rise to Yoga,
Action is said to be his means;
For one who has attained to Yoga,
Calmness is said to be the means.

When he to objects of the sense
And actions all is unattached,
And hath forsaken all desires,
He's said to have attained to Yoga.

He should uplift his self by soul;
His self he never should degrade;
The soul's indeed a friend to him,
And also is the soul a foe.

Who has controlled his self by soul,
To him the soul is as a friend;
But he whose self is uncontrolled,
To him the soul is but a foe.

Who's self-controlled and full of peace,
Is centered in the soul supreme,
In cold and heat, and joy and pain,
And honour and dishonour too.

With knowledge and experience pleased,
Whose soul is firm, and senses quelled,
Alike to him earth, stone, and gold,
That Yogi's skilled in action called.

To all well-wishers and his friends,
Neutrals, relations, arbiters,
To hateful, evil, and the good;
He who's alike, doth all excel.

A Yogi should devote himself
Unto his soul in solitude;
Alone, with mind and soul subdued,
From hope and all possessions freed.

Arranging in a cleanly spot,
Neither too high, nor yet too low,
His place, and firmly seated there,
On cloth, deer-skin, or Kosa grass;

And fixing in one place his mind,
Controlling functions of his thought
And senses, let him practise Yoga,
To purify his soul within.

And let him hold erect and still,
And firm, his body, head, and neck;
Gazing but at the point of nose,
Not looking anywhere around.

With soul at peace and fearless all,
Firm in his Brahmachari vow,
With mind controlled, intent on me,
Let him sit, having me for goal.

The Yogi with his mind subdued,
And soul devoted ever to Yoga,
Attains to peace that culminates,
In pure Nirvana, and lives in me.

This Yoga is not for him who eats,
Too much, or else too little eats;
Nor yet for him who sleeps too much,
Or wakes too much, O Arjuna.

In eating and amusement who
Is temperate, in action too,
In sleep as well as wakefulness,
For him his pain doth Yoga destroy.

When his mind is well controlled,
And resteth in the soul alone,
From longing free for all desires,
Then steadfast is he said to be.

As flickers not in windless place
A lamp, even so is he described,
A Yogi with his mind controlled,
Whose soul's devoted unto Yoga.

Where the mind doth rest in peace,
Controlled within the heart by Yoga,
Where he beholds the soul by soul,
And by the soul is satisfied;

And where he feels that boundless joy,
That Buddhi grasps beyond the sense,
Where knowing That, and fixed therein,
From truth he cannot ever change.

Which having gained, he thinketh there
Is nothing higher to be gained;
Wherein established, he is not
Shaken by any misery;

That should be known as Yoga indeed,
Which severs all the bonds of pain;
This Yoga to practise doth require
A fixed resolve, a mind serene.

Abandoning, without reserve,
Desires of imagination born,
Restraining by the mind alone
The senses all on every side,

Slowly let him attain to peace
By means of Buddhi patiently,
With mind concentered in the soul,
Thinking of nothing else besides.

From whatever cause unsteadily
Wanders away the restless mind,
Let him, restraining it again,
Bring it under the soul's control.

The highest joy to a Yogi comes
Who hath his mind in perfect peace;
Who's free from taint, with passions calmed,
And hath become with Brahma one.

The Yogi who is free from taint,
Whose soul is ever thus engaged,
Attains with ease that infinite bliss
Of contact with great Brahma born.

The Yogi centered in the soul,
Who looks on all with equal eye,
Beholds his soul in everything,
And everything within the soul.

Who seeth me in everything,
And everything within me sees,
I am never lost to him,
And he is never lost to me.

Who worships me as one in all,
Dwelling within the hearts of all,
Whatever be his mode of life,
That Yogi doth abide in me.

Referring all things to his soul,
Who looks alike, O Arjuna,
On Pain and pleasure everywhere,
That Yogi's deemed to be the best.

Arjuna said:

This Yoga that has been taught by thee,
As characterized by evenness,
I do not see its stable form
Because of restlessness of mind.

For truly restless is the mind,
Unyielding, strong, and turbulent;
I think, O Krishna, its control
As hard to gain as of the wind.

The Blessed Lord said:

Aye, restless is the mind indeed,
And hard to bring under control;
But, Arjuna, it may be subdued
By practice and detachment still.

Yoga can never be attained
By him whose soul is uncontrolled;
But he who hath controlled himself,
And strives by proper means succeeds.

Arjuna said:

What is the end of him, O Krishna,
Who's full of faith, yet uncontrolled?
Wanders away whose mind from Yoga,
Nor ever perfection can attain.

Does he, O thou of mighty arms,
Fallen from both, without support,
Perish but as a broken cloud,
Deluded all in Brahma's path?

Be pleased, O Krishna, to dispel
This doubt of mine completely thou;
For there is none, excepting thee,
Who can dispel this doubt of mine.

The Blessed Lord said:

For him nor here nor there, indeed,
Can ruin be, O Pritha�s son;
For him, my friend, who doeth good,
No evil end can ever be.

Attaining worlds of righteous souls,
And dwelling there for endless space,
He who has fallen away from Yoga
Is born in pure and happy home.

Or else into a family
Of Yogis wise is he reborn;
But such a birth within this world
Is very hard indeed to find.

There of his former life again
Both he acquire that Buddhi-Yoga;
And striveth more than ever before
To gain perfection, Arjuna.

There by his previous practice he
Is carried helplessly away;
Even a seeker after Yoga
Rises above the name of Brahma.

The Yogi striving zealously,
And purified of taint, achieves
Perfection after many a birth,
And reaches then the highest goal.

And greater than the ascetic he
Greater than men of knowledge too;
Greater than men of action still;
Therefore become a Yogi thou.

Of all the Yogis he indeed
Whose inmost soul is merged in me,
And full of faith who worships me,
Is by me deemed to be the best.