It’s Chapter Six of the Bhagavad Gita, where everything starts to get real. After five chapters of philosophy and frameworks, Krishna now turns to practice—specifically the challenges of meditation, discipline, and staying steady on your spiritual path.
If your mind feels too restless to meditate… if you wonder whether your practice actually counts… or if you’ve ever feared you’re “doing it wrong”—this chapter will soothe your soul.
🔹 Krishna reveals why inner discipline > outer rituals
🔹 Arjuna expresses the doubts we all have on the path
🔹 Meditation becomes the core of yogic living—not just something we “do”
🔹 We explore witness consciousness, compassion, and true non-attachment
🔹 Spiritual effort is never wasted—even across lifetimes
📘 This also marks the completion of the first arc of the Gita. Many scholars divide the Gita into three sections of six chapters each—and Chapter 6 concludes the first movement, focused on Karma Yoga (yoga of action). We’ve been building the foundation. The next six chapters will take us into Bhakti Yoga—the yoga of devotion and loving recollection of God so stay tuned for the next segment.
🐍 Download the FREE Feminine Kundalini Starter Pack: https://www.brettlarkin.com/online-kundalini-yoga-teacher-training/
📖 Different translations explored:
Barbara Stoler Miller: https://www.amazon.com/Bhagavad-Gita-Krishnas-Counsel-Bantam-Classics/dp/0553213652
Godsong by Amit Majmudar: https://www.amazon.com/Godsong-Verse-Translation-Bhagavad-Gita-Commentary/dp/1524733474
Eknath Easwaran: https://www.amazon.com/Bhagavad-Gita-2nd-Eknath-Easwaran/dp/1586380192
Bhagavad-Gita As It Is by Swami Prabhupada: https://www.amazon.com/Bhagavad-Gita-As-Bhaktivedanta-Swami-Prabhupada/dp/0892131233
FREE Practice: 15 Min Beginner Morning Yin Yoga | NO PROPS
Relevant Blog: The Ultimate Guide to Karma Yoga
Relevant to Today’s Episode:
✨ Kundalini 200-hour YTT
🎧 Also Listen to:
#374 – Karma Yoga & the Detached Yogi: Bhagavad Gita Chapter 2, Part 2
#395 – The Role of “God” in Yoga + Tantric Shadow Work w/ Katie Silcox
© 2026 Uplifted Yoga | BrettLarkin.com
Transcript:
Welcome to the Uplifted Yoga Podcast, where ancient yogic wisdom meets modern business strategy. I’m Brett Larkin, creator of Uplifted Yoga, where I’ve certified thousands of yoga teachers, built a multi-seven figure business, and guided over half a million students on YouTube. Here’s the truth.
You don’t have to choose between embodying deep yogic wisdom and building a thriving, freedom-based business. This podcast is your space to integrate both. Because yoga isn’t just what you do on the mat.
It’s how you show up in every part of your life. Whether you’re here to deepen your yoga practice, grow your teaching career, or align your energy with your purpose, you’re in the right place. Let’s dive in.
If your mind ever feels too restless to meditate, or if you ever wonder whether your practice actually counts, or if you’ve ever feared you’re doing it wrong, this chapter of the Bhagavad Gita that we’re going to explore today will soothe your soul. Now, as I always say, you do not have to have any prior knowledge of the Gita or have listened to the prior episodes about the prior Gita chapters to really just jump right in and join us and soak up the wisdom from this particular lesson. After five chapters of philosophy and framework, Krishna is now going to turn to this idea of practice, specifically the challenges of meditation, discipline, staying steady on your spiritual path, things that are extremely relevant to you if you’re a listener of this podcast.
I do have a free gift for you this week, so I want to make sure you get this if you haven’t already. I’ve linked it in the show notes, but it’s my free trauma-informed feminine kundalini starter pack. This is an invitation for you to experience a new way of moving, being, and thinking about your kundalini yoga practice.
You get a beautiful PDF that outlines some poses as well as an acronym to make your kundalini practice more embodied. You’ll also get four free videos, so absolutely make sure to grab that starter pack if you haven’t already. The link is in the show notes, and I’m absolutely curious to see what you think about this style of kundalini yoga.
Now, let’s drop in to this week’s episode. Welcome back to the Bhagavad Gita, Chapter 6. The headline word for this chapter, according to the Godsong translation, is Concentrate. Barbara Stoller Miller calls this sixth chapter, The Man of Discipline, Eknath Eshwaran calls it The Practice of Meditation, and Swami Prarupada calls it Dhyana Yoga, Dhyana from the Eight Limbs.
That should let you know that we are at a turning point in the Gita now in Chapter 6. Chapters 1 through 5 were all about action, self-inquiry, ethics, and that inner psychology of yoga that we need to lay a philosophical foundation. Prior chapters have talked about what is the self, what is action compared to inaction, what is freedom, what does it mean to surrender the fruits of my actions to something greater than me. Now, what’s exciting here in Chapter 6 is Krishna is saying enough theory, let’s talk practice.
If you’re like, I want to see practical how-to’s and what to do, this is the part of the book where it would, if it were a modern book, have a QR code and be like, scan this and do this meditation or this technique. This Chapter 6 is really Krishna’s transition from the intellectual yoga that we covered in Chapter 5 to switching more towards the devotional metaphysics of Chapter 7 and beyond because this Chapter 6 is closing that first arc of the Gita. The first arc is about karma yoga, action, how we take action in the world, and we’re gearing up for a different arc starting in Chapter 7 to begin.
Chapter 6 is basically serving two roles. It’s like a summary of everything that came before, so you’re going to see a lot of repetition of the same themes like renunciation, discipline, right action, and in the Gita, this repetition is not redundant. It’s really integration.
Krishna is really trying to get us to integrate these principles and at the same time, while simultaneously serving as a review, it’s also preparing Arjuna and us for a big, big reveal because, spoiler alert, Krishna is about to unveil his cosmic identity in Chapters 7 through 11. So for those of you who are just joining us or if you don’t know, right now, Arjuna still thinks that Krishna is like this very wonderful family friend, mentor, who’s very close to him, who’s his chariot driver. He doesn’t totally get that Krishna’s like God yet, and that’s a reveal that’s going to come, but before Krishna can reveal who he really is, he needs Arjuna’s mind and ours to be steady enough to like receive that revelation without our minds being blown, without us collapsing.
So Chapter 6 is basically Krishna saying, if your mind is still kind of yanking you around, you’re not going to understand anything that’s coming in this next big arc, this next big reveal of this book. So in many ways, Chapter 6 feels less like a lecture, which I think a lot of the other chapters have felt like, and it’s more like a nervous system primer. Here’s how to regulate, here’s how to sit, here’s how to live in moderation, here’s how to bring your mind back when it runs away like a crazy puppy, here’s how to become steady enough to hear the truth.
And then there’s this really beautiful, vulnerable moment in this chapter where Arjuna actually interrupts Krishna and he’s like, what you’re asking me to do is impossible. And this is such a famous line, Arjuna says, my mind is more restless than the wind. And that’s like, we all relate to that, right? Do you remember being a beginner meditator and your mind feeling more restless than the wind? And what Krishna will tell us, he doesn’t say like, you need to try harder.
He just he says, you need to practice and your mind can be trained over time. So today we’re going to move through the early verses quickly, not because they’re unimportant, but because they’re sort of intentionally repetitive, because I think where this chapter gets really interesting is is once Arjuna starts kind of saying what we’re all thinking, which is like, OK, how do we actually do this? How do we control this monkey mind and the vritti that are rocking around in there? So I’m going to read a bunch from the God song translation today, since we were really with Barbara Stoller Miller’s translation for the last episode. I will do some comparisons, though.
So this chapter kicks off and Krishna says, whoever does the work that’s to be done without relying on the fruit of it is a renunciate and yogi, not someone without a fire or a right. So this is somewhat repetitive. Krishna is trying to break the stereotypes.
You don’t become spiritual by quitting your job or wearing tie dye or changing your outfit or moving to an ashram or going on a silent retreat. You become spiritual when your nervous system is no longer hijacked by outcomes. Right.
So he’s saying you need to practice non-attachment. It’s attachment that’s dysregulating you. Skipping ahead to verse three for a sage aspiring to ascend in yoga.
It said the method is the work for the one who has ascended yoga. It said the method is serenity. Verse four, when he clings no more to sensual things or actions, his ambitions all renounced.
Then it said he has ascended yoga. So this is repeating previous concepts, but it’s basically saying when you no longer live in this push-pull relationship with the world, when you have that witness consciousness, your system becomes quiet enough to perceive God. The next two verses, five and six, you should uplift the self by the self.
You should not abase yourself. Only the self is the self’s friend, the self alone, the self’s enemy. All of these next couple of verses are just saying it’s your inner state.
Your inner state determines whether life feels safe or whether life feels unbearable. You must lift yourself by yourself. Right.
The mind, when it’s controlled, is the friend. When it’s uncontrolled, it’s the enemy. It reminds me of a Kundalini saying, which is that the mind is a wonderful servant, but a terrible master.
If your mind is dysregulated, life is going to feel hostile. If your mind is steady, life is going to feel supportive. So Krishna is really normalizing this inner war, and he’s telling us that it can be won through practice.
Then verses seven through nine are all about equanimity. For example, verse nine, he is distinguished by fair-mindedness to benefactors, friends, and foes. To those who sit apart or stand in the middle, haters and family members, saints and sinners.
So Krishna’s really honing in on equanimity. You having that regulated nervous system, not reactive to praise or blame. Happy whether you’re with your haters or your beloved family members, or content whether you’re with saints or sinners.
The prior verse says yoked. That’s how a yogi’s said to be. A clod, a rock, and gold, the same to him.
I’m switching to Barbara Stoller Miller. We’re getting into some instruction now as we move forward into verse 11. I’ll read 10 as well.
A man of discipline should always discipline himself, remain in seclusion, isolated, his thought and self well-controlled without possessions or hope. He should fix for himself a firm seat in a pure place, neither too high nor too low, covered in cloth, deerskin, or grass. He should focus his mind and restrain the activity of his thought and senses.
Sitting on that seat, he should practice discipline for the purification of the self. He should keep his body, head, and neck aligned, immobile, steady. He should gaze at the tip of his nose and not let his glance wander.
We’re at verse 14 now. The self-tranquil, his fear dispelled, firm in his vow of celibacy, his mind restrained, let him sit with discipline, his thought fixed on me, intent on me. Disciplining himself, his mind controlled, a man of discipline finds peace.
The pure calm that exists in me. Gluttons have no discipline, nor the man who starves himself, nor he who sleeps excessively or suffers wakefulness. When a man disciplines his diet and diversions, his physical actions, his sleeping and waking, discipline destroys his sorrow.
Okay, how many more times do we need to see the word discipline? We get it, right? We need to be disciplined. And we’re literally being given by Krishna a meditation setup. He’s telling us we need to live in a clean, quiet place.
We need to sit in a steady seat. We need to hold our body, neck, and head in alignment. It’s like what I say when I lead most meditations, ears over shoulders, shoulders over hips, right? Like we need length in the spine, a core principle from uplifted yoga alignment.
We need to focus gently on a single point. So he’s calling out here, Krishna, our posture, our environment, our focus. He’s talking about moderation in all things.
The yogi should eat in moderation, sleep in moderation, work in moderation. This means no workaholism, no extreme fasting, no all-night vigils. He’s essentially saying, be boring, be really boring.
Like be that person who has the same schedule each day, goes to bed early, wakes up early. And then the benefit of all this, we get to see in verse 19, when we’re like this, he does not waver like a lamp sheltered from the wind. This is the simile recalled for a man of discipline, restrained in thought and practicing self-discipline.
Okay. Barbara Stoller Miller really loves this word discipline. Let’s go back to God’s song just to see a different translator’s take on this line.
And this is Krishna giving this analogy. So he’s saying, the way a lamp that stands in no wind doesn’t flicker. That’s a memorable simile about the yogi with his thoughts controlled, yoked to the yoga of the self.
And the prior verse to that, verse 18, and he, meaning the yogi, settles in the atman with his thoughts in check, free of longings, free of all desires. That, they say, is when he is yoked. The way a lamp that stands in no wind doesn’t flicker.
So we have this really beautiful imagery that Krishna is bringing in. He goes on to say, you know, that the yogi stabilized, not even heavy sorrow shakes him. Verse 23, this is the God’s song translation.
Let it be known. What we call yoga unyokes you from the yoke of pain. Yoga should be practiced confidently by a mind that isn’t downcast.
And then we’re getting more meditation instructions. Skipping ahead, verse 25. Bit by bit, he should withdraw.
There’s our pratyahara, intellect in a steady grip. His mind made up to stand fast with atman. He should not think of anything at all.
Wherever it may wander off, this skittery, unsteady mind. From there, he ought to draw it back and lead it back to the master atman. Skipping ahead to 28.
Always yoked this way. The yogi, all his sins gone, touches brahman with ease and gains transcendent bliss. Verse 29.
The self in every creature, every creature in the self. The atman yoked in yoga sees identity at all times. Whoever sees me everywhere and sees in me the all.
I’m not lost to him and he’s not lost to me. A yogi who abides in oneness, worships me abiding in all beings. To paraphrase, verse 28 going back, with the mind well controlled, the yogi freed from impurities experiences boundless happiness and dwells in brahman.
This idea of being stainless or sinless means essentially you’re free from the gunas. You’re free from the distortions of rajas and tamas. Verse 29 was talking about the yogi seeing the same self everywhere in all creatures and in themself.
Sort of reminds me of the idea of namaste, right? Like the light in me honors and sees the light in you. Verse 30. Krishna is saying the one who sees me, Krishna, God and all beings and all beings is in me is never separated from me.
So he’s bringing back in a little bit that personal God dimension. Essentially he’s saying if you see the divine in others, you are already in union with me. And then verse 6.32. The yogi who sees all identities, their happiness, their suffering as metaphorically his own is thought to be the highest.
That means the supreme yogi is one who regards the happiness and suffering of others as his own. And if you’re confused, this verse 6.32 isn’t contradicting non-attachment. It’s describing what non-attachment allows.
Because when you read this at face value, it sounds like Krishna is actually asking us for like emotional fusion. Like feel everyone’s pain is your own pain. And that seems to contradict all the earlier teachings.
The Gita has been warning us so much about like against attachment, right? Warning against clinginess, possessiveness, reactivity, identifying with like future outcomes. But the point that’s being made here in verse 6.32 and the ones leading up to it is that it’s like once your egoic clinging has been dissolved through these meditative practices that he’s describing, passion becomes a safe thing to do. It’s not that you’re emotionally hijacked by others, but you see yourself in everyone in everywhere.
It’s empathy without entanglement. Athanand Ashwaran says, Hey there, sorry to interrupt, but I just wanted to let you know at the request of so many of you, I’m finally starting a book club. We’re beginning with the Yoga Sutras and I’ve created the most beautiful interdisciplinary guidebook to take you deeper.
This goes way beyond just journaling prompts. Of course, it does have that, but we’ll also be exploring key Sanskrit words, themes, comparing different sutra translations, weaving in other major schools of philosophy, looking at the sutras in the context of poetry, artwork, and reflection all through a carefully curated 25 day journey. This guidebook and book club is designed to take what you hear on the podcast and braid it into your daily life.
So the wisdom stops living just in your head and starts integrating into your nervous system, your relationships, and how you actually make decisions and move through the world. While you can absolutely get just the Sutras guidebook, if you want to go deeper, we’ll also gather once a month in circle because in my experience, real change happens in community. We start soon.
So if this is calling to you, head to brettlarkin.com/bookclub to get the details and sign up. So it’s not saying like take on everyone’s problems. It is saying when you’re really non-attached that enables universal compassion.
And this is such an essential step because otherwise it’s just like discipline, discipline, non-attachment, non-attachment. But this verse 6.32 is saying that your happiness is not separate from my happiness because our essence is the same. Our essence is not separate.
Does that make sense? Like once we’re so unattached that we’re identifying as Brahman, we’re really seeing how we’re all interconnected because non-attachment with compassion would just be cold. And the Gita absolutely rejects this. Krishna’s not telling us to become numb.
He’s trying to train us to be clear so that then we can perceive unity. Like I recognize myself in you, but so that we don’t lose our center. We don’t want suffering to destabilize our mind.
So that’s why this verse 6.32 comes after all the verses prior about mental steadiness. You can’t see yourself in everyone until your own mind is no longer swinging around like a crazy monkey. So 6.32 is the result of non-attachment.
It’s not contradicting non-attachment. And it’s kind of in many ways like describing a securely attached person, someone who can stay present with you while you’re in great sorrow and hold space for you, but not get fused with your emotions or get, you know, coiled by or need you to behave a certain way in order to be okay. So the teaching sequence is essentially step one, tame your mind, have non-attachment.
Step two, see reality more clearly, tap into this sense of unity. Step three, from that sense of unity, respond to others with stable compassion. And that is the highest, highest, highest yoga.
And then we have this really fun comical moment where Arjuna pushes back and says like, this is impossible. So right after the 6.32, where like we’ve achieved, you know, a perfectly disciplined mind and are now so seeing the unity in everyone and everything that we can, you know, empathize with them without getting overly involved. Arjuna is just like, yo, this yoga you profess to be in equilibrium, Krishna, I don’t see a steady state for this because of fickleness.
The mind is really fickle, riotous, stubborn, strong. I think its restraint is as hard to achieve as the winds. That was Godsong, a more traditional translation from Barbara Stoller Miller.
You define this discipline by equanimity, Krishna. But in my faltering condition, I see no ground for it. Krishna, the mind is faltering.
It’s violent, strong, and stubborn. I find it as difficult to hold as the wind. And this is applauded by all scholars as like one of the most psychologically realistic and like resonant moments in the Gita.
It almost feels like something that would be spoken in like a modern therapist’s office, and it humanizes this whole chapter, this whole dialogue. And we see here that Arjuna is really the perfect representative of a spiritual struggler, just like us. Other scholars really praise and reference like Arjuna’s humility here in even asking this question.
But ideally, this is like a moment where we really resonate with Arjuna. Meditation is hard. Taming the mind is hard.
And Krishna doesn’t deny it. So Krishna responds, and he says, yes, it’s hard, but possible. So I’m reading Barbara Stoller Miller, verse 6.35. Krishna says, without doubt, the mind is unsteady and hard to hold, but practice and dispassion can restrain it, Arjuna.
In my view, discipline eludes the unrestrained self. But if he strives to master himself, a man has the means to reach it. So pop quiz, yogis.
What does this sound like to you that you might know from yoga teacher training with me or from the Yoga Sutras? Without a doubt, the mind is unsteady and hard to hold, but practice and dispassion can restrain it. Give you a moment to think about it. Okay, ding, ding, ding.
It’s Abhyasa, practice, and Vyagra, non-attachment. Patanjali’s Yoga Sutra uses exactly these two words in Book 1, verse 12. And many commentators across different wisdom traditions point out this overlap, right? Practice.
We need practice. We need repeated effort to steady the mind. But on the other hand, we also need non-attachment.
So this is a very important instruction for meditation. We see it here in the Gita. We see it in Book 1, verse 12 of the Sutras.
And so Krishna basically validates Arjuna’s complaint that this is like really, really, really, really hard. But he gives us the universal formula, practice plus non-attachment to help him get through. And then Arjuna goes on to ask maybe the most vulnerable question.
He says, okay, but what if I fail? Like, what if I begin this path, but I can’t finish it? And again, this is like really deepening Arjuna as a character. It’s humanizing him. It’s his second greatest confession.
He had this big first confession in Chapter 1 where he was saying how torn he was and didn’t know what to do. So Arjuna says here, when a man has faith, but no ascetic will, like no willpower, right? And his mind deviates from discipline before its perfection is achieved. Meaning like, I have a monkey mind and the perfection can’t be attained.
What way is there for him, Krishna? He’s basically like, what if I’m struggling? What if I can’t? Doomed by his double failure, is he not like a cloud split apart, unsettled, deluded on the path of the infinite spirit? Like, is he doomed essentially? And then he says, Krishna, only you can dispel this doubt of mine completely. There is no one but you to dispel this doubt. So he’s like, please, please, please like tell me.
And of course, Krishna is going to reassure him in verse 6.40. He says, no one is lost. No one is lost. He says, the effort itself purifies.
Spiritual effort is never wasted. And this is really great news for all of us. He says, any man who acts with honor cannot go the wrong way, my friend.
Fallen in discipline, he reaches worlds made by his virtue, wherein he dwells for endless years until he is reborn in a house of upright and noble men. So he’s saying like, spiritual work carries forward. Nothing is wasted.
And the idea of reincarnation is very clear here. Essentially, if you’re trying really, really hard, you’ll be reincarnated in a prosperous family of righteous people, or in a family of wise yogis, which is a birth that’s very hard to attain. So that even though you haven’t dissolved your karma in this lifetime, when you are reincarnated, you’re going to be in a good life.
So even partial effort moves one forward in their spiritual evolution. So the big points here are that the effort you put in is cumulative, even if it’s over the course of many, many lifetimes. And the second is failure is never final.
Krishna is basically saying like, once you start the path, you can’t fall backward. Even if you pause or wander or fall off the wagon, you’re going to reenter the path from where you left off. And these verses are really important in the Gita.
They’re doing a lot of different things. Here, we’re seeing kind of the close to the meditation section with the with that highest ideal, the highest ethical ideal of meditation of being so seeing everyone as ourselves that we can empathize with them, but not be attached. And then we normalize the difficulty of how hard it is to do this.
And then now we’re introducing this doctrine of like spiritual continuity, which is going to prepare us for more explicit theological devotional teachings coming up in the next chapter. So basically, it’s like we’ve seen the ideal. We’ve acknowledged that it’s hard.
Krishna is saying you can still do it. And that even if you stumble, you won’t be lost. And if you want to compare this to a more traditional religious path, I see the appeal for many people because what’s being outlined here in the Gita feels much more forgiving.
Like for example, in many major religions, just using Christianity as an example, we have one life, one judgment, eternal stakes. So the moral urgency is really high. Failure has like a permanent consequence of heaven or hell.
And obedience is the primary safety mechanism. Like we want to follow the Ten Commandments and those kind of function like guardrails on a bridge. Like we need to stay within these parameters or we fall.
So this produces really high accountability, but also potentially fear for some seekers. And here, what the Gita is saying in these verses is essentially like you have many lives, you can purify progressively, and that there’s no ultimate failure. So it’s not like you get one shot.
You get as many shots as you need. You get as many tries as you need. What matters is direction, not perfection.
And that the moral and spiritual effort you’re putting in is cumulative. Nothing’s ever wasted. And that the purpose is in obedience, but actually inner transformation.
So there’s a lot less existential pressure. And I think the Gita is offering like patience here, patience for how difficult this is. It’s not saying like, do whatever you want, you’ll get another life and be reincarnated.
It’s saying like, even if you try really hard, but fall short, the momentum isn’t lost. The Gita definitely, I think, thinks that our souls are headed somewhere. And inevitably, we’re going to wake up.
A lot of traditional religions think the soul is judged and given kind of like a permanent assignment after death. And these are just two fundamentally different universes and worldviews. So I’ll do a whole podcast on this separate topic, because I think it’s really, really interesting.
So skipping ahead a little bit, verse 6.45. This is Barbara Stoller Miller, the man of discipline, striving with effort, purified of his sins, perfected through many births, finds a higher way. So we see this progressive, cumulative approach to bettering ourselves in spirituality. Verse 46, he is deemed superior to men of penance, men of knowledge and men of action.
Be a man of discipline, Arjuna. So to paraphrase, Krishna’s saying the yogi is greater than the ascetic, greater than a learned scholar, greater than like someone doing rituals. Krishna’s really resetting the hierarchy.
He’s saying have inner discipline. That’s the most important thing. Then book learning is important.
Then doing rituals is important. Then like outward austerity is important. But really, he’s positioning yoga, especially meditation, as the supreme spiritual path.
So doing rituals and reading books and renunciation and all that stuff, it’s good. But direct inner realization, connection to Krishna in meditation or connection to Atman as recognized as Brahman within the self is the way to go. Again, we kind of culminate in verse 6.47, the devotion to Krishna that he says of all the men of discipline, the faithful man devoted to me with his inner self deep in me, I deem most disciplined, aka among all yogis, the ones who direct their mind to me with faith and devotion, who are united to me, Krishna, who have constant loving remembrance of me are doing the highest yoga.
And this is our bridge into the next chapter, chapter 7, which is going to be the next big, big arc of the Gita, because Krishna is essentially shifting from describing impersonal meditation to personal devotion, aka bhakti yoga. So these first six chapters have been about karma yoga. The next six chapters are going to be about something else.
So keep tuning in to find out. But this last verse is saying meditation is good. Mastery of the mind is good.
But constant loving remembrance of Krishna is the highest yoga. And that’s setting the stage for Krishna’s self-revelation that is coming up in the next chapter. So as we close chapter 6, we just witnessed something very human, right? We spent, we saw Krishna spend this whole chapter giving Arjuna this kind of ancient blueprint for meditation, how to sit, where to place his attention, how to moderate his life, how to return to center again and again.
But the text recognizes that this is also intimidating. And so when Arjuna says what all of us have felt, you know, my mind is restless, my mind is stubborn, my mind is more uncontrollable than the wind. And he starts doubting himself and doubting the process and whether he can ever do this right.
Krishna doesn’t shame him. He doesn’t say try harder. He says, you can do this through practice and letting go.
And we get this really comforting section towards the end, which is that no sincere effort is ever wasted. So whether it’s one breath, one child’s pose, a couple of cat cows, a moment in your car, sitting and listening to your breath, you can’t fail at this. If you’ve wondered if you’re doing enough, maybe I’m too inconsistent, or maybe my practice is too messy, or maybe I’m starting over my 40-day Kriya for the 10,000th time, right? You know, the answer we get here in this text is really tender.
Krishna’s saying every moment you turn toward the good is carried forward. Nothing you do is ever lost. And I think that’s a great question for you as we close.
What is one tiny doable practice that you can return to again and again without having to force it, right? Krishna’s not asking for perfection here. He’s asking for steadiness and sincerity. And get ready because in the next chapter, in chapter seven, Krishna’s going to stop talking about yoga and start talking about himself.
Chapter seven, as I said, it’s the beginning of this big second arc, the arc of the revelation where Krishna says, you know, you’ve learned to steady your mind. Now, let me show you who you’re steadying your mind toward. And it’s like, woo, costume reveal.
And he shows who he really is. Thank you so much for listening all the way to the very end. And until next time, make sure to practice some yoga and take care of you.
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