Sri Swami Jyotirmayananda continues the Srimad Bhagavad Gita in Chapter 6, Atma Samyama Yoga — the yoga of self-control — at verses 35 and 36. Arjuna has just heard the whole teaching and reached an honest conclusion: it cannot be done. The mind, he says, is like wind, and no one controls wind. Since control of the mind is impossible, he does not see how he could ever reach the goal.
Swamiji pauses on this before answering, because the complaint is not Arjuna’s alone. “This is a persistent problem with every individual,” he says — whether you are an aspirant or not, and even if you are a great advanced yogi, the mind remains your challenge at different levels. And you should not be upset by it. That very restlessness is the characteristic of vitality. Life shines precisely because the mind is what allows you to discover what lies beyond the mind — the mind is what lets you control it, culture it, transcend it.
What Krishna Answers
Krishna does not deny the difficulty. Asamshayam mahabaho mano durnigraham chalam / abhyasena tu kaunteya vairagyena cha grihyate — indeed the mind is restless and difficult to control, but it can be brought under control by the practice of abhyasa and vairagya.
Two terms, Swamiji says, and they need more than their dictionary meanings. Abhyasa literally means repeated effort. Vairagya means dispassion. To go deeper he brings in the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali, whose first chapter states the same principle: abhyasa-vairagyabhyam tan-nirodhah — the mind is controlled by abhyasa and vairagya. Then the sutra defines abhyasa: tatra sthitau yatno abhyasah, the continuous, repeated effort to remain established in the goal.
The Three Conditions of Real Practice
The next sutra names what makes that effort actually succeed: sa tu dirghakala-nairantarya-satkarasevito dridhabhumih. Three conditions.
Dirgha kala — over a long time. Do not practice with an eye on a short period. Continue, Swamiji says, no matter how long. He warns against the bargaining attitude: “I am going to give a chance to this abhyasa. Practice seven days. If it doesn’t yield the result I want, I will give it up.”
Nairantarya — unbroken. Not a few days, then a lapse, then a return. It should be like taking medicine, done day by day, in the knowledge that it works by accumulation. Here Swamiji offers the analogy the class will remember: the doctor prescribes one tablet a day, and the bright student calculates that seven tablets today buys a free week. Sadhana does not work that way either.
Satkara — with reverence and joy. There should be a sense of joyousness, “a sense of divine privilege that God has allowed me to practice japa, to meditate on Him.” Do any sadhana with joy and thankfulness, not with the perverted attitude of how miserable am I, I have to do japa — or the sigh that you have to go to satsanga when you could have had a wonderful time.
Rather than a burden added to life, abhyasa should become as natural as eating and drinking. You never ask how long you must keep maintaining your body; you live for those things. Why should sadhana not be a part of that same enjoyment? And Swamiji notes what actually happens when it is: the moment you bring sadhana into daily life, everything you already enjoy becomes more enhanced. With a prayerful mind the delight that comes from food increases; the whole day brightens. Sadhana makes you increasingly aware of your own inner potentiality — more joyous, more energetic, more enduring, and it draws out the virtuous qualities.
Vairagya: Washing the Hands First
Abhyasa alone is not enough. Swamiji illustrates vairagya simply: before you do a good deed with your hands, the hands must first be washed. The washing is vairagya — how much impurity you are removing from the mind.
Impurity here has broad implications, and it is deep-rooted in everyone. All human beings come into the world with a great deal of moha, delusion, and on moha a great deal of attachment is built. Attachment, he reminds us, is not conducive to real progress. Parents grow so attached to a growing child that they do not want the child to go anywhere at all. Nature itself corrects this: the birds wait for the eggs, wait for the young ones — and then begin kicking them out. Get out. Learn to fly. In a subtle way, Swamiji says, nature teaches how to get out of the limited circle of moha.
He also names a counterfeit. Smashana vairagya is the dispassion of the cremation ground: someone dear dies, and for that day or a few days after there is a genuine sense of O God, You are the only one. And then it goes away. It does not stay.
And a warning: vairagya should not be confused with developing a bitter feeling toward the world.
The Yoga Sutra definition follows — drishta-anushravika-vishaya-vitrishnasya vashikara-samjna vairagyam — the absence of craving for objects, whether objects you have seen or objects you have only heard about. Two ways the mind is caught. And on the second, Swamiji observes that people are not only eager to enjoy objects in daily life; they dream of enjoying after death, having heard from the scriptures that those with good karmas enjoy wonderful things in heaven. The mind gets very interested. A wonderful time is waiting.
The Chariot, and the Fluff
Subtle insight has to develop instead: the senses and their enjoyments are extremely superficial. Your goal is not to secure perpetual enjoyment for the senses; the senses play a very small part.
Swamiji returns to the classic chariot. The senses are the horses. The mind is the reins by which you pull them. The intellect is the driver. The soul is the one being driven. “So let not the chariot belong to the horses” — the whole plan should not be taken over by the senses and their objects, “otherwise you become senseless.” Let the mind control the senses, and let the intellect give the mind the strength to do it.
Then comes the image that gives this class its flavour. Think of the sun, and of all the illumination that comes from it — light striking the eyes, sound reaching the ears, thunder rolling behind clouds, all of it delicious to the senses. Put all that enjoyment together on one side; then ask what the truth of the sun actually is. “All this is fluff. Fluff of illusion.”
But he does not stop at dismissal, and this is the part worth carrying. “Enjoy the fluff as long as you know that you are worshipping the sun.” Fluff is not useless — you are living within the fluff. Enjoy it. Regulate it. Outwit it. Transcend it. Even add to the fluff, in a way that goes on promoting happiness and harmony in the world. “But fluff is a fluff. It’s not the reality.”
The Stages of Dispassion
Vairagya is not one thing; it ripens in stages.
Yatamana, the striving stage. Here, Swamiji says half-jokingly, the mind has to use tricks and exaggerate a little. Everything that fills the mind with great joy, sit back and look at squarely. A child has come into the house with great joy — and also a soul that missed liberation in a previous life has entered the world again, and its very first experience is crying. Look at a world so filled with elation and involvement, and understand that all of it is transient. Ask: how long? How long will this expression of glory and power last? Do not let the mind be fascinated by attainments confined to time, space and causation, because such attainment is always shaky and never really fulfilling. The Upanishad calls it alpam — little.
Vyatireka, degrees of control. As you advance you notice that different people have different temptations, and that your own will is strong in some places and untested in others. No matter how tasty the food, you are not shaken — but there are other temptations you are not sure about. The mind now recognises degrees.
Ekendriya. The senses come to rest, and only the mind remains to be worked upon. Swamiji’s image: the senses are like pets. In the early stages they are not under your control, and you love them so much that you go out of control with them. Gradually you control them by degrees, until the pets have become completely devoted to you. At that point you have succeeded in self-control.
Vashikara. The mind too comes under control, and no longer throws up a whimsical idea that leads you into trouble.
All of that, he notes, is apara vairagya — the lower dispassion. Beyond it stands para vairagya, supreme dispassion, which is a matter of purity of intellect. As the intellect begins to shine, the focus settles on who am I, and the insight develops that the “I am” in you is not confined to time and space, not confined to the entire world of maya. From that comes dispassion toward the whole of maya, together with one profound resolve: may I attain moksha. Not a glorified status anywhere in the universe — liberation. “Nothing else counts.”
Swamiji adds a practical note on why teaching must be varied. Abhyasa can be dull, medium or intense; so can vairagya; and people arrive in every combination of the two. Dull vairagya with dull abhyasa means the ears are blocked, and such a person may first have to be awakened by the promise of punya and its rewards — an exaggeration, he admits, though not a fabrication.
The Means That Completes It
Verse 36 supplies what abhyasa and vairagya still need. Asamyatatmana yogo dushprapa iti me matih / vashyatmana tu yatata shakyo vaptum upayatah — it is Krishna’s view that yoga is difficult for anyone lacking self-control, but that it can be attained by one who has mastered the lower self, provided he adopts upaya.
Upaya literally means proper means. Its subtler meaning, Swamiji says, is ishvara sharanagati — taking refuge in God, surrendering to God. Abhyasa and vairagya, blended with surrender to God: that is the full picture of a successful sadhana.
Before all of it, in the opening minutes of the class, Swamiji had already laid the ground in three steps that he says contain all of Vedanta: I am the soul, not the body; the soul is a ray of God; the soul is one with God. It is the answer Hanuman gives when Rama asks how they are related — from the standpoint of the body I am your servant; from the standpoint of the soul I am a ray and You are the sun; from the standpoint of the innermost Self, You and I are one and the same. Digest those three, Swamiji says, and you have digested all the religions and all the wisdom of past, present and future.
Reflect
Which of the three conditions does your own practice actually lack — length, continuity, or joy?
Scholar’s Corner
- Srimad Bhagavad Gita, Chapter 6 (Atma Samyama Yoga), verses 35–36: Krishna’s reply to Arjuna’s objection that the restless mind cannot be controlled, and the qualification that yoga is attainable by the self-mastered who adopt proper means.
- Yoga Sutras of Patanjali I.12–15, brought in by Swamiji: abhyasa-vairagyabhyam tan-nirodhah; tatra sthitau yatno abhyasah; sa tu dirghakala-nairantarya-satkarasevito dridhabhumih; and the definition of vairagya, drishta-anushravika-vishaya-vitrishnasya vashikara-samjna vairagyam.
- The four stages of lower (apara) vairagya — yatamana, vyatireka, ekendriya, vashikara — and para vairagya beyond them.
- Verse 36’s upaya read as ishvara sharanagati, refuge in God.
Glossary
Abhyasa: sustained, repeated spiritual practice; effective when long, unbroken, and joyfully reverent.
Vairagya: dispassion; the removal of craving for objects seen or merely heard about.
Dirgha kala, nairantarya, satkara: the three conditions of firm practice — long duration, no interruption, reverent joy.
Smashana vairagya: “cremation-ground dispassion,” a genuine but temporary detachment after loss.
Moha: delusion, the root on which attachment is built.
Yatamana, vyatireka, ekendriya, vashikara: the four ripening stages of lower dispassion.
Para vairagya: supreme dispassion, born of a clear intellect that seeks liberation alone.
Alpam: “little” — the Upanishadic verdict on attainments bound by time, space and causation.
Upaya / ishvara sharanagati: the proper means; taking refuge in and surrendering to God.
Atma Samyama Yoga: “the yoga of self-control,” the title of Gita Chapter 6.
Watch the full lecture: https://youtu.be/SCMadjSa86s
This study guide is drawn from the archived teachings of Sri Swami Jyotirmayananda.