SIXTH CHAPTER

The Blessed Lord said:

1. He who performs his bounden duty without leaning to the fruit of action --he is a renouncer of action as well as of steadfast mind: not he who is without fire, nor he who is without action.

2. Know that to be devotion to action, which is called renunciation, O Pandava, for none becomes a devotee to action without forsaking Sankalpa.

3. For the man of meditation wishing to attain purification of heart leading to concentration, work is said to be the way: For him, when he has attained such (concentration), inaction is said to be the way.

4. Verily, when there is no attachment, either to sense-objects, or to actions, having renounced all Sankalpas, then is one said to have attained concentration.

5. A man should uplift himself by his own self, so let him not weaken this self. For this self is the friend of oneself, and this self is the enemy of oneself.

6. The self (the active part of our nature) is the friend of the self, for him who has conquered himself by this self. But to the unconquered self, this self is inimical, (and behaves) like (an external) foe.

7. To the self-controlled and serene, the Supreme Self is, the object of constant, realisation, in cold and heat, pleasure and pain, as well as in honour and dishonour.

8. Whose heart is filled with satisfaction by wisdom and realisation, and is changeless, whose senses are conquered, and to whom a lump of earth, stone, and gold are the same: that Yogi is called steadfast.

9. He attains excellence who looks with equal regard upon well-wishers, friends, foes, neutrals, arbiters, the hateful, the relatives, and upon the righteous and the unrighteous alike.

10. The Yogi should constantly practise concentration of the heart, retiring into solitude, alone, with the mind and body subdued, and free from hope and possession.

11. Having in a cleanly spot established his seat, firm, neither too high nor

too low, made of a cloth, a skin, and Kusha-grass, arranged in consecution:

12. There, seated on that seat, making the mind one-pointed and subduing the action of the imaging faculty and the senses, let him practise Yoga for the purification of the heart.

13. Let him firmly hold his body, head and neck erect and still, (with the eye-balls fixed, as if) gazing at the tip of his nose, and not looking around.

14. With the heart serene and fearless, firm in the vow of a Brahmachari, with the mind controlled, and ever thinking of Me, let him sit (in Yoga) having Me as his supreme goal.

15. Thus always keeping the mind steadfast, the Yogi of subdued mind attains the peace residing in Me,--the

peace which culminates in Nirvana (Moksha).

16. (Success in) Yoga is not for him who eats too much or too little--nor, O Arjuna, for him who sleeps too much or too little.