40. Are You Your Friend Or Your Enemy (6.5-6.9)

You are your own friend; you are your own enemy. Evolve yourself through the Self and do not degrade yourself.

uddhared ātmanātmānaṁ nātmānaṁ avasāyadet I ātmaiva hy ātmano bandhur ātmaiva ripur ātmanaḥ II 6.5

I can say, this single verse is the essence of the whole Gītā. Kṛṣṇa says:

You are your own friend and you are your own enemy. If you know the technique of how to lift yourself by yourself, you will become a friend of your Self. If you let yourself down, you will become an enemy of yourself.

Kṛṣṇa is saying, 'May you raise yourself by yourself ' If we don't, we will be our worst enemy. If you have fallen, if you have failed while practicing these words, these teachings, if you have forgotten, don't worry. Again and again, lift yourself. Don't feel depressed and don't have guilt. Don't get dejected thinking you will not be able to do it. Don't doubt your self. Again and again, lift yourself.

Internalize this important truth: do not give up on yourself and people! Even if people fail a hundred times, continue to work with them. When you are frustrated at other people's failure, understand, it is your frustration towards your own failure.

Kṛṣṇa says, 'May you liberate yourself by yourself. Nobody else can liberate you; uddhared ātmanātmānaṁ nātmānaṁ avasāyadet. If you help yourself, you will your greatest friend. If you don't, you will be your worst enemy—ātmaiva hy ātmano bandhur ātmaiva ripur ātmanaḥ.'

Conquer Your Senses, Self is Already Achieved

When we conquer the mind, happiness and distress are both one and the same and we are not touched by it. Now, Kṛṣṇa says, 'One who has conquered his Self, has already attained the supreme bliss, jitātmanaḥ praśāntasya paramātmā samāhitaḥ, for him happiness and distress, heat and cold, honor and dishonor are all the same, śītoṣṇa-sukha-duḥkheṣu tathā mānāpamānayoḥ (6.7).'

Throughout this chapter Kṛṣṇa emphasizes this one idea, senses*, indriya.* How can happiness and distress, heat and cold, honor and dishonor be the same for a man?

First thing, when our senses do the work, we decide 'yes' or 'no' only based on our past experiences, with which we have conditioned our mind and memory. Our intelligence decides based on our root thought patterns.

Whenever our mind is caught in dualities, again and again we fall back to our dilemma, to our instinct level. Here Kṛṣṇa says the person who has achieved bliss is not affected by heat or cold and joy or sorrow—śītoṣṇa-sukha-duḥkheṣu. How do we reach that state? Conquering the senses is not controlling or destroying the senses. If we try to control or destroy the senses, we will only struggle and suffer more. If we try to control our body, that is not going to work either.

Kṛṣṇa says beautifully, 'For one who has conquered the Self, jitātmanaḥ.' When He says Self, He means the whole cognition where the decision-making happens. Mind-Intelligence-Ego is the spot where the decision-making is happening.

We need the science of creating the space of completion to conquer the senses. If we try to work from the wrong side out of incompletion, from the side of the senses, we will never be able to succeed. If we try to create more pressure on the cooker we cannot open the cooker lid. First, we need to put out the fire, the energy supply. Putting out the fire is doing completion with our root patterns. The ego or root patterns or the intelligence, the place from where we make decisions, is continuously supplying energy to our senses. So all we need to do is to work at the level of the mind, not at the level of the senses to become jitātmanaḥ.

By jitātmanaḥ, He means one has learned the right cognition of completion. A man whose senses are complete, has the ability to make decisions for life with clarity. Such a being is jitātmanaḥ, the conqueror of the mind and the self. We don't need to achieve bliss. It is always there within us. If it has to be achieved, there is every possibility it can be lost. Anything, if it has to be specially achieved, is not worth achieving. We don't need to achieve anything because the Self has been already achieved. All we need is completion with our Self.

Winner of Senses is the Self-realized One

Kṛṣṇa says, 'A person whose mind is content because of spiritual knowledge, who has subdued his senses and to whom stone and gold are the same, is said to be established in Self-realization and is called an Enlightened being (6.8).'

Kṛṣṇa is speaking of qualities of a Master, which are techniques. If we practice them we will reach the same enlightened state. Kṛṣṇa says repeatedly, 'Vijitendriyaḥ', one who has won his senses. All we have to do is understand where our incompletions, root patterns lie. Beyond the ego or root patterns we have ātman, Self. Just the presence or the light of the ātman radiates.