41. Bring Integrity To Control Your Senses (6.10-6.14)

Kṛṣṇa gives directions for the practitioner of Yoga, the Yogī. These are practical guidelines to help us with how to sit and meditate. These are not essential qualifications for Enlightenment. For this path, looking inwards is the only way.

Controlling the senses requires controlling the mind. Controlling the mind requires control of thoughts. Controlling the thoughts requires integrity. When we continuously live integrity, we will become aware of the thoughts happening in our inner space.

Constantly listening to our own inner space is the beginning of integrity. If our inner space says that there is nothing more to listen, if only silence is there, we have achieved integrity. We need to stay in the present moment by refusing to move to the past and future and we need to disconnect thoughts. I call this Unclutching.

To facilitate this, Kṛṣṇa stipulates the conditions. We should go to a secluded place to 'look in', just to be away from disturbances. The most important thing is to be relaxed. Sthira (stable) and sukha (pleasurable) are the basic essentials of any meditation posture. Finally, Kṛṣṇa says, 'Focus on Me, manaḥ saṁyamya mac-chitto. Make Me the Supreme goal, yukta āsīta mat-paraḥ (6.14).' He means our true Self.

Neither Too Much Nor Too Little (6.15-6.19)

To reach the Ultimate, the goal and the path is the practice of Yoga.

We have two lives in us. One is the life we want to live–the dream. The other is the life in reality–the life that we are living. The meeting of these two lives is what I call Yoga.

Yoga manuals will not tell us what Kṛṣṇa tells Arjuna here. Guidelines on sleeping or eating too much or too little is in no way a prescribed method for yoga. Kṛṣṇa talks about āhāra, meaning food that is taken in through our five senses, not just the mouth. Pratyāhāra, one of the eight limbs of yoga, is the control of sensory inputs. It means going beyond these āhāra, beyond the sense objects, so that the higher levels of Consciousness can be awakened. The main aim of all Yoga is to reach the level of our being.