Dhyana Yoga
Krishna turns to the practical discipline of meditation. He describes the ideal conditions for practice — a clean, quiet, level seat, a steady posture, a gaze and mind held gently inward — and stresses moderation: yoga is not for one who eats too much or too little, sleeps too much or too little, but suits itself to a balanced life. He famously compares the disciplined mind to a lamp burning steadily in a windless place, undisturbed by flickering thought, and teaches that whenever the restless mind wanders off, the practitioner should patiently draw it back again and again. The chapter includes the moment where the self is called both one's best friend and one's own worst enemy, depending on whether it is mastered. Arjuna objects that the mind is notoriously hard to control — as hard, he says, as the wind — and Krishna agrees but insists it can nonetheless be mastered through sustained practice (abhyasa) and dispassion (vairagya), closing with the assurance that the sincere yogi, even one who fails, is never truly lost, and that the one who worships him with faith is the most fully united of all.
“Let a person lift themselves up by their own self; let them not degrade themselves. The self alone is the friend of the self, and the self alone is its enemy.”
“For one who has conquered the self by the self, the self is a friend; but for one who has failed to master the self, the self remains hostile, like an enemy.”
“As a lamp in a windless place does not flicker, so is the disciplined mind of a yogi practicing union with the self.”
“From whatever cause the restless, unsteady mind wanders away, one should restrain it and bring it back under the control of the self alone.”
“Arjuna said: The mind is restless, turbulent, powerful and obstinate, Krishna; I think it is as hard to control as the wind.”
“Krishna said: Without doubt the mind is hard to restrain and restless, but through practice and dispassion, it can be controlled.”
The classic answer to how the mind is mastered — repeated practice paired with detachment.
“Of all yogis, the one who worships me with faith, whose inner self is absorbed in me, is considered by me to be most fully united in yoga.”
Chapter summaries composed for MyBrahman; verse translations from the public-domain Kashinath Trimbak Telang translation (1882, Sacred Books of the East, vol. 8) where directly checkable, and/or widely-attested traditional renderings of famous verses, cited by standard chapter.verse numbering.