Two Words That Tame The Restless Mind | Bhagavad Gita 73 (6:35-36)

Arjuna tells Krishna the whole teaching is impossible. The mind, he says, is like wind — and no one controls wind. Sri Swami Jyotirmayananda unfolds Krishna's answer in Bhagavad Gita 6:35-36. The mind is indeed restless and hard to control, but it can be brought under control by two things: abhyasa, repeated practice, and vairagya, dispassion. Drawing on Patanjali's Yoga Sutras, Swamiji shows what makes abhyasa actually work — it must be sustained over a long time, unbroken day by day, and carried out with a sense of joy and divine privilege rather than as a burden. Practice is not a seven-day trial you abandon when results are slow, and you cannot swallow a week's tablets at once. He then maps vairagya through its stages, from the striving beginner who must argue with his own cravings, through degrees of control, to the point where the senses become devoted pets and finally the mind itself comes to rest — and beyond all of these, para vairagya, the supreme dispassion born of a clear intellect that wants liberation and nothing else. Along the way: the chariot in which the senses are horses, the mind the reins, the intellect the driver and the soul the one being driven; why loving relationships become mere business arrangements when God is left out of them; and Swamiji's memorable verdict on sense pleasure — all of it is fluff. Enjoy the fluff, regulate it, outwit it, transcend it, but never mistake it for the sun. Verse 36 completes the picture. Yoga is beyond reach for one lacking self-control, but attainable by one who has mastered the lower self and adopts the proper means — upaya, which Swamiji reads as taking refuge in God. Abhyasa and vairagya, blended with surrender. Chapters 00:00 A prayerful mind enhances everything 00:56 Invocation 01:36 Chapter 6: the yoga of self-control 01:57 Two paths: Sankhya and Karma Yoga 02:19 I am the soul, not the body 03:05 Soul as a ray, soul as one with God 03:09 Hanuman and Rama: three answers to one question 04:43 Integral yoga in daily life 06:15 Love rooted in God, or a business arrangement 08:45 Yoga of devotion and of meditation 09:48 Jnana yoga: making understanding sublime 10:49 When intellect is ill-directed 11:39 Intellect turns into intuition 12:06 Arjuna: the mind is like wind, this is impossible 14:01 Verse 35: abhyasa and vairagya 15:52 The Yoga Sutra conditions: long, unbroken, reverent 16:57 Abhyasa should become as natural as eating 19:45 You cannot take seven tablets at once 20:20 Satkara: practice as a divine privilege 22:09 Vairagya: washing the hands before the deed 22:45 Moha and the attachment built on it 23:40 How the birds teach dispassion 24:54 Smashana vairagya: the dispassion that fades 25:38 The Yoga Sutra definition of vairagya 27:51 The chariot: horses, reins, driver, and the one driven 29:09 Stage one: yatamana, the striving stage 32:45 All of this is fluff 33:58 Stage two: degrees of control 34:42 Stage three: ekendriya, and then vashikara 36:28 Para vairagya: supreme dispassion 37:24 May I attain moksha, and nothing else 38:14 Dull, medium, intense: the combinations 41:06 Verse 36: yoga and the mastered self 41:45 Upaya: taking refuge in God 42:06 Om Shanti Yoga Research Foundation — https://yogaresearchfoundation.org Srimad Bhagavad Gita series - Chapter 6, Atma Samyama Yoga #BhagavadGita #Vedanta #SwamiJyotirmayananda