Vyasa · a new plain-English translation from the Sanskrit
6.1 The Blessed Lord said: Whoever performs the action that must be done without relying on the fruit of action is a renouncer and a yogi — not the one who lights no fire and performs no rites.
6.2 What they call renunciation, know that to be yoga, Pandava; for no one becomes a yogi without renouncing intention.
6.3 For the sage who wishes to climb to yoga, action is said to be the means; for the one who has already climbed to yoga, stillness is said to be the means.
6.4 When one is attached neither to the objects of the senses nor to actions, having renounced all intention, then he is said to have climbed to yoga.
6.5 One should lift oneself up by the self, and not let the self sink down; for the self alone is the friend of the self, and the self alone is the enemy of the self.
6.6 The self is the friend of the self for the one by whom the self has been conquered by the self; but for the one without self-mastery, the very self stands hostile like an enemy.
6.7 For the one who has conquered himself and become peaceful, the supreme self remains steady in cold and heat, pleasure and pain, and likewise in honor and disgrace.
6.8 The yogi whose self is content with knowledge and discernment, who stands unshaken, whose senses are conquered, to whom a clod, a stone, and gold are the same, is said to be disciplined.
6.9 He stands apart, showing equal regard toward well-wishers, friends, enemies, the indifferent, the neutral, the hateful, kinsmen, the righteous, and even wrongdoers.
6.10 The yogi should constantly discipline himself, staying in a solitary place, alone, his thought and self restrained, free of desire and possessions.
6.11 Having set up a firm seat for himself in a clean place, neither too high nor too low, covered with cloth, a deer skin, and kusha grass,
6.12 there, making the mind one-pointed, the movements of thought and senses restrained, seated on that seat, he should practice yoga for the purification of the self.
6.13 Holding the body, head, and neck steady and unmoving, firm, gazing fixedly at the tip of his own nose, not looking about in any direction,
6.14 his self at peace, free of fear, established in the vow of a student of sacred knowledge, his mind restrained, his thought fixed on me, he should sit disciplined, intent on me.
6.15 Thus constantly disciplining himself, the yogi of controlled mind attains the peace that culminates in extinction, the peace that abides in me.
6.16 Yoga is not for the one who eats too much, nor for the one who does not eat at all, nor for the one given to too much sleep, nor for the one who stays awake too long, Arjuna.
6.17 For the one moderate in food and recreation, moderate in action, moderate in sleep and waking, yoga becomes the destroyer of suffering.
6.18 When the thoroughly disciplined mind rests in the self alone, free of longing for all desires, then he is said to be disciplined.
6.19 As a lamp in a windless place does not flicker — that is the comparison remembered for the yogi of controlled thought, disciplining himself in yoga.
6.20 When the mind, restrained by the practice of yoga, comes to rest, and when, seeing the self by the self, he finds contentment in the self,
6.21 when he knows that infinite happiness which is grasped by the understanding and lies beyond the senses, and stationed in it does not waver from the truth,
6.22 and having gained which he considers no other gain greater, and established in which he is not shaken even by heavy sorrow,
6.23 let him know this to be yoga, the severing of union with suffering. This yoga should be practiced with determination, with a mind free of despondency.
6.24 Abandoning without exception all desires born of intention, restraining the whole assembly of senses on every side by the mind alone,
6.25 he should, little by little, come to rest, with understanding held firm; having fixed the mind in the self, he should not think of anything at all.
6.26 Wherever the wavering, unsteady mind wanders off, from there he should restrain it and bring it back under the control of the self.
6.27 For this yogi of peaceful mind, whose passion is stilled, who has become brahman, free of stain, the highest happiness comes to him.
6.28 Thus constantly disciplining himself, the yogi free of stain easily attains the boundless happiness of contact with brahman.
6.29 His self disciplined by yoga, he sees the self abiding in all beings and all beings abiding in the self; he sees the same everywhere.
6.30 Whoever sees me everywhere and sees everything in me — for him I am not lost, nor is he lost to me.
6.31 Whoever, established in oneness, worships me abiding in all beings, that yogi dwells in me, however he may be living.
6.32 The one who sees equality everywhere by comparison with himself, Arjuna, whether in pleasure or in pain, is held to be the highest yogi.
6.33 Arjuna said: This yoga you have taught, Madhusudana, resting on equanimity — I do not see how it can be lasting, because the mind is restless.
6.34 For the mind is restless, Krishna, turbulent, powerful, obstinate; I consider its restraint as difficult to accomplish as restraining the wind.
6.35 The Blessed Lord said: Without doubt, mighty-armed one, the mind is restless and hard to restrain; but by practice, Kaunteya, and by dispassion, it can be grasped.
6.36 Yoga is hard to attain, I hold, for the one whose self is unrestrained; but by the one who strives, whose self is mastered, it can be attained through the right means.
6.37 Arjuna said: The one who has faith but lacks effort, whose mind wanders away from yoga, who fails to reach perfection in yoga — what path does he take, Krishna?
6.38 Fallen from both, does he not perish like a torn cloud, without support, deluded on the path to brahman, mighty-armed one?
6.39 You should dispel this doubt of mine completely, Krishna, for there is no one but you fit to dispel this doubt.
6.40 The Blessed Lord said: Partha, neither in this world nor in the next is there ruin for him; for no one who does good, dear one, ever comes to a bad end.
6.41 Having attained the worlds of those who did righteous deeds and having dwelt there for endless years, the one fallen from yoga is born in the house of the pure and prosperous.
6.42 Or he is born into a family of yogis endowed with wisdom; but a birth such as this is very hard to obtain in this world.
6.43 There he regains that connection of understanding developed in his former body, and from there he strives once more toward perfection, joy of the Kurus.
6.44 By that very former practice he is carried onward even against his will; even one who merely seeks to know yoga goes beyond the word of the scriptures.
6.45 But the yogi who strives with diligence, his faults purified away, made perfect through many births, then reaches the highest goal.
6.46 The yogi is greater than the ascetics, and considered greater even than the learned; the yogi is greater also than those devoted to ritual action; therefore, Arjuna, be a yogi.
6.47 And among all yogis, the one who worships me with faith, his inner self absorbed in me, I consider to be the most disciplined of all.