Bhagavad Gita Chapter 06

• Chapter 06
• Chapter 06, Text 05
• You can change your mind, but don’t let your mind change you
• To save you from you, couple the real self with the Supreme Self
• Don’t fall for the mind’s “no time” trick
• When a salesperson knocks at the inner door…
• Is it human nature to want to transcend human nature?
• The mind not only befools but also betrays us
• Focus not on the thoughts which are unworthy of us; focus on the thoughts for which we are unworthy
• The assumption of responsibility in our inner life begins with challenging our assumption about our inner life
• Work on mind control enthusiastically while Krishna works on mind conversion expertly
• The mind may be like a hog in a confectionary, but we don’t have to be
• Weaken your weaknesses - don't let your weaknesses weaken you
• The mind herds us and hurts us and hurts others through us
• We are in the driver’s seat – but are we?
• Don’t just hear the mind – mind what you hear
• Absent-minded means not that the mind is absent, but that our control on it is absent
• The mind is a universe – not everything in it is relevant
• If Krishna is not our goal, we hit self-goals
• Use breaks to break the mind’s spell on you
• Unconscious decisions are usually unhealthy decisions
• Don’t just talk about yourself – talk to yourself
• Build roads, not roadblocks
• The mind is like a dog that barks but can’t bite – unless we let it
• Don’t give the mind monopoly over your inner conversation
• The mind often acts mindlessly – mind it
• The mind should do our work, not make us do its work
• The mind may be confused, but we don’t have to let it confuse us
• The mind makes us serious about the frivolous and frivolous about the serious
• The instrumental self is not the self – it is the instrument to the self
• Tolerance towards the mind’s intolerance imprisons us in impotence
• Tap the mind’s power – don’t be trapped by the mind’s power
• Move from mindlessness to mindfulness by minding the mind
• The mind’s triggering may be uncontrollable, but our triggering can be controllable
• Stop expecting the mind to give up trying to make us give up
• When we keep liking whatever our mind likes, we end up not liking ourselves
• If we don’t marginalize the mind, it will marginalize us
• See the mind as a predator, not a protector
• The mind makes the easy seem difficult and the difficult seem impossible
• Our inner screen is lined with lying links – be leery
• The mind treats us badly, yet we trust it madly
• The faster our autocorrect, the faster we can be incorrect
• We are our greatest hope – and our greatest horror
• To be thoughtful, attribute every thought first to the mind
• Respect the dark within you, to keep it within you
• Use introspection as a confession by the self to the self
• Chapter 06, Text 06
• Take the mind’s promises with a bucketful of salt
• The mind can impel, but not compel
• The mind is predictably dangerous and dangerously unpredictable
• When the mind throws sand into our eyes
• The mind is not just a liar but also a traitor
• When the mind tempts us to play the victim game, stop playing
• Throw light on the daylight robbery that doesn’t come to light
• The mind makes us a stranger to ourselves
• The mind is a tormentor, not a mentor
• When the mind cries wolf, know that the mind is the worst wolf
• The mind needs not what it heeds and heeds not what it needs
• The defect of dallying with the mind is that it makes the dallier a defector
• Don’t be exhausted by the mind – be exhausted with the mind
• The mind makes the exhausting seem exciting and the exciting seem exhausting
• Don’t give the mind power of attorney – and don’t let it grab it either
• The mind is illusion’s internal advertising agent
• If we don’t recognize the mind, it will make us unrecognizable to ourselves
• Don’t let the mind make you fight more battles than you need to
• See through the mind’s troika of denial, misdirection and self-victimization
• The mind seduces us into doing wrong – and then scolds us for doing wrong
• Our lack of confidence doesn’t choke us as much as our overconfidence in our hypercritical mind
• Devotion makes the mind’s power our power
• The mind will smother if we don’t see it as the other
• The mind’s spells make our life a waking nightmare
• The mind may show us a horror movie, but we don’t have to watch it
• Even in paradise, the mind will say, “Yes, but …”
• Train yourself to hack the inner hacker
• Don’t let the mind control the activities meant to control the mind
• The first me is practically never the best me
• As soon as we stop working constructively, our mind starts working destructively
• The mind is not inherently our enemy - it is circumstantially our enemy
• The mind is a masterly telemarketer – don't pick up the phone
• Our forced errors don’t justify our unforced errors
• The mind deafens us not just to Krishna, but also to the body
• The mind tends to do what we don’t intend to do
• When fighting temptation, focus just on surviving the present battle, not on winning the whole war
• Chapter 06, Text 07
• Those who mistake the route to be the root stay uprooted
• We have to lose our mind to gain our soul
• Don’t just fight the mind – fight to get the mind to fight for you
• How uncritical we are about our mind is incredible
• The internal contains both the infernal and the eternal
• Things fall in place if we keep the mind in place
• When the mind engages, it encages; when Krishna engages, he elevates
• Focus on life, not on the mind’s commentary about life
• Chapter 06, Text 08
• Study makes us steady and sturdy
• To see stone and gold equally, see beyond stone and gold to Krishna
• Go beyond the stocking of information to the flowing of service
• Let research reinforce, not replace, search
• To acquire equal vision externally, cultivate spiritual satisfaction internally – by remembering Krishna devotionally
• Information puffs us up; application builds us up
• We can’t lose weight just by reading books on how to lose weight
• Scriptural memorization is meant not for adulation, but for assimilation and application
• Chapter 06, Text 09
• We can’t deal with the enemies created by the mind without first dealing with the mind
• Chapter 06, Text 10
• Solitude requires distancing ourselves not just from the world but also from the mind
• Chapter 06, Text 11
• Chapter 06, Text 12
• Focus not on comfort or discomfort – focus on purification
• Chapter 06, Text 13
• Don’t lobotomize ashtanga-yoga to ekanga-yoga
• Asanas cannot free us from vasanas
• Chapter 06, Text 14
• Krishna is not just the object of meditation but also its objective
• Spiritual growth comes by improving our mental model, not our physical posture
• Chapter 06, Text 15
• Purification means changing the mind’s default programming
• Chapter 06, Text 16
• The purpose of bodily regulation is not physical deprivation but spiritual connection
• The destructibility of the body is not a license for its wanton destruction
• The art of living is to balance the self we are eternally with the self we are presently
• Our material needs are like painkillers – necessary but not sufficient
• If we don’t sleep at the right time, we will sleep at the wrong time
• Chapter 06, Text 17
• Plans may not work, but planning works
• Spirituality is not about abandoning but about reclaiming
• Seek balance through dynamic determination, not frozen formula
• Regulation is the road to realization
• Being conscious of the body is not bodily consciousness, being conscious only of the body is
• Chapter 06, Text 18
• Is the body a playground for passion or a temple for devotion?
• Illusion means that the content of our experience blinds us to its context
• Be not self-conscious; be conscious of the self
• Chapter 06, Text 20
• To access the Absolute Truth, reject the absolute rejection of absolute truths
• The supposition of subjectivity is sabotaged by the subjectivity of the supposition
• Our conviction that happiness is our right is right
• Expansion of consciousness opens the self to the self
• When the mind functions primarily as a mirror instead of as a window, we gain self-realization
• We are not just potentially spiritual; we are essentially spiritual
• Chapter 06, Text 21
• When attention seems like detention, we need education
• Chapter 06, Text 22
• Seek the one achievement that misery cannot reach
• Attaining an unalienable wealth
• Krishna-thoughts are soothing, satisfying, strengthening, sublimating
• Live beyond life’s tornadoes and torpedoes
• Stability and maturity that takes us beyond adversity
• We may be broke but we don’t have to be broken
• Do not ensure heart breaks; insure against heart breaks
• The available becomes valuable when it becomes accessible
• Material progress centers on having what we want; spiritual progress, on wanting what we have
• Devotion helps us discover the richness of life
• Spirituality enables us to stand tall without standing on others
• Infuse charity with compassion, not calculation
• When no gain relieves pain, seek the gain beyond pain
• Purification means to change our emotional center
• Spirituality reveals that our destiny is bigger than the biggest adversity
• What is our greatest treasure is often not what we treasure the greatest
• Chapter 06, Text 24
• Are we placing in the treasury that which belongs to the dustbin?
• Let’s guard our consciousness the way we guard our homes
• Freedom resides not in the right to experience whatever we like, but in the liking for the right experience
• Leave temptation - and don’t leave a forwarding address
• Don’t relax the treatment just because the symptoms have disappeared
• Scriptural regulation is productive, not restrictive
• Heart work is hard work
• Chapter 06, Text 25
• Glue the mind to meditation, not mediation
• Determination comes from the conviction that the prize is greater than the price
• Disbelieve the mind’s disastrous misdiagnosis
• Those who take a strong stand internally stand strong externally
• To become devotionally responsive, become intellectually responsible
• Let the intelligence’s discrimination lead through the mind's delusion to the heart’s devotion
• Muster determination to master distraction
• Decrease the perception of effort and increase the anticipation of reward by intellectual conviction
• When the mind makes the irrational seem rational, catch it in its irrationality
• Expand your horizons in vision, but concentrate them in implementation
• Absorption is a function of not just attraction but also determination
• Let scripture lead beyond the head’s complexity to the heart’s simplicity
• Don’t let the mind play truant in the school of bhakti
• To forget that one is forgetful is to become a fool
• See the mind not as too strong for us to resist, but as too weak to resist the world’s toys
• See the effort in focusing the mind as an exercise, not an exertion
• The key to training ourselves, and trusting ourselves, is small steps, carried out
• Small victories are not big victories, but they are stepping stones to big victories
• When the mind shows us all that we don’t have, the intelligence needs to show us all that we do have
• Intelligence means to know which thoughts are to be pinned and which to be binned
• Chapter 06, Text 26
• Change of values is more significant than change of desires
• The mind may stray away; let it not stay away
• Parent the childish mind by being vigilant and diligent
• Let’s not renew what we need to remove
• Conscientiously correct the mind’s incorrect auto-correct
• The mind is a taskmaster, not a task manager
• Even if we can’t be consistent in our devotion, we can still be resilient
• Reposition the mind as the object of observation instead of its subject
• We can’t replace the mind, but we can re-place it
• If we let the mind fill in the blanks, it will overwrite the sentence
• Check the train before you check into it
• Protesting that the mind is wandering is progress over wandering with the mind
• Focus on the mind before focusing on its focus
• Observe your mental neighborhood just as you would observe your physical neighborhood
• When your mental expressway gets overcrowded, direct your thought traffic with your intelligence
• Nothing distracts us as much as we ourselves
• Don’t just restrain the mind – retrain it
• Children will be childish, but parents don’t have to be childish
• The mind is a slow learner – learn to help it learn
• Strong security means that unusual activity triggers immediate inquiry
• Set it and forget it approach won’t work because the mind will reset it
• Control the mind before it controls you
• Unsolicited distraction may be unavoidable, but intentional inattention isn't
• We may be distracted, but we don’t have to be disheartened
• When the mind is fast, the intelligence needs to be faster
• If we don’t ask "What am I doing?" we will end up asking "What have I done?"
• The mind is like a window that unpredictably changes into a TV
• Letting the mind run free is the quickest path to exhaustion
• Going off-course is not the problem; staying off-course is
• If we don’t double-check the mind, it will double-cross us
• Chapter 06, Text 27
• We need a break – from the mind
• The mind that is clean is serene
• When the mind accepts the impure to be impure, we become pure
• When the mind becomes peaceful, we become joyful
• To beat problems, first beat the problematic mind down to size
• Distraction is draining; concentration is energizing
• In meditation, the way to relaxation is through concentration
• The mind is a maddening chatterbox – silence it by absorption
• Spirituality stills the mind and fills the soul
• Don't go behind the mind, go beyond the mind
• Contemplation on Krishna provides purification, elevation and satisfaction
• Purification puts the mind in the silent mode
• Chapter 06, Text 28
• The new life outside begins with the new life inside
• The purpose of discipline is not to torture ourselves, but to transcend ourselves
• Don’t imagine good feelings – realize that there’s so much to feel good about
• Don’t analyze the trash – just trash it
• Focus on the mind’s track record, not on its sound track
• Chapter 06, Text 30
• Reality is more fascinating than what we have been allowed to believe
• Devotion implies meditation independent of location
• We may be far away from Krishna, but Krishna is always close to us
• Maya is not just illusion in perception – it is essentially illusion in conception
• Bhakti makes expanded awareness our enduring awareness
• To change the way you feel, change the way you think
• The Absolute's oneness is not in non-differentiation, but in non-disconnection
• Take mindfulness to its fullness by becoming mindful of the fullest reality
• Krishna is just one thought away from us – always
• Chapter 06, Text 32
• Retreat within to treat without
• Let’s learn to laugh with others, not laugh at others
• Cultivate compassion for the complete being of all living beings
• See the sufferings of the attached with compassion, not condescension
• Philosophy should expand our human sensitivity, not shrink it
• Don’t just renounce the material for the spiritual – bring the spiritual to the material
• Caring means sharing
• Absorption of consciousness in Krishna brings about expansion of consciousness through Krishna
• The spiritual vision of all living beings is both saddening and gladdening
• The highest spiritual vision culminates in compassion, not inaction
• Compassion needs to be felt as affection, not as condescension
• To see ourselves as spiritual is good, to see others as spiritual is better, to see everyone as spiritual is best
• Our pain is meant to be harvested, not wasted
• Chapter 06, Text 33
• Awareness of lack of self-awareness is also self-awareness
• Chapter 06, Text 34
• The mind’s misdirection is not just mild but also wild
• The mind is naughty and haughty
• The mind makes us unthinkingly do the unthinkable
• Don’t let the stray lead you astray
• Don’t let the mind put your thoughts out of sync with your actions
• In mind management, find the balance between laxity and stringency through maturity
• The mind is a specialist in forgetfulness
• Within moments, the mind can change awesome to awful
• Treat the mind like a child – don’t let the mind treat you like a child
• The mind doesn’t know what it wants – and is ready to fight against the world to get it
• The mind stops us not just from achieving our dreams, but also from pursuing them
• The mind is restless, reasonless, ruthless, relentless
• The lesser the structure in our life, the greater the rupture the mind can cause in our life
• Chapter 06, Text 35
• Bind the blind mind
• The mind can defeat us in a battle, but we alone can defeat ourselves in the war
• The mind may replay, but we don’t have to play
• Don’t give guidance alone – give confidence too
• Your mind is the only mind you have – train it
• Before you put others in their place, put yourself in their place
• People need to feel understood before they become ready to understand
• Know when to be hard with yourself and when gentle
• To inspire improvement, offer encouragement, not judgment
• Matter matters, and so does manner
• The truth may be bitter, but it doesn’t have to be told bitterly
• The mind’s complaining about a problem is often a bigger problem than the problem itself
• Chapter 06, Text 36
• Conquer Provocative Mind with Evocative Mantra
• Our days of cowering to the mind are over
• Change of inclination requires not just resolution but also reconstruction
• Chapter 06, Text 38
• The Gita shows the best peak to seek and the best route to reach it
• Chapter 06, Text 40
• On decreasing our emotional distance from the truth
• Worry more about inconsequential intentions than about unintended consequences
• Chapter 06, Text 43
• We can’t undo, but we can rebuild
• Some know at 9 what others don’t know at 59
• Chapter 06, Text 44
• Stop running away from Krishna – run down the mind instead
• We can’t avoid being haunted, but we can choose who haunts us
• The yogi’s transcendence of scripture is not due to defiance or ignorance or negligence but due to scripture’s irrelevance
• Spiritual happiness never goes away – it just pushes us on the way
• Chapter 06, Text 45
• Bhakti is not a part of life; life is a part of bhakti
• Consciousness is recoverable, but time isn’t
• To achieve transformation, see devotion more as intention than as emotion
• Piety when boosted by purity paves the way to spirituality
• Chapter 06, Text 47
• Bhakti transforms our solitary struggle with the mind into a cooperative conquest
• Devotion expands meditation to include emotion and action
• Meditation is defined by not just the mode of thinking, but also the object of thought
• The Gita raises our consciousness from jagat to jiva to Jagadisha
• Meditation on space spaces us out
• Text 11