Dhyāna (ध्यान)
Dhyāna is the specific meditative technique the Gita’s sixth chapter lays out step by step, not a general mood of stillness: a clean, secluded seat established firmly at a height neither too high nor too low (BG 6.11), body, head, and neck held erect and motionless, the gaze fixed unseeingly at the tip of the nose (BG 6.13). Moderation in eating, activity, and sleep belongs to the same discipline, not a separate rule of life, and the whole apparatus exists for one purpose: training a mind that constantly wanders to hold its seat, then return to it, over and over, until it does.
Arjuna’s doubt, and a discipline that nothing wastes
Immediately after the instructions, Arjuna objects that the mind is as hard to hold as the wind (BG 6.34) — answering Krishna’s own image of the untroubled lamp in a windless place (BG 6.19) with its mirror opposite. Krishna doesn’t dispute the premise; he concedes it outright and names the only two tools available: abhyāsa, repeated practice, and vairāgya, dispassion (BG 6.35). Arjuna then pushes further, asking what becomes of someone who has faith and tries but dies before perfecting the discipline. Krishna’s answer is unusually warm for how directive this text tends to be elsewhere: no destruction, in this world or the next (BG 6.40); the understanding already built carries forward into the next life, and effort accumulates across rebirths until dhyāna’s goal is finally reached (BG 6.45). Sincere but incomplete practice is treated here as a normal case to be reassured about, not a failure requiring correction.
Related
- Yoga (योग) — the chapter uses “yoga” for both dhyana as a technique and for the accomplished state it produces; dhyana is the specific means, yoga is sometimes that means and sometimes its end.
- Abhyasa (अभ्यास) — chapter 12 later names abhyasa as a general fallback principle of repeated practice for anyone who can’t sustain a harder ideal; dhyana is the specific, fully-detailed technique chapter 6 already assumes that kind of repetition will be applied to, worked out before the general principle gets its own name.
Verses that reference this
Having external contacts excluded, and with gaze fixed between the eyebrows; having made equal the outgoing and ingoing breaths moving within the nostrils;
With senses, mind, and Reason ever controlled, solely pursuing liberation, the Sage, having for ever cast away desire, fear and passion, verily is liberated.
Let the Yogi constantly engage himself in yoga, remaining in a secret place by himself, with thought and self subdued, free from hope and greed.
In a pure place, established on a fixed seat of his own, neither very much raised nor very low, made of a cloth, a black antelope skin, and kusha grass, one over the other;
There, having made the mind one-pointed, with thought and the functions of the senses subdued, steady on his seat, he should practise yoga for the purification of the self.
Holding the body, head and neck erect, immovably steady, looking fixedly at the point of the nose, with unseeing gaze,
The self serene, fearless, firm in the vow of the Brahmachari, the mind controlled, thinking on Me, harmonised, let him sit aspiring after Me.
The Yogi ever united thus with the Self, with the mind controlled, goeth to Peace, to the supreme Bliss that abideth in Me.
Verily yoga is not for him who eateth too much, nor who abstaineth to excess, nor who is too much addicted to sleep, nor even to wakefulness, O Arjuna.
Yoga killeth out all pain for him who is regulated in eating and amusement, regulated in performing actions, regulated in sleeping and waking.
When his subdued thought is fixed on the Self, free from longing after all desirable things, then it is said, "he is harmonised."
As a lamp in a windless place flickereth not, to such is likened the Yogi of subdued thought, absorbed in the yoga of the Self.
That in which the mind finds rest, quieted by the practice of yoga: that in which he, seeing the Self by the Self, in the Self is satisfied;
That in which he findeth the supreme delight which the Reason can grasp beyond the senses, wherein established he moveth not from the Reality;
Which, having obtained, he thinketh there is no greater gain beyond it; wherein, established, he is not shaken even by heavy sorrow;
That should be known by the name of yoga, this disconnection from the union with pain. This yoga must be clung to with a firm conviction and with undesponding mind.
Abandoning without reserve all desires born of the imagination, by the mind curbing in the aggregate of the senses on every side,
Little by little let him gain tranquillity, by means of Reason controlled by steadiness; having made the mind abide in the Self, let him not think of anything.
As often as the wavering and unsteady mind goeth forth, so often reining it in, let him bring it under the control of the Self.
Supreme joy is for this Yogi whose mind is peaceful, whose passion-nature is calmed, who is sinless and of the nature of the Eternal.
The Yogi who thus, ever harmonising the self, hath put away sin, he easily enjoyeth the infinite bliss of contact with the Eternal.
This yoga which Thou hast declared to be by equanimity, O Madhusudana, I see not a stable foundation for it, owing to restlessness;
For the mind is verily restless, O Krishna; it is impetuous, strong and difficult to bend. I deem it as hard to curb as the wind.
Without doubt, O mighty-armed, the mind is hard to curb and restless; but it may be curbed by constant practice and by dispassion.
Yoga is hard to attain, methinks, by a self that is uncontrolled; but by the Self-controlled it is attainable by properly directed energy.
Dwelling in solitude, abstemious, speech, body and mind subdued, constantly fixed in meditation and yoga, taking refuge in dispassion,