Self-Care
Before chapter 6 gets to seat, posture, and gaze, it makes a claim that’s easy to read past: you are responsible for not letting yourself sink, and the body’s basic maintenance — food, rest, recreation — is treated as a precondition for the practice that follows, not a separate concern from it.
Don’t let yourself sink
BG 6.5 states the instruction directly: raise the self by the Self, and do not let the self become depressed. The verse is built on a single word doing double duty — higher and lower self are grammatically the same noun — and the practical reading is straightforward: whether you end up lifted or depleted is framed as something you have real agency over, not something that simply happens to you.
Neither extreme
BG 6.16 rules out overindulgence and excessive abstinence in the same breath — too much food, too little food, too much sleep, too little sleep are named as equally disqualifying. This is worth noticing specifically because ascetic overcorrection (doing without, on principle) fails the same test as indulgence does. The target is neither extreme.
Regulation across three separate domains
BG 6.17 names the positive version: yoga “killeth out all pain” for one who is regulated in eating and recreation, in action, and in sleeping and waking — three distinct areas, not one vague notion of self-care. Treated as a checklist rather than a mood, it’s a useful audit: which of these three is actually out of regulation right now, specifically.
Related
- Atman — the self named as both the agent responsible for this care and its intended beneficiary in 6.5’s “raise the self by the Self.”
Relevant Shlokas
Let him raise the self by the Self and not let the self become depressed; for verily is the Self the friend of the self, and also the Self the self's enemy;
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.
Practical Lessons
- 6.5 gives a direct instruction that's easy to skip past: raise yourself, and don't let yourself become depressed ('nātmānam avasādayet'). This is stated as a responsibility, not a mood to wait out — you are explicitly named as your own resource for this, not someone else's job.
- 6.16 rules out both directions of failure at once — yoga isn't for the person who overeats, and it isn't for the person who starves themselves either. Excess in either direction, not just indulgence, is treated as the problem.
- 6.17's regulation ('yukta') applies to eating and recreation, action, and sleep — three separate domains named individually rather than lumped under one vague idea of 'taking care of yourself.' Each one is worth checking on its own, not just in aggregate.
- The order of the material matters: the Gita puts basic bodily regulation before the meditation instructions that follow it in the chapter, not after. Care for the body isn't a reward for progress in practice — it's named as a precondition for the practice to work at all.
Related Topics
Discipline
The Gita frames discipline not as restriction but as regulation — a one-pointed mind built through steady practice, not willpower alone.
Self-Growth & StrengthSelf-Control
The Gita's self-control isn't willpower applied once — it's a named technique for a mind that will wander repeatedly, aimed specifically at the senses rather than at behavior in general.
Self-Growth & StrengthBalance
The Gita's word for balance is also its word for yoga — evenness of mind toward pleasure and pain, success and failure, is named as the discipline itself, not a pleasant side effect of it.
Self-Growth & Strength