5.6 — The Gita's Meditation Instructions, Practically

Chapter six is a manual, and it is far more concrete than people expect. Where to sit, how to sit, what to do with the mind, what to do when it will not settle, and how much to eat and sleep.

Here it is, in order, in plain English, with the parts that are still good practice separated from the parts that are not.

The setup

In a clean place, having established a firm seat for himself, neither too high nor too low, made of cloth, skin and grass, one over the other.

A dedicated place and a stable seat. The specific materials do not matter; the principle does. A fixed location that you use only for this becomes a cue, and the cue does most of the work after a few weeks. Volume VI's habit chapters say the same thing from the research side.

There, having made the mind one-pointed, with the actions of the mind and senses controlled, seated on the seat, he should practise yoga for self-purification.

Holding the body, head and neck erect and still, gazing at the tip of his nose without looking around.

Upright, still, eyes soft and not roaming. The erect spine is practical rather than mystical: a slumped posture produces drowsiness and an over-rigid one produces strain, and every tradition that meditates arrives at the same instruction independently.

The gaze at the nose-tip is best read as eyes half-open and unfocused, which is a real technique — it prevents both the sleepiness of closed eyes and the distraction of open ones.

The middle way, three centuries before the Buddha's version was written down

The single most practical verse in the chapter:

Yoga is not for one who eats too much, nor for one who does not eat at all; not for one who sleeps too much, nor for one who stays awake too long.

For one who is moderate in eating and recreation, moderate in effort in actions, moderate in sleep and waking, yoga becomes the destroyer of suffering.

The Gita explicitly rejects austerity as a method. Not fasting, not sleep deprivation, not extreme effort. Moderate in food, moderate in sleep, moderate in effort, moderate in recreation.

This is the same finding the Buddha reaches in 6.3 after nearly starving himself to death, and it is the point at which the two traditions agree most exactly. Both of them looked at the ascetic practice that dominated their world and concluded it does not work.

The instruction itself

Let him gradually attain quietude by the intellect held firmly; having made the mind established in the self, let him not think of anything else.

Whenever the restless and unsteady mind wanders away, let him restrain it and bring it back under the control of the self.

That is the whole technique. The mind wanders, you notice, you bring it back.

And the second verse is the important one, because it tells you that wandering is expected. The instruction is not "do not wander." It is "when you wander, return." The returning is the practice; there is no version where the wandering stops happening.

This one sentence solves the problem that stops most people meditating — the belief that a wandering mind means they are failing at it. You are not failing. That is the exercise.

Arjuna's objection, and the answer

Arjuna interrupts and says the thing everybody thinks:

The mind is restless, turbulent, powerful and obstinate. To control it, I think, is as difficult as controlling the wind.

Krishna's answer is unusually plain and does not argue:

Undoubtedly the mind is restless and hard to restrain. But by practice and by non-attachment it can be held.

Two words: abhyasa — repeated practice — and vairagya — not grasping.

Notice what is not in the answer. No claim that it is easy. No promise of quick results. No technique beyond doing it repeatedly. He simply agrees that it is hard and says it works anyway.

The three-minute version

The Gita does not give one, so here it is, derived from the above, for a life with no spare hours.

Sit down where you always sit. Spine upright, eyes half-closed and unfocused, hands still.

One minute: just feel the breath at the nostrils. Not controlling it. Noticing where it is coolest on the way in.

One minute: count. In, one. Out, two. Up to ten, then start again. When you notice you are at forty-three or thinking about work, start again at one, without commentary.

One minute: stop counting and just sit. Whatever arrives, notice it and return.

That is it, and Volume VI Part 7 has the full guided versions for breath, body scan, noting, loving-kindness and sleep, which are considerably more detailed than anything in the Gita.

The two questions Arjuna asks that nobody else asks

The chapter ends with two questions that are worth having, because they are the ones that stop people.

What happens to someone who tries and fails?

What happens to the one who has faith but is not diligent, whose mind wanders from yoga, and who fails to reach perfection? Does he perish, fallen from both, like a scattered cloud?

The question underneath: I might spend my life on this, get nowhere, and have neither the ordinary life nor the achievement. That is a real fear and it applies far beyond meditation.

Krishna's answer: No one who does good comes to a bad end. Nothing done in this direction is lost, and the effort carries forward.

Whether or not you accept the metaphysics, the practical version holds and is worth having: partial progress in the right direction is not wasted, and the fear of ending up with nothing is nearly always wrong. The person who meditated inconsistently for five years is not in the same state as the person who never started, and they know it.

Who is the highest?

The last verse of the chapter, and it is a surprise:

Of all yogis, the one who worships me with faith, with the inner self absorbed in me, is the most closely united with me.

After a whole chapter of technique — posture, seat, gaze, diet, sleep, breath control — the chapter's final verdict goes to devotion, not technique.

That is the Gita's characteristic move and it happens repeatedly. It gives you a rigorous method and then says the method is not the point. 5.7 is what it hands over to.

What is not in the Gita's meditation

Worth saying, because a great deal gets attributed to it.

No chakras, no kundalini, no visualisations, no mantras beyond the syllable Om, no breath retention exercises, and no elaborate physical postures. The Gita's yoga is sitting still and returning the attention. The physical yoga most people mean by the word is a much later development, and 9.5 covers Patanjali's system, which is closer to what people expect and is also mostly not about postures.

What to carry from this page

Fixed place, upright spine, soft gaze, moderate in food and sleep. The setup is most of it.

The wandering is the exercise. You notice and return. There is no state in which you stop having to.

It is hard, and it works anyway, and the only two ingredients are repetition and not grasping at results — which is 5.3 arriving inside the meditation instruction, and is why the two chapters are the same teaching.

And nothing in this direction is wasted. Partial is not nothing, which is the answer to the fear that actually stops people.

Next: 5.7 — the third route, which the text keeps calling the easiest and which is the hardest to write about honestly.