Self-Control

Yes, spiritual discipline is necessary.

When this one withdraws the senses completely from sense-objects, as a tortoise draws all its limbs inward — then the wisdom of such a person is firmly established.

One whose mind is undisturbed in sorrow, who feels no longing for pleasure, who is free from passion, fear, and anger — such a sage is called a person of stable wisdom.

For the mind is restless, O Krishna — turbulent, powerful, and obstinate. To restrain it, I think, is as difficult as taming the wind.

Therefore, O best of the Bharatas, first restrain the senses and then slay this sinful one — the destroyer of knowledge and direct experience.

In every sense and its object, attraction and aversion are seated. One should not come under the sway of either of these two — for both are this one's adversaries on the path.

But one who controls the senses with the mind and then undertakes karma yoga through the organs of action, unattached — that person, O Arjuna, is distinguished.

One who sits outwardly restraining the organs of action while inwardly dwelling on sense-objects — that deluded person is called a hypocrite.

Therefore, O mighty-armed one, the wisdom of that person whose senses are fully restrained from their objects in every way — is firmly established.

When the mind follows whichever sense among the roaming senses it obeys, that sense carries away wisdom just as the wind carries a ship upon the waters.

Restraining all of them, one should sit in yoga, intent on Me. For one whose senses are under control — wisdom is established in that person.

Absence of pride, absence of deceit, non-violence, patience, uprightness, service to the teacher, purity, steadiness, and self-restraint —

Restraining all the senses, equal-minded in all circumstances, rejoicing in the welfare of every being — they too attain me.

And who and how is the adhiyajna here in this body, O Madhusudana? And at the time of death, how are You to be known by the self-controlled?

Yoga is hard to attain for one whose mind is ungoverned — this is my conviction. But for one who strives with a disciplined self, it is achievable through the right means.

The sage whose senses, mind, and intellect are controlled, who is wholly set on liberation, from whom desire, fear, and anger have departed — that one is always and already free.

But one of disciplined self, moving among sense-objects with senses freed from attraction and aversion and held under personal command — attains inner serenity.

Even for a person of discernment who strives earnestly, O son of Kunti, the turbulent senses can violently carry away the mind.

Sense-objects fall away from one who abstains from feeding the senses, yet the taste for them lingers; even that taste departs once one has beheld the Supreme.

Restraining all the gates of the senses, holding the mind within the heart, drawing the life-breath up to the crown of the head — established thus in yogic concentration —