Bhagavad-Gita: Chapter 06

Notes: Here āsana is a seat, a throne, a sitting posture, and importantly, a stable internal seating for practice. It exists in a pure space, undefiled by engrossment with the world of duality and desire. It is neither too high or too low, nor too active or too passive. This seating is like a soft cloth placed atop sharp blades of kuśa-grass; and the true āsana is a state of comprehensive balance between the polarities of the world of duality. The fabric is the unifying softness, the blades of grass are the specifying sharpness, and the yogi is seated in purity as the deconstructor and integrator of existence. The prescription in this verse should be understood and applied both externally and internally.

Notes: The cultivation of ekāgra or singular attention is central to the practice of yoga. In Patanjali's classic formulation, this process unfolds over four major phases: Initial pratyāhāra, the withdrawal of consciousness from externality; a basis for dhāraṇā, the mental retention of the object of concentration; leading to dhyāna, the profound and effortless flow of contemplation; and into samādhi, the unification of the mental field with the object. This initial unification of consciousness is progressively refined over the stages of recursive vitarka, reflective vicāra, intuitive ānanda, and self-imploding asmitā, and ultimately reaches nirvikalpa-samādhi, an invariant union marked by the categorical dissolution of polarized boundaries.

Notes: The term nāsikāgra or the "summit of the nose" is sometimes interpreted as the tip of the nose. However, a downward or forward-directed gaze associates the mind with the active sphere of external attention. In here, directing our inner gaze toward the nasal bridge or the "third eye", our awareness is drawn toward an internal realm, a cerebral dream state, and the subconscious mind, and we achieve a better introspective orientation. The Sanskrit term for the spinal cord is meru-daṇḍa, the "world-mountain pole", in reference to the mythic axis mundi of mount Meru. Cerebrospinal alignment upholds the imperturbable balance of our inner axis and supports the encircling harmonic flow and arrangement of our internal elements.

Notes: While the term brahmacāri-vrata is conventionally translated as "vow of celibacy", the word brahmacāri literally means "spirit-farer", and refers categorically to an attitude and conduct characterized by withdrawal from the pursuits of fragmented desire. Fear and insecurity are the products of misperception, misidentification, and illusory fixation — or absorption in the oscillation of dualities. In this and the subsequent verses, the speaker refers to "me", and it is well for us to understand this pronoun in reference to the ultimate reality that incarnates through the consummate being of absolute union. The realm and state of the speaker is our existential objective — there is no separate "another" to be adored and venerated from a distance.

Notes: As the mind of the yogi becomes increasingly regulated and contained, his connection with the self becomes increasingly constant. Disconnection results from the distracting outflows of the unregulated mind. The pristine self exists independent of an external context, as a transcendent and ever-accessible reality. Therefore, in all places, and at all times, the yogi may abide in connection — not only when seated in concentrated solitude. Such perpetual connection leads to the peace of the supreme subsiding (nirvāṇa). Impure outflows run dry in the absence of their generative fountain — the flame of craving snuffs out in lack of fuel. Where the impure heat and light of fractured desire no longer burn and blind the yogi, he ascends and transcends into the quiescence of absolute union.