The sixth chapter completes the first movement by turning inward to the discipline of the mind. Krishna begins by continuing the redefinition of renunciation: the true sannyasin and the true Yogin are one and the same, for he is the renouncer who does the work that must be done without leaning upon its fruit. Yoga is thus not a rejection of action but the lifting of the whole being into union. Yet if action is to be wholly free, the restless instrument of the mind must first be mastered.
The self, says Krishna, is both the friend and the enemy of the self. When the lower nature governs, a man is dragged by desire, fear, inertia and the unquiet imagination; when the higher self governs, the same being becomes his own ally and support (6·5). Sri Aurobindo reads this as the practical psychology of the Yoga. The seeker must rise from the surface personality to the calm inner being and establish equality in heat and cold, pleasure and pain, honour and dishonour, friend and foe.
Krishna then gives the discipline of meditation: a pure and quiet place, a steady seat, the body held upright, a regulated life, a controlled mind, and concentration turned upon the Self. Moderation is essential. This Yoga is not for one who eats too much or too little, who sleeps too much or keeps too vigilant a watch (6·16). The Gita deliberately avoids violent ascetic extremes and seeks instead a firm, balanced self-mastery able to sustain both spiritual realisation and a life of action.
The fruit of the discipline is equal vision. The Yogin sees the Self in all beings and all beings in the Self; he sees the Divine everywhere and all things in the Divine, and to him who thus sees the Divine in all and all in the Divine, the Divine is never lost nor is he ever lost to the Divine (6·30). This is the bridge from knowledge to devotion, for the realisation of oneness is no cold abstraction but becomes a living relation to the Divine present in every creature, and action from such a consciousness can no longer be egoistic in the ordinary sense.
When Arjuna objects that the mind is restless and as hard to hold as the wind, Krishna agrees but answers that it can yet be mastered by steady practice and detachment. And when Arjuna asks what becomes of the soul that strives but fails in the Yoga, Krishna assures him that no effort is ever lost; the soul takes up its progress again through a favourable birth and a renewed aspiration. This gives the whole path a vast evolutionary patience.
The chapter ends with a decisive ranking that is the seed of the second movement. The Yogin is greater than the ascetic, greater than the man of knowledge, greater than the doer of works; and among all Yogins the greatest is the one who loves the Divine with faith and gives his inmost self to him (6·47). The first six chapters have founded works and knowledge; now the Gita must reveal the Divine who is to be loved, known and served.
