It is difficult indeed to grasp the meaning of this so-called contradictory placement of values, that 'Atmavinigraha' is the precondition of 'Atmasakshatkara'. But the difficulty vanishes like mist before the sun if we are to understand what this Atman, or Self, is, what we really mean by the Self that we are supposed to restrain and to realise.

The Atman which is to be controlled and the Atman which is to be realised are not two different Atmans. It is one and the same Atman or Self that is to be restrained in one of its aspects and is to be realised in another of its aspects. What, then, is the peculiar side of the Atman which is to be checked, put down under 'Vinigraha' which is supposed to be the means, and which actually is what we call the practice of Yoga?

The practice of Yoga is the same as 'Atma-samyama', or self-control. While Yoga is defined as union or the coming together of the essence of one with the essence of another, it also means all the pre-requisites and the preconditions necessary for the achievement of this purpose. So, Yoga is both the means and the end. It is the means that we adopt as well as the goal that we reach. Both these are defined by a single term, 'Yoga'.

While Yoga means union, let us leave aside for the time being the question of the definition of what this union means. While it means 'union', it also means 'withdrawal'. To use two significant terms of the Bhagavadgita itself, we may say that the Yoga of the Bhagavadgita is 'Vairagya' and 'Abhyasa' put together in a beautiful blend. These two terms occur in the Gita itself, in the Sixth Chapter. 'Vairagya' and 'Abhyasa' constitute the Yoga of the Gita, and it is a little delicate to use the word 'and' between the two terms, because they are not two different things as water-tight compartments. They are two facets of the same crystal of the practice or, we may say, they are like the obverse and reverse of the same coin. At one stroke, instantaneously, we are supposed to be capable of practising 'Vairagya' and 'Abhyasa', not that we have to do 'Vairagya' today and 'Abhyasa' tomorrow. There is not even the difference of the least time duration between the one practice and the other. They are simultaneous, and we have to be an expert in bringing about this real Yoga, or union, of 'Vairagya' and 'Abhyasa' in our practical day-to-day life. At every moment of life we must be experts, adepts, and adroit in 'Abhyasa' as well as 'Vairagya'. We have to be withdrawn and we have to be, at the same time, concentrated. This is the meaning of the practice of 'non-attachment' and 'steadfastness' as the principle behind this Yoga of the Bhagavadgita. It means that we have to be very vigilant. We cannot be wool-gathering at any time. The Yogis, even those who are only aspiring to tread this path, cannot afford to forget the importance of this requirement. One has always to be cautious. 'Pramada' or forgetfulness, or weakness, is regarded as a great error, a blunder indeed, in this great journey of the soul to its perfection. So, expertness in the art bringing together 'Vairagya' and 'Abhyasa' is a necessity, something unavoidable. And, sometimes, the Gita tells us that this expertness in the conducting of oneself in life is itself Yoga: Yogah karmasu kausalam. It is the capacity that you exhibit in your day-to-day life, to tune yourself to every condition, that is Yoga; because every condition is a timeless occurrence, from the point of view of the message of the Gita.

While we appear to be living in time, in a succession of instances of duration, we are perpetually in contact with a timeless meaning that is hidden behind this duration of the time process in which we seem to be involved. We are never cut off from the vitality of the timeless, so that we cannot say that we are out of touch with the presence of God at any time, even in our lowest of levels, even in a fallen condition. There is no such thing as falling from God. It cannot be.

The practice of this 'Atma-samyama-yoga,' which is the meaning of the Sixth Chapter of the Bhagavadgita, is, therefore, conditioned by certain disciplinary processes which will make one fit to become expert in the blending together of 'Vairagya' and 'Abhyasa'. At the very commencing admonition of the Chapter we are given a succinct definition of this pre-condition, this necessary discipline that has to be the practice.

Yam sannyasamiti prahur yogam tam viddhi pandava,
Na hyasannyastasankalpo yogi bhavati kaschana.

Sannyasa is defined here as the relinquishment of an attitude of the will or the psychological organism within. It is something very difficult to grasp, again. Sannyasa is described in the Bhagavadgita in a novel fashion, something about which many would not have thought properly. You would not have bestowed sufficient thought on this aspect of the definition of Sannyasa. 'Sankalpa-tyaga' is regarded as Sannyasa, which means the renunciation of the usual habit of the desireful will of the individual, and a harnessing of this potency of the will towards the practice is 'Abhyasa'. This is called Yoga. The withholding of the flow of the current of the will in the direction of multitudes of perfections by which the energy of the individual is dissipated and the harnessing of this energy that is so conserved for the purpose of the practice of meditation is the essence of the Yoga of the Bhagavadgita.

So you have to perform a double feat at the same time, the withdrawal of your personality, the controlling of your will, the renunciation of the creative habit of the psychological organ, and the tuning of this controlled energy thus acquired for the purpose of concentrating one's total being on the totality which is the goal, or the aim of Yoga. This is the deep philosophical meaning of this verse referred to above. No Yoga is possible where the separatist will is allowed to affirm itself as an isolated reality.

And the Chapter goes on in a little detail, giving us some more information about how we can actually try to make ourselves fit in our daily life for this unique practice. This has been stated in some of the following verses of the very same Chapter, perhaps the immediately succeeding one tells us something very meaningful:

Arurukshor muner yogam karma karanam uchyate,
Yogarudhasya tasyai'va samah karanam uchyate.

There is, generally, a feeling, even among advanced seekers on the path of the life spiritual, that, evidently there is a vast difference between the life of withdrawal and the life of activity in the world, an attitude which is the primary cause behind the unfortunate problems that face mankind today, the problem of a conflict, as it were, between religion and social life, which is the very thing that the Bhagavadgita tries to solve, the problem which it wishes to break through completely. In this verse cited there is a clue to the meaning of this technique:

At the outset, when you are starting, when you commence this great Yoga of spiritual living, which is the Yoga of living in general action is supposed to be the means, 'karma karanam uchyate'; and when you ascend higher and reach an advanced or particularly accentuated state, serenity is supposed to be the means, samah karanam uchyate .

These words 'samah' and 'karma', serenity and activity, have been variously commented upon and interpreted by different authors, as if they mean two contradictory things altogether, as if the Gita is going to tell you that the higher state is bereft of the principle of action. But this is precisely what the Gita would refute. The Gita gives us various definitions of 'karma', and while it rises from the lower to the higher stages in a beautiful gamut of ascent, it does not disregard the significant values of any lower stage, so that it would be proper to hold that the Yoga of the Bhagavadgita is a growth of personality into the various degrees of perfection, rather than an attempt which would involve a rejection of any significant meaning in life or an abandonment of any truly existing value. It is, to an extent, like the growth of an individual from childhood to the adult condition, where the growth does not imply loss of personality or abandonment of any value that is worth the while, but is an absorption of values in a higher meaning, so that at every higher level, one is a gainer and not a loser. Thus, at every stage of this practice, call it 'karma', or 'sama', whatever be the word you may use to signify its meaning, you are going to rise to a higher level of greater comprehensiveness and inclusiveness wherein all living values of the lower stages are sublimated in a quintessential essence.

Let the fear go from the minds of people that the approach to God may mean a loss of the values or the pleasures of life. Though, intellectually, you may say, 'Yes, we understand this,' the heart has a reason which reason does not know. Your heart revolts against this intellectual conviction and rational deduction that the approach to God does not mean any loss of values. The heart tells you: 'My dear friend, you are going to lose something,' and, therefore, there is a reluctance on the part of even a sincere person to tread the path of God in its real meaning; and one cannot avoid being a little bit of a hypocrite in one's inner personality, even in the presence of this most high Divine Being, the All-pervading Omniscience. The heart does not really want God, fully. This has to be accepted by everyone who is honest and sincere. Wanting God implies a special attitude which we are not prepared to adopt, because of wrong notion of the very meaning of God, a tradition into which we have been introduced from our childhood, in spite of the repeated hammering by saints and sages that God is all-pervading, and is the All. 'May be He is all-pervading, I know it very well. He is here under my very nose. I accept it, but my heart tells me another thing, my sub-conscious weeps behind the veils at the very name of God, because it has a subtle suspicion that the bliss of God does not include the pleasures of life', 'If this is so, I have to think thrice before I take the step', retorts the mind.

The Bhagavadgita tells us, Friend, the bliss of God does not exclude the pleasures of life, though the bliss of God is totally different in kind from all that you can regard as the pleasures of life. Everything that is worthwhile in life is included here, and if you think that the pleasures of life are also worthwhile, they too are included there, but not in the way you conceive of the pleasures. The distortion and the error that is involved in what you call the pleasures of life is eliminated from the perfection that is the bliss of God. Would you like to carry some error and distortion also in your life, into the goal that you are aspiring for? Would you like perfection or distortion?

The pleasures of life, whatever be the degree of these pleasures, are a drop of the Divine bliss involved in a complete distortion of meaning, which aspect the Yoga tries to eliminate so that the purity of the bliss is retained and the divinity aspect present in it is brought to relief. The aspect of divinity and perfection present even in the worst of things becomes a means to the rise of the soul to its great goal, and it is this that makes one see beauty and happiness even in ugliness and pain.