Gita 06.16 – Take responsibility for determining bodily balance

Bhagavad-gita 6.16 naatya ashnatastu yo ghosti na chai kaan tamal ashnataha na chaati sapna shilasya jaavrtaonai macha arjuna naatya ashnatastu one who eats too much who goes the that the person cannot practice yoga which I can't I'm an ashnata and not your a con the man is that if one goes to the other extreme and eats too little then also one cannot practice yoga chart is the chaati sapna shilasya nor if one ati sapna shilasya if one sleeps too much or jaavrtaonai macha arjuna or if one stays awake for too long so either way one cannot practice yoga so here Krishna is talking about the need for balance why in practicing yoga the purpose of yoga ultimately is to transcend the bodily identification is ultimately to live in the light of our nature as souls but we cannot come to that level overnight and while we are striving to come to that level we need to maintain a balance now these two activities are mentioned are fundamental activities and they are essential for the survival of the body we cannot live without sleeping and we cannot live without eating just as we could say the plants require both water and sunlight for their survival similarly we need both these things and if we don't have these then body itself will not be there for very long and then after that there will be no success in yoga so as we discussed shreeram dharmasadhanam the body is a tool for dharmasadhanam for the pursuit of dharma and the extent the body is disrupted to that extent dharmasadhanam definitely gets disrupted now how do we define here ati ati means extremes excess ati sarvatra varjayet in all things excess needs to be avoided it's a vedic subhashita subhashita is a good saying now nati ashnata sthu here what is being said is with respect to eating not too much not too little not too much sleeping not too little sleeping if we consider the engagement in these activities to be like a pendulum then we could say that this verse is stating that we should avoid both the extremes in the pendulum the extreme of too much or extreme of too less now how much exactly will be too much or how much exactly will be too less will vary according to individual to individual because ultimately each one of us has a distinct body and due to having a distinct body which is of its own nature we will have to some extent different needs and actually we can all make out from our own experience from our own experience we can make out how much is the too much for us when we overeat when we feel sleepy when we feel lethargic we feel completely de-energized after eating and that is a fair indication that we have overindulged similarly with respect to other things also with respect to sleeping in general after sleeping when we wake up we should feel fresh and there will be there is some natural human lethargy about waking up after sleeping we just don't want to we just want to keep on sleeping but overall there is intolerable tiredness then one needs more sleep and on the other hand if we sleep too much then even after sleeping we feel tired we feel lethargic we don't feel rejuvenated by our tiredness we feel we feel irritated bored and unenthused unenergized now with respect to the practice of yoga this is important because you may say that at one level this is simply just basic human requirement that one should be able to balance oneself like this but yes it is a human requirement and this is one of the first lessons we need we do learn in our lives now how much we imbibe may vary according to person to person but you all learn in the harmful effects of excessive eating for example now this has been talked about here especially not just as a general prescription for balanced eating or sleeping but in the context of yoga well so that context of yoga we'll talk about in the next verse and this was discussion let's focus on how do we determine the balance and one criteria could be phale na parichayate we observe the fruit we observe the fruit and we learn by observation now our body is like a vehicle for us and we have to use it no one else is going to use it and no one else can and can handle it for us others can give us some tips about how to handle it and yes there's something is wrong in the body there may be others who are far more expert than us to fix it it's like when a car is damaged we take it to a garage to get it repaired from a mechanic so like that we take the body to a doctor to get it repaired when it has some problems so certainly with respect to technicalities there are others who may know better than us but with respect to the practical living the hands-on driving we could say and it is we who have to do it and to the extent we learn how best our body works what it means and what is too little and what is too much so to the extent we learn that to that extent we'll be able to operate the bodily machine productively effectively now what determines what exactly is the balance you need to know that the balance is something which first of all you have to know that it is my responsibility to learn I can read some books I can I can teach I can talk get some guidance from some guides some counselors but it is once we take responsibility this is my body and handling it most productively is my responsibility once we take up that ownership of the of handling the body effectively then we will also ask and start learning okay this is too much this is too little and by that we can avoid the extremes another important point to recognize is that the state of balance may not always be a frozen balance life is dynamic and because life is dynamic balance also is dynamic it is not that what is the balance state on one day will always be the balance sheet throughout our life sometimes we may have deadlines to meet and that too those times you may sleep less other times you know we may have say we may live in a area where there is famine or for some other reason there is shortage of food and we may endure that so when we talk about dynamic balance that means sometimes one may have to go out of balance so one goes out of balance to eventually return to a state of balance later but the idea is just like if I'm going by cycle the vertical state is a balanced state but if one has to turn right then the tilted state is the right state and then again one has to turn left and again being tilted towards the left is the right state so but once we have turned left and if we stay tilted left then again we can simply go in a circle so the on a cycle the balanced state is not always necessarily a vertical state it can be a tilted state also as long as it keeps us moving so we can have some general principles general plan general principles okay I'll sleep six hours or seven hours or whatever my body needs but beyond that rather than sticking to some rigid rule over a period of time we can we can take inventory and in some cases we may need more in some cases we may need less we may be able to do with less so by observing our own body taking responsibility for learning how to deal with the body and by being willing to be flexible according to the circumstances but keeping in mind that eventually we have to return to the balanced state so that it's like we tilt the cycle green and left but then again bring it vertical so like that we're seeking a dynamic balance we can avoid extremes.