Gita 06.18 – Self-control leads to real self-awareness

Thank you yada vinyatam chittam atmanyevavatishthate nesprayasarvakame vyoyuktaityuchyate tadam this is Bhagavad Gita 6.18 yada vinyatam chittam at the time when vinyatam chittam the consciousness is vinyatam it is brought under control atmanyevavatishthate atmanyevavatishthate in the soul one becomes situated nesprayasarvakame vyoyuktaityuchyate tadam nesprayasarvakame one becomes free from desires sarvakame vyoyuktaityuchyate tadam all from all kinds of desires yuktaityuchyate tadam at that point one is yukta well situated yuktaity so now what exactly is Krishna saying over here the word yukta has been used repeatedly in the Bhagavad Gita but one should be yukta was stated in the previous verse now when can one be said to be yukta is stated in this verse such a person is said to be yukta such a person is said to be harmonized Krishna has used the same quarter verse yuktaityuchyate tadam in 6.8 yana vijnana truptatma kutastha vijitendriya yuktaityuchyate yogi samalosh rashmakanchana yuktaityuchyate yogi, it is not exactly the same verse, yogi is said to be yukta and here it is yuktaityuchyate tadam more or less the same so there the focus was on how the yogi is equipoised towards everything and at time the yogi can be said to be yukta so here the focus is on the cessation or the termination of material existence chittam chitta the soul's consciousness that is directed towards matter it's the consciousness that is rooted through matter so the consciousness that is rooted in matter goes in various kinds, various directions seeking pleasure in various ways but when one brings it under control and one brings it situated on the self atmanya so essentially one becomes self aware so now self awareness is a word that is often used and then it may just mean be aware of what you are thinking be aware of what you are doing, be aware of where you are sitting how you are sitting these are all one level of self awareness and often we are not aware of at this level also and it's good to be aware at this level but actually self awareness doesn't just mean what I am doing at the bodily level, self awareness means being aware of who I am as the self so as long as we are caught by material desires we cannot be because the material desires propel our consciousness, propel our awareness towards the objects that will objects attaining which will comprise the fulfillment of our material desires so if one has the desire to eat a particular delicacy then one is aware of the delicacy of when will I get a gulab jamun, how will the gulab jamun taste, how many gulab jamuns will I get so like that the awareness goes into that particular sense object and the awareness doesn't stay on the self but when when one is given up all desires then one can be yukta one can be properly situated in yoga so now in this particular process Krishna's emphasis has been on the determined situation in a state of distance from material entanglement the previous was talked about how yoga bhavati dukkha by the practice of yoga one will become free from misery now what exactly the station of yoga that is talked about in this verse so just like a person who has some germs in the body and those germs as long as they are controlling the body the person is afflicted by disease so when one takes a medicine and by the medicine the germs get out of the system and then the person starts at least experiencing no longer the pain of the disease then that person can be said to be situated in health although health is also a journey and health can also be improved but still and the disease and its symptoms are gone the germs are gone internally and its symptoms in terms of the pain or discomfort externally is gone then one can be said to be situated in health similarly Krishna is telling over here the diseased material which keep the soul agitated with the anxiety with the misery of craving for temporary material things when the soul becomes free from that anxiety from that agitation then along with that the soul's consciousness also becomes free from obsession with matter and one becomes free to focus on spirit, to contemplate the spirit and to realize the spirit, to relish in the spirit that relishing part we talked about by Krishna in a few verses from 20th onwards when he talks about the stage of samadhi in yoga so here Krishna is primarily stating that by the regulation of the consciousness and when situation in the self situation in the self means situation in self-awareness and by breaking free from those things which spoil one's self-awareness just like if we are concentrated in studying and then suddenly some phone starts ringing irritating beep comes up then what we do is we silence it because we want to focus on the study, so like that desires desires are like irritating distracting beeps which take us away from our focus of what we want to do and what we are doing what requires absorption so like that yoga enables us to focus on Krishna the practice of yoga along with the cessation of material desires enables us to focus on the higher spiritual purpose that we want to achieve and we can realize and relish that being situated in the higher spiritual reality there is a symmetry what is this yada tada correlation that the yogi who is does having control the mind being situated in the self, situated in self-awareness and having fought off, resisted rejected the desires that spoil one's self-awareness then that yogi can be said to be is well situated is properly engaged in yoga.