The Gita in daily life
A mind that will not stay on the page
I sit down to study and my mind goes everywhere. How do I concentrate?
I sit down to study and my mind goes everywhere. How do I concentrate?
Arjuna makes this exact complaint at 6.34: the mind is restless, it churns everything up, it is strong and stubborn, and holding it seems as hard as holding the wind. Krishna does not argue. At 6.35 he agrees that it is restless and hard to hold, and says it comes under control by abhyasa, steady practice, and by letting go of wanting. 6.26 gives the method in one line: wherever the mind wanders off to, bring it back from there. What is prescribed is repetition, not a technique that ends the problem.
Hansi Gita Bhawan Trust · from the Bhagavad Gita
The first useful thing is simply that the complaint is in the text, and that it is made by Arjuna. He has just been given a long description of meditation and he says, in effect, that it cannot be done. The answer at 6.35 refuses both of the easy positions available. It does not say concentration is easy for those who want it enough, and it does not agree that the thing is impossible. It says: yes, hard, and it yields to practice. A student who has been told all his life that he lacks willpower is being told something different here.
6.26 is the instruction that carries the most weight, and its plainness is the point. Wherever the mind has wandered to, from there draw it back. There is no scolding in it and no theory. 6.24 and 6.25 place it in a sequence: let go of the desires your own plans keep generating, hold the senses in, and come to rest little by little. And 2.60 is worth reading before you decide you are uniquely weak. It says the senses carry away the mind even of a discerning man who is making the effort. Distraction is described there as a feature of having senses, not as a defect of character.
The Gita also says one practical thing that sits oddly close to exam advice, and it is worth taking at face value. 6.16 and 6.17 rule out too much food and too little, too much sleep and none, and ask for measure in the effort put into work. 18.33 calls the steadiness that holds mind, breath and senses in place sattvic. What the text does not offer is a study method. It has nothing to say about what to revise or how to plan a paper, and a student who needs that should get it from someone who teaches the subject.
In the Gita’s own words
Where this comes from.
Bhagavad Gita 6.34Arjuna
चञ्चलं हि मनः कृष्ण प्रमाथि बलवद्दृढम् ।
तस्याहं निग्रहं मन्ये वायोरिव सुदुष्करम् ॥The mind is restless, Krishna; it churns everything up, it is strong and stubborn. Holding it back seems to me as hard as holding back the wind.
Arjuna’s own complaint: the mind is restless and stubborn, and holding it is like holding the wind. The difficulty is admitted inside the text, by the student.
Bhagavad Gita 6.35Shri Bhagavan
असंशयं महाबाहो मनो दुर्निग्रहं चलम् ।
अभ्यासेन तु कौन्तेय वैराग्येण च गृह्यते ॥There is no doubt, Arjuna, that the mind is restless and hard to hold. But by steady practice, Kaunteya, and by letting go of wanting, it is brought under control.
The answer, which concedes the difficulty and then names two means: steady practice and letting go of wanting. No shortcut is offered in its place.
Bhagavad Gita 6.26Shri Bhagavan
यतो यतो निश्चरति मनश्चञ्चलमस्थिरम् ।
ततस्ततो नियम्यैतदात्मन्येव वशं नयेत् ॥Wherever the restless and unsteady mind wanders off to, from there he should draw it back and bring it under the self again.
The method itself, in one sentence: wherever the mind wanders, bring it back from there. The returning is the practice, not the interruption of it.
Bhagavad Gita 2.60Shri Bhagavan
यततो ह्यपि कौन्तेय पुरुषस्य विपश्चितः ।
इन्द्रियाणि प्रमाथीनि हरन्ति प्रसभं मनः ॥Kaunteya, the senses are turbulent, and they carry away the mind even of a discerning man who is trying.
The senses carry away the mind even of a discerning man who is trying. Worth reading before concluding that your own distraction is a private weakness.
Bhagavad Gita 2.67Shri Bhagavan
इन्द्रियाणां हि चरतां यन्मनोऽनुविधीयते ।
तदस्य हरति प्रज्ञां वायुर्नावमिवाम्भसि ॥For when the mind follows after the wandering senses, it carries off a man's understanding, as the wind carries off a boat on the water.
The mind following the wandering senses carries off understanding as wind carries off a boat on water. An image of what a distracted hour actually costs.
Bhagavad Gita 6.17Shri Bhagavan
युक्ताहारविहारस्य युक्तचेष्टस्य कर्मसु ।
युक्तस्वप्नावबोधस्य योगो भवति दुःखहा ॥For the man who is measured in eating and in rest, measured in the effort he puts into work, measured in sleep and waking, yoga becomes the end of sorrow.
Measure in food, in rest, in sleep and waking, and in effort. The Gita is unusually practical here, and it applies directly to the weeks before an examination.
Bhagavad Gita 18.33Shri Bhagavan
धृत्या यया धारयते मनःप्राणेन्द्रियक्रियाः ।
योगेनाव्यभिचारिण्या धृतिः सा पार्थ सात्त्विकी ॥The unwavering steadiness by which, through yoga, one holds in place the workings of mind, breath and senses — that steadiness, O Partha, is of goodness.
The steadiness that holds mind, breath and senses in place is called sattvic, and the verse says it is held there through yoga. That makes it something practised rather than something possessed.
What to actually do
Small, and today.
- Count returns, not minutes. 6.26 makes bringing the mind back the practice itself, which means a session with forty returns in it was a session, not a failure.
- Before you sit, write the one thing you will do in this hour. 6.24 names the desires that a person’s own plans keep generating, and the list running in your head is one of them.
- Fix sleep and meals before you try to fix willpower. 6.17 puts measure in those things ahead of any result, and a tired student is not a weak one.
- Do not argue with the wandering while it is happening. 2.60 says the senses carry away even a discerning man who is making the effort, so treat it as expected and go back to the line you were reading.
What the Gita does not say
The common reading is that concentration is a matter of wanting it badly enough, and that a wandering mind is evidence of an unserious person. The text says something else. The complaint at 6.34 is Arjuna’s, and 2.60 states that the senses carry away the mind even of a discerning man who is making the effort. What 6.35 prescribes is practice over time, which also means the first weeks will feel exactly as they do now. Anyone promising that a verse will fix attention this evening is selling something the Gita does not stock.
The words behind this
Common questions
About this.
What is abhyasa?
It is the word at 6.35, usually rendered as steady practice: doing the same thing again, on the days it works and the days it does not. It is paired there with letting go of wanting. The Gita offers these two as the means by which a restless mind is brought under control, and offers nothing faster alongside them.
Does the Gita say anything about how to study?
No. It has nothing to say about revision, timetables or examinations, and this page will not manufacture verses for them. What it addresses is the state of the person sitting down to work: 6.17 on measure in sleep, food and effort, and 6.26 on what to do each time attention leaves.
My mind wanders during prayer too. Is that a bad sign?
6.34 has Arjuna saying the same thing to Krishna directly, and he is not rebuked for it. 6.26 assumes the mind will wander repeatedly and gives an instruction for that case rather than for its absence. Wandering is treated in these verses as the ordinary condition being worked on, not as a verdict.
Should I give up my phone and everything else?
The Gita does not legislate on particular objects, and 6.16 rules out the extreme in both directions. 6.24 does ask for the senses to be held in and for the desires thrown up by one’s own plans to be set aside, which in practice means keeping what pulls at you out of reach while you work. That is a smaller and more doable thing than renunciation.