The Bhagavad Gita by Eknath Easwaran

╭ chapter six
on them as outside the normal course of spiritual development.
In the Gita, the word yogi often has a more modest definition:
it can mean a person who does his or her job with detachment
from the rewards (6:1), or it can be rendered as “one who
has attained the goal of meditation.” For yogi literally means
“one who is accomplished in yoga,” and yoga means “integration
of the spirit.” In this sense, yoga means wholeness or the
process of becoming whole at the deepest spiritual level. The
word yoga is also often used as a synonym for raja yoga, the
practice of meditation as taught by Patanjali; for meditation
is the direct means of becoming integrated, united with one’s
truest, deepest Self. Thus a yogi, among other things, is a person
who is an adept at meditation.
Until now, Krishna has been instructing Arjuna in the
need for karma yoga, the active life of service. Now Krishna is
ready to initiate him into the practice of the more interior disciplines
of the spiritual life. Karma yoga, he says, is the path
for those who wish to climb the mountain of Self-realization;
for those who have reached the summit, the path is shama,
the peace of contemplation. At the beginning of the spiritual
life, great exertion is required; as the summit is approached,
though the climb gets no easier, the dimension of contemplation
or stillness is added. Many spiritual traditions, of course,
use this image when speaking of the religious quest. The
mountaintop is the place where the holy, like Moses, com-
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