The Bhagavad Gita by Eknath Easwaran

The Practice of Meditation ╯
mune with God; and St. John of the Cross speaks of climbing
the mountain of Carmel.
In climbing this mountain, willpower, self-help, and
intense personal effort are absolute essentials. The literal
translation of verse 5 is “one should lift oneself up by one’s
Self ” – a play on the word atman, which can mean the highest
Self as well as self in the ordinary sense. One’s self is thus one’s
friend or one’s own enemy. The “lower self ” is self-will – will
in the negative, selfish sense. An unruly will twisted toward
self-aggrandizement is an enemy lurking right inside the fort,
where it can do the most damage. But those who “have conquered
themselves by themselves” have their truest friend in
the Self. Only those who have genuine self-discipline, who are
“self-conquered,” live in peace.
These, Krishna says, are true yogis. They cannot harbor any
malice, cannot even bring themselves to look upon anyone as
an enemy. They are samabuddhi, “of equable mind.” The true
yogis, who are fully integrated on all levels of consciousness,
feel everyone’s joy and sorrow just as if it were their own. They
see the Self in all beings, everywhere.
How is this self-conquest to be made? Very simply, the Gita
teaches that the mind must be made one-pointed through
the practice of meditation. This is the basic technique. In
the Gita we do not see the tendency for elaboration, for ritual
and mystery, that we sometimes find in the Hindu tradition.
Krishna simply tells Arjuna, first, that he must find an
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