Chapter 5: Karma Sannyāsa Yoga – Yoga of Inner Renunciation / Verse 28

Explanation of verses 5.27 and 5.28 –

Spiritual life implies regulating the senses, mind and intelligence alike, and getting into the inner domain of one’s own personality. Sooner or later, this will call for contemplation and meditative absorption, wherein one will be able to strike the plane of the Self and the infinite expanse it embodies. Krishna does not lose sight of this fact. In fact, he wants to explain this inner descent and ascent with their own majesty and profundity.

Keeping this in mind, he explains how the seeker can get into a process of withdrawing his mind and intelligence, and steep them in the inner expanse and abundance. He defines the procedure for the purpose.

Refrain from all sensory contacts. Keep the eyes focussed in between the eyebrows, preventing thereby the normal, regular vision. Fix your attention on liberation, seeing it as your sole refuge.

There is a close relationship between prāṇa and mind. Breathing is generally irregular. Incoming and outgoing breaths are not equal. By watching them, regulate the two and make them even. When breathing becomes light and even, the mind too will be alike. The invisible mind is not accessible. But breath is. By regulating the breath, you can regulate the mind too.

Desire, hatred and fear are the three basic mental urges. All the rest are their creations. A spiritual seeker has to rise above these instigations and be soft, gentle, amiable and all-embracing. Gaining such an inner evenness and sublimity is itself true liberation, freedom.

In fact, Krishna has been emphasizing this right from the start, pointing to sukha-duḥkhas (2.15), the only resultants of interactional impacts. Then he included attraction and repulsion, rāga-dveṣas, in the list, stating that to evenize them is to be liberated indeed (5.19).