The Yoga of Letting Go

Arjuna is still puzzled. He says to Krishna: "First You praise giving up action altogether, and then You praise yoga — doing your work in a calm, selfless way. These sound like two different paths. Please choose for me, clearly and for certain, the one path that is better."

Krishna answers gently: "Both paths lead to the highest happiness: walking away from action, and doing your work without grasping at rewards. But of the two, doing your work in this calm, selfless way is the better one." He chooses, but he does not throw the other path away.

Krishna explains: "The real renouncer is not always the one who runs away. It is the one who neither hates what comes nor desperately wants what he doesn't have. Mighty Arjuna, a person who is free of those tugging opposites — liking and disliking — is easily set free from every kind of bondage."

Krishna says: "Only childish, unwise people think that the path of knowledge and the path of action are two completely separate things, leading to different places. The wise know better. Whoever follows even one of these paths properly, all the way, gains the reward of both."

Krishna continues: "The very same goal that quiet thinkers reach by knowledge, busy workers reach by acting selflessly. Knowledge and action arrive at the same place. Whoever sees that these two are really one, that person truly sees how things are."

Krishna says: "Mighty Arjuna, simply giving up action is hard to do well if you haven't first learned to act calmly and selflessly. But the sage who works in that steady, unselfish way reaches Brahman — the great, boundless peace — before very long." Doing your work the right way prepares you for the deeper stillness.

Krishna describes the calm worker: "Someone who is steady in selfless action, with a clear pure mind, who is master of himself and his senses, who feels every living being as part of his own self — that person acts all day long and yet nothing sticks to him." He stays clean and free even in the middle of work.

Krishna shares a secret of the wise: the one who truly understands how things work thinks quietly, "I am not really the one doing anything at all" — even while seeing, hearing, touching, smelling, eating, walking, sleeping, and breathing. He knows it is his eyes, ears, hands, and senses doing their natural work, not his deepest self.

Krishna explains how a wise person feels even while doing many things. While talking, releasing, grasping, opening and closing the eyes, the wise one quietly knows: "It is only the senses moving among their objects." The eyes see, the ears hear, the hands hold — but the calm one inside is not pulled along by any of it.

Krishna gives one of his most beautiful pictures. A person who offers all their actions to Brahman, the vast Whole, and lets go of clinging to results, is never stained by wrongdoing. They stay clean and free in the middle of all their work — just as a lotus leaf sits on a pond yet never gets wet.

Krishna says that yogis work with their body, their mind, their understanding, and even just their senses — but they let go of clinging to what they will get from it. They do their work for one quiet reason: to make their own heart clean and clear. Their actions become a way of washing the self.

Krishna shows two people side by side. The steady one gives up grasping at what their work will get them, and so they find a peace that lasts and does not wobble. The restless one, pulled along by wanting, clings to the prize at the end, and that very clinging ties them up like a knot. Letting go of the fruit is what sets you free.

Krishna calls the body a city with nine gates: two eyes, two ears, two nostrils, a mouth, and the two lower openings. The true self who lives inside this little city can set aside all actions in the mind and simply rest there, happy and self-controlled, neither doing anything nor making anything happen. The body works, but the dweller within stays calm and at home.

Krishna explains something surprising. The great Lord does not create the feeling of "I am the doer" in people, nor does He make their actions, nor does He tie deeds to their rewards. It is each person's own nature, moving on its own, that sets all of this in motion. We are not puppets pushed by some outside hand. Our own inborn ways carry us forward.

Krishna says the all-pervading Lord does not take on anyone's wrongdoing or anyone's good deeds. So why do people feel lost and confused? Because their inner knowing is covered over by not-knowing, the way a cloud hides the sun. The wisdom is already there inside every creature. It is only veiled, and that veil is what muddles us.

Krishna says that when true knowledge clears away a person's ignorance, that knowledge shines like the sun. Just as the sun lights up everything it touches, this inner knowing reveals the highest truth: the one Self that lives quietly inside every being.

Krishna describes people whose minds, hearts, and whole lives are settled on the highest truth, with that truth as their one goal. Because knowledge has washed away every stain in them, they reach a peace they never fall back out of. Their seeing has become so steady that they cannot lose it again.

Krishna says that the truly wise see the same shining Self in everyone and everything: in a gentle, learned person, in a cow, in an elephant, in a dog, and in someone the world has pushed to its edges. They do not love one and look down on another. They see the one light living equally in every body, no matter how different the bodies look from the outside.

Krishna says that people whose minds rest in this equal vision have already won, right here in this life: they have risen above the endless tumble of the changing world. Because the one vast Self, Brahman, is flawless and the same everywhere, those who see that sameness are already living inside it. Their peace does not wait for some far-off day. It is theirs now.

Krishna says that a person of steady mind does not leap up wild with joy when something nice happens, and does not crumble when something unpleasant comes. Clear-headed and unconfused, knowing the one Self within, such a person already lives in that calm vastness. Good news and bad news come and go, but their quiet does not tip over.

Krishna says that a person who is not glued to the pleasures chased outside discovers a happiness waiting inside themselves. Joined in quiet union with the one Self, that person enjoys a happiness that never wears out. Outer treats always run low; this inner one keeps on giving.

Krishna gently warns Arjuna that the pleasures born when our senses touch exciting things are actually little wombs of pain: they always carry a hidden ache inside them. Every one of them has a beginning and an end, so the joy never stays. Knowing this, a wise person does not pin their heart on them.

Krishna says: the person who, while still alive in this body, can stand firm against the sudden rush of desire and anger, that person is steady, and that person is happy. Desire and anger come like a wave that tries to knock us over. The one who keeps their feet, again and again, has found a quiet kind of joy.

Krishna describes the person whose happiness comes from inside, who delights and rests within, and who carries a light within. That person no longer needs the world to hand them joy from outside. Settled and at one with the vast, endless truth, they reach a deep and unshakable peace.

Krishna says the sages who reach this deep peace are the ones whose faults have worn away, whose doubts have been cut clean through, who have learned to hold themselves steady, and who take real delight in the good of every living thing. Their kindness reaches every being everywhere, not only a few.

Krishna says that for those who have let go of desire and anger, who have disciplined themselves and steadied their minds, and who have come to know their own true Self, the deep peace of Brahman is all around them, close on every side. They do not have to travel far to find it; it surrounds them already.

Krishna now describes how to sit quietly. Let go of the things tugging at the senses from outside, and rest the gaze softly between the eyebrows. Make the breath going out and the breath coming in slow and even as they pass through the nose. This is how the body grows still so the mind can settle.

Krishna continues: the sage who holds the senses, mind, and thinking steady, who keeps their heart set on freedom, and who has let go of desire, fear, and anger, that person is already free, always and forever. Once those three things no longer rule you, no chain can hold you.

Krishna gives the last word of the chapter. He says: whoever knows me as the one who lovingly receives every offering and every act of effort, as the great Lord of all the worlds, and as the warm-hearted friend of every single living being, that person comes to rest in peace. To know that the heart of all things wishes you well is itself the deepest peace. And that friend is the very Self living at your own centre.