Shloka 21
Karma, Jñāna, and Bhakti: Vedic Dharma, Piety and Sin, and the Boat of Human Life
एष वै परमो योगो मनस: सङ्ग्रह: स्मृत: । हृदयज्ञत्वमन्विच्छन् दम्यस्येवार्वतो मुहु: ॥ २१ ॥
eṣa vai paramo yogo manasaḥ saṅgrahaḥ smṛtaḥ hṛdaya-jñatvam anvicchan damyasyevārvato muhuḥ
ဤသည်ပင် အမြင့်ဆုံး ယောဂဖြစ်သည်—စိတ်ကို စုစည်း၍ ထိန်းချုပ်ခြင်း။ ကျွမ်းကျင်သော မြင်းစီးသူသည် မာန်ကြီးမြင်းကို သင်ကြားလိုသော် ခဏလောက် လွတ်ပေးပြီးနောက် ကြိုးကို ဆွဲကာ လိုရာလမ်းသို့ တဖြည်းဖြည်း ခေါ်သကဲ့သို့၊ စိတ်၏ လှုပ်ရှားမှုနှင့် ဆန္ဒများကို စောင့်ကြည့်ကာ တဖြည်းဖြည်း အပြည့်အဝ ထိန်းချုပ်ရမည်။
Just as an expert rider intimately knows the propensities of an untamed horse and gradually brings the horse under control, an expert yogī allows the mind to reveal its materialistic propensities and then controls them through superior intelligence. A learned transcendentalist withholds and supplies sense objects so that the mind and senses remain fully controlled, just as the horseman sometimes pulls sharply on the reins and sometimes allows the horse to run freely. The rider never forgets his actual goal or destination, and eventually places the horse on the right path. Similarly, a learned transcendentalist, even though sometimes allowing the senses to act, never forgets the goal of self-realization, nor does he allow the senses to engage in sinful activity. Excessive austerity or restriction may result in great mental disturbance, just as pulling excessively on the reins of a horse may cause the horse to rear up against the rider. The path of self-realization depends upon clear intelligence, and the easiest way to acquire such expertise is surrender to Lord Kṛṣṇa. The Lord says in Bhagavad-gītā (10.10) :
FAQs
In this verse, Krishna calls restraint of the mind (manasaḥ saṅgrahaḥ) the highest yoga and advises repeated practice, like training a restless horse.
Krishna is instructing Uddhava on practical spiritual discipline—how to realize the inner truth by repeatedly bringing the mind under control, which supports both jñāna and bhakti.
Return the mind again and again to the chosen spiritual focus—such as prayer, japa, or remembrance of Krishna—without discouragement, treating distraction as something to be patiently retrained.