foes, strangers that are indifferent to him, those
who take part with both sides, those who are objects
of aversion, those who are related (to him), those
who are good, and those who are wicked, is distinguished
(above all others). A devotee should always fix
his mind on contemplation, remaining in a secluded
place alone, restraining both mind and body, without
expectations (of any kind), and without concern (with
anything).[194] Erecting his seat immovably on a clean
spot, not too high nor too low, and spreading over
it a piece of cloth, a deer-skin, or blades of Kusa
grass, and there seated on that seat, with mind fixed
on one object, and restraining the functions of the
heart and the senses, one should practise contemplation
for the purification of self. Holding body, head,
and neck even, unmoved and steady, and casting his
glance on the tip of his nose, and without looking
about in any of the different directions, with mind
in tranquillity, freed from fear, observant of the
practices of Brahmacharins, restraining the mind, with
heart fixed on me, the devotee should sit down, regarding
me as the object of his attainment. Thus applying
his soul constantly, the devotee whose heart is restrained,
attains to that tranquillity which culminates in final
absorption and assimilation with me. Devotion
is not one’s, O Arjuna, who eateth much, nor
one’s who doth not eat at all; nor one’s
who is addicted to too much sleep, nor one’s
who is always awake, devotion that is destructive
of misery is his who is temperate in food and amusements,
who duly exerts himself temperately in all his works,
and who is temperate in sleep and vigils. When
one’s heart, properly restrained, is fixed on
one’s own self, then, indifferent to all objects
of desire, he is one called a devotee.[195] As a lamp
in a windless spot doth not flicker, even that is
the resemblance declared of a devotee whose heart
hath been restrained and who applieth his self to abstraction.
That (condition) in which the mind, restrained by
practice of abstraction, taketh rest, in which beholding
self by self, one is gratified within self; in which
one experienceth that highest felicity which is beyond
the (sphere of the) senses and which the understanding
(only) can grasp, and fixed on which one never swerveth
from the truth; acquiring which one regards no other
acquisition greater than it, and abiding in which one
is never moved by even the heaviest sorrow; that (Condition)
should be known to be what is called devotion in which
there is a severance of connection with pain.
That devotion should be practised with perseverance
and with an undesponding heart.[196] Renouncing all
desires without exception that are born of resolves,
restraining the group of the senses on all sides by
mind alone, one should, by slow degrees, become quiescent
(aided) by (his) understanding controlled by patience,
and then directing his mind to self should think of
nothing.[197] Wheresoever the mind, which is (by nature)