Sanskrit
असंशयं महाबाहो मनो दुर्निग्रहं चलम् । अभ्यासेन तु कौन्तेय वैराग्येण च गृह्यते ॥
asaṃśayaṃ mahābāho mano durnigrahaṃ calam abhyāsena tu kaunteya vairāgyeṇa ca gṛhyate
Translation
Without doubt, O mighty-armed, the mind is hard to curb and restless; but it may be curbed by constant practice and by dispassion.
Annie Besant · The Bhagavad-Gita, translated by Annie Besant (4th ed., 1922) — Wikisource · Public Domain
Explanation
Krishna concedes Arjuna’s premise entirely — “without doubt” — before answering it. The two tools named, abhyasa (repeated practice) and vairagya (dispassion), are the same pairing that becomes the formal method of classical yoga; Krishna isn’t inventing something new here so much as naming the standard answer. Abhyāsa and vairāgya — sustained repetition, and the cooling of wanting — are the two-handed grip the Yoga Sūtra would later make its own (YS 1.12). One steadies, the other stops feeding the disturbance.
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Word by word
- asaṃśayaṃ mahābāhoअसंशयं महाबाहो
- without doubt, O mighty-armed (asaṃśayam + mahā-bāho)
- mano durnigrahaṃ calamमनो दुर्निग्रहं चलं
- the mind is hard to curb and restless (manaḥ + durnigraham + calam)
- abhyāsena tu kaunteyaअभ्यासेन तु कौन्तेय
- but by practice, O son of Kuntī (abhyāsena + tu + kaunteya)
- vairāgyeṇa ca gṛhyateवैराग्येण च गृह्यते
- and by dispassion it is held (vairāgyeṇa + ca + gṛhyate)
Commentary
Site Commentary
The two tools Krishna names aren’t redundant restatements of each other — abhyāsa builds something through repetition, vairāgya releases something through loosened attachment. One works by addition, the other by subtraction, and the verse implies both directions of effort are required together; practice alone without release, or release alone without practice, is only half the remedy.
Original commentary written for this site · © Amit Singh — original commentary
Site Commentary — Second Reading
Krishna’s first word is asaṃśayam — “without doubt” — a full concession of Arjuna’s objection before any remedy is offered; the mind’s restlessness isn’t minimized or argued away. That order matters: conceding the difficulty fully, then naming the method, carries more weight than a method offered alongside denial that the problem is real. It’s a pattern worth noticing in any teaching or coaching moment — credibility for the fix is often earned by how honestly the difficulty was acknowledged first.
Original commentary written for this site · © Amit Singh — original commentary
Apply this verse
Lessons
Personal
- Expect the mind to resist stillness at first — the verse concedes this is hard even for a mighty-armed warrior. Consistency across sessions matters more than any single session going well.
Professional
- Pair any new work habit you're building with a real loosening of your attachment to it going perfectly right away — habits built on all-or-nothing pressure tend to collapse at the first missed day.
Family & Social
- The same 'practice plus dispassion' formula applies to patience with family — steady, repeated effort, without demanding the relationship be fixed in one conversation.
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