What the Bhagavad Gita says about the mind
Chapter 6 contains the most practical instruction in the book, and some of it is startlingly ordinary. Where to sit, how high the seat should be, how to hold the head and neck, where to rest the gaze. 6.16 adds that yoga is not for someone who eats too much or too little, or sleeps too much or too little, which is dietary advice inside a text about the self.
The honest moment comes at 6.34, where Arjuna objects that the mind is restless, turbulent, strong and obstinate, and that holding it seems as hard as holding the wind. Krishna does not deny it. 6.35 concedes the mind is hard to restrain and says it is done by practice and by non-attachment, which is a modest answer where a grander one was available.
18.33 describes steadiness that holds mind, breath and senses together through practice that does not waver. The word means not wandering, and what does not wander is the intention: a practice becomes steady when it stops being re-decided every morning.
The verses 18
2.60
The senses are violent, Arjuna.
2.61
Hold them all in check and sit with your mind on me.
2.67
When the mind follows after the senses as they wander, it carries off a man's judgement - the way wind carries off a boat on the water.
3.42
The senses are said to be high.
6.5
Lift yourself by yourself.
6.6
For the one by whom the self has been conquered by the self, the self is a friend.
6.19
As a lamp standing where there is no wind does not flicker - that is the likeness remembered for the practitioner of restrained mind, joining himself to the practice of the self.
6.24
Setting down completely, leaving nothing over, all the desires born of plans, and holding in the whole crowd of the senses with the mind, from every side…
6.25
… little by little he should come to rest, with an understanding held firm.
6.26
From wherever the mind wanders off, restless and unsteady, from just there he should hold it in and bring it back under the self.
6.33
Arjuna said: This practice you have described as evenness, Krishna - I do not see any firm standing for it, because of restlessness.
6.34
For the mind is restless, Krishna - it churns, it is strong, it will not give.
6.35
Krishna said: Without doubt, mighty-armed one, the mind is hard to hold and it is restless.
6.36
For one whose self is not restrained, the practice is hard to reach - that is my view.
8.8
With a mind trained by steady practice, not wandering off elsewhere, thinking of him again and again - one reaches the supreme divine person, Arjuna.
17.16
A settled mind, gentleness, quiet, keeping yourself in hand, and being clean through and through - this is called the discipline of the mind.
18.33
The steadiness by which a person holds the workings of mind, breath and senses together, through practice that does not waver: that steadiness, Arjuna, is clear.
18.52
Keeping to himself, eating lightly, with speech and body and mind held in, always given to meditation, having taken shelter in dispassion.