"Atha chittam samadhatum na shaknoshi mayi sthiram, abhyasayogena tato mamichchaptum dhananjaya." And if you are not able to keep your mind steady on Me and meditate for a long time, then, O Dhananjaya, desire to attain Me through the yoga of practice. It was shown that worshiping God is the best way to attain God. Therefore, Arjuna was also instructed to make that resolve regarding Me. Now, a person whose mind is attracted to the desires of sensory objects like sound, etc., never experiences how can the mind be reconciled with You, whom they have never experienced? How can it be made steady? Bringing out the doubt residing within Arjuna, God here instructs other remedies as a solution to it. An instruction on an impossible thing is never appropriate. Therefore, God says that if it is suddenly impossible for you to keep your mind on My form, I will show you another easy way. Otherwise, the first instruction is not impossible, as is being shown in the Ramanuja Bhashya with the word 'sahasa'. With which word? Sahasa. Sahasa. Here in the verse, the word 'atha' is used in the sense of 'yadi' (if). If you are unable to do this, "Yadi chittam samadhatum na shaknoshi mayi sthiram." 'Atha chittam' means 'yadi chittam'. If you are not going to be able to do this, then you should do this. What is the difference between the two? Abhyasayoga and chittasamadhanam. If God made it easy, He must have made something easy. It has indeed become different. What is the solution? That is, in chitta samadhan, it naturally remains in God. In that, one has to keep it by making an effort. Effort, that is, self-effort, must be made. It is not natural. And in the other, naturally from within, his inclination remains in God. What is the difference? It hasn't come. It had come, but something... That one is continuous. "Atha chittam samadhatum na shaknoshi yadi sthiram" involves continuous contemplation. Even if one cannot contemplate continuously, by practicing—in practice, it goes for a moment and comes for a moment, goes for a moment and comes for a moment, that's what happens. Still, one will get that much fruit. What is called practice? Then that itself became chittam samadhatum. Parishilanam abhyasah. Repeated practice. If it goes away once, then place it again a second time; if it goes away a second time, then place it a third time. In that way, "tatra sthito yatno abhyasah". The effort made to establish a firm state is called... If something has got stuck in our soul, don't we go and stand there whenever we move around? You all say, how did Arjuna use to say, "Whatever you say is fine, but for me, it is like this." Then God speaks for another two chapters. Then again, Arjuna says to God, "Whatever you say is correct, but for me, it is like this." Thus up to eighteen, up to eighteen chapters, "for me like this, for me like this." Therefore, that is called practice. Atha chittam samadhatum... "yatra sthito yatno abhyasah". To establish a state, to do what we have resolved in our mind, repeatedly running and going there and doing it, that is called practice. "Punah punah parishilanam abhyasah". Again, connecting the mind back there again, connecting it again, that is called practice. If you cannot do it continuously, never mind, but at least do this. At least try to connect it repeatedly. Still, you will get the same fruit. AI translation of the Gujarati transcript above, produced in the same pass that transcribed the audio, one English segment per Gujarati segment. Devotional and technical terms with no precise English equivalent (kirtan, satsang, vasana, samskara, and similar) are kept as their plain transliteration rather than force-translated. Not human-proofread., AI-translated, unverified · Source details