Bhagavad Gita Chapter 6 - Dhyana Yoga - Sloka 23

The entire content of this mail is from Swami Chidbhavananda's translation of The Bhagavad Gita, published by Ramakrishna Mission.

Progress in Yoga - 21-28

1 Gita Sloka every day - Chapter 6 - Dhyana Yoga - Sloka 23

Tam vidyaat dukha sanyoga viyogam yoga sankshitam I

Sah nischayena yoktavyah yogah anirvinna chetasaa II sloka 23

तं विद्यात्  दुःख   संयोग वियोगं योग संक्षितं ।

सः निस्चयेन योक्तव्यः योगः अनिर्विन्न चेतसा ।। श्लोक २३

Let this disconnection from union with pain be known by the name of yoga. This yoga should be practised with determination and with an undistracted mind.

Bliss is the real nature of man. It is because of ignorance that he courts misery and suffers under its weight. When this assumed state of affair is alienated, he beams in his original bliss again. This act is like rousing up a man from the pangs of a dreadful dream  and putting him again in his wakeful state. The meaning of yoga is to yoke one with one's supreme nature. There is no justification for anybody to invite sorrow on himself. That person who makes himself over to affliction is unfit for yoga. HE who takes to yoga with buoyancy of mind, fixed intention and constancy of purpose, achieves it. Sound mental climate is a prelude to the yogi's getting back to beatitude, his original state.

Milk in a vessel continues to boil and bubble so long as there is fire underneath. But when the fire is removed its simmering stops. But when the fire is removed its simmering stops. In this way, the man who takes to the practise of yoga out of curiosity pursues it vehemently for sometime and then abandons it once and for all. He gains nothing. Steadfastness in yoga is essential. 

Swami Ramakrishna Paramahamsa