The Yoga of Balance: Living from Innate Wholeness
Bhagavad Gita Ch. 6 v. 16-19
Explore how moderation, sadhana, and superconscious meditation help cultivate a balanced life grounded in the innate wholeness of the soul.
Contents
A Life of Moderation and Balance
When Life Feels Out of Balance
Practicing the Presence Through Moderation
Yoga at the Summit and in the Foothills
Sadhana as the Discipline of Life Balance
Steady as a Lamp in a Windless Place
Moderation Arises From Wholeness
PODCAST EPISODE: From Sadhana to Samadhi - Living with Balance and Awareness
A balanced life begins with remembering the wholeness that is already within us.
As we continue our study of Chapter 6 of the Bhagavad Gita, verses 6.16 through 6.19 show how the realization cultivated in superconscious meditation begins to shape the whole of life. These verses describe the yoga of a meditative life grounded in moderation, balance, steadfast dedication, discipline, and soul freedom. They invite us to imagine what it would be like to live unfettered by the senses and free from the ego’s continual need for validation, attention, or control.
This kind of life is already known to us at the deepest level. It expresses our own innate soul brilliance and purity. When we contemplate these teachings and imagine them becoming fully alive in us, something within remembers. We are given a view from the summit so that we can recognize the direction of the path.
A fellow Kriya Yoga disciple and friend, Stephen Ridley, once wrote, “Having summited the mountain, we return to the foothills mountaintop-minded.” That image captures the role of scripture beautifully. We may first glimpse higher consciousness through meditation with a teacher, through grace, or through a moment of profound inner stillness. Then scripture helps us understand what we have glimpsed and encourages us to persevere. We become mountaintop-minded, carrying the remembrance of freedom with us as we continue walking the path.
A Life of Moderation and Balance
Roy Eugene Davis translates verses 6.16 and 6.17:
“Yoga practice is not for one who overeats or engages in extensive fasting from food, nor is it for one who sleeps excessively or who does not obtain adequate sleep.”
And:
“For the devotee whose diet and recreation are moderate, whose actions are disciplined, whose routines of sleep and waking are regulated, the practice of yoga removes all unhappiness.”
The teaching is direct. Yoga requires moderation in eating, recreation, work and exertion, sleeping, and waking. When these aspects of life come into greater balance, the practice of yoga becomes increasingly supportive of freedom from sorrow.
That sorrow is rooted in ignorance of our spiritual nature. When awareness becomes disconnected from the soul, priorities easily become distorted. We may overwork, overeat, oversleep, deprive ourselves unnecessarily, or push the body and mind beyond what is wise. Yoga calls us back into harmony.
Moderation supports yoga, and yoga deepens our capacity for moderation. The two reinforce one another in a positive cycle. We begin to discover a discipline of harmony and balance that supports physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual well-being.
"Yoga requires moderation. And moderation facilitates yoga."
—Yogacharya Ellen Grace O'Brian
When Life Feels Out of Balance
The effects of imbalance are usually easy to recognize. When we overindulge or neglect the body-mind vehicle, something begins to feel off. We may become lethargic, scattered, anxious, depleted, irritable, or emotionally unsettled. Under those conditions, it becomes more difficult to sense the peace of the soul clearly.
We can also inquire more deeply into where imbalance comes from. Lack of moderation often reflects egocentric striving or neglect. We work too much, do too little, eat too much, sleep too little, or move between extremes because we are trying to gain something, avoid something, prove something, or compensate for a deeper sense of disconnection.
When awareness is disconnected from the soul’s wholeness, we can become unbalanced, striving to get somewhere or avoid something. We are missing the soul’s connection, and inner peace is absent from both our intention and our actions.
Practicing the Presence Through Moderation
The seventeenth-century mystic Brother Lawrence wrote:
“We do all actions deliberately and thoughtfully. Without being rash or rushed, which are signs of an untrained mind. We work gently and in love with God, asking them to accept our work. By our ongoing attention to God, we will break the cycle of harmfulness and make all weapons fall.”
This sounds very much like yoga. Ongoing remembrance of God changes how we act. It slows reactivity, refines intention, and helps us stop harming ourselves and others through unconscious habits.
Moderation then becomes part of practicing the presence. We move through the day with more awareness, deliberateness, and care. We become more able to recognize when our attention has become scattered or when an activity has moved from appropriate effort into excess.
The Bhagavad Gita addresses moderation because losing balance is a familiar human experience. The teaching is there because it is needed. We are learning how to live with awareness, and wobbling is part of that learning.
Slow Down Enough to Notice
The way of meditation gives us practical ways to regain balance. We slow down, breathe, notice the breath, and give our full attention to what we are doing. When it is time to stop, we stop.
Imbalance often develops when we are doing one thing while mentally occupied with another. Attention becomes fragmented. Awareness is scattered across several concerns at once. A Zen proverb offers a simple reminder: “When walking, just walk, don’t wobble.”
This is the spirit of mindful action. Give full attention to what is in front of you. Engage in action consciously. The more completely we inhabit the present action, the easier it becomes to notice when we are rushing, striving, avoiding, or moving beyond what is appropriate.
The teachings are given because we wobble. Those who are already perfectly established in steadiness do not need instruction in moderation. We do, and that is encouraging.
Yoga at the Summit and in the Foothills
Yoga can be understood on two levels. There is the summit, and there are the foothills. The summit is samadhi—steadfast realization of the Divine Self. The foothills are sadhana—the practices that lead us toward that realization and help us live in increasing harmony with it.
Here in the foothills, we learn about the summit and yearn for steadfast realization. We imagine what it would be like to live free of distraction, balanced in moderation, awake and aware of the soul life throughout the day. That vision gives direction to our practice.
The summit inspires us, and the foothills train us. Through sadhana, we learn how to adjust the wobble and return again and again to greater harmony.
Sadhana as the Discipline of Life Balance
The Sanskrit word sadhana can be understood as 'going straight to the goal'. In the Kriya Yoga tradition, sadhana includes a regular meditation practice along with a mindful, moderate approach to ordinary life—eating, sleeping, working, resting, recreating, speaking, and relating.
There is one life, one soul life. Our work, relationships, meditation, responsibilities, and recreation all belong within that one life. Sadhana helps us bring everything into harmony with dharma, the natural divine order of life.
We adjust our actions so they reflect the truth of what we are. At the core of our being, wholeness is already present. Awareness is already luminous. The soul is already whole. Sadhana helps our thoughts, choices, habits, and actions come into alignment with that essential truth.
In this sense, we go straight to the goal by beginning to live from it now. We make choices that reflect the spiritually awakened, mindful life we are seeking to embody.
The second level of yoga is being established in that truth, in steady soul awareness that does not change. At first, we consciously adjust the wobble. We bring greater steadiness into eating, sleeping, working, recreation, and meditation. As realization deepens, right action becomes more spontaneous because superconscious awareness begins to guide discernment naturally.
Living From Innate Wholeness
Bhagavad Gita verse 6.18, translated by Roy Eugene Davis, says:
“The devotee whose awareness is established in pure consciousness alone, whose mental impulses are regulated, and who is free from cravings and desires, is established in wholeness.”
His commentary offers an important clarification:
“Samadhi is not a temporary state to momentarily experience, or to experience only when meditating.”
Superconsciousness may first be experienced in meditation, yet it is a change of consciousness that is then lived. At the innermost level of being, wholeness is the permanent state of soul awareness.
When one is established in awareness of pure consciousness, mental impulses are spontaneously regulated and cravings and desires are no longer demanding. Regular experiences of superconscious meditation purify the mental field of restlessness and allow the mind to be illumined by the Divine Self. This progressively supports clearer discernment and wiser choices.
Old patterns may still arise in the mind, but they become increasingly powerless in the light of Self-realization. We may still recognize an old reaction or desire, yet we are no longer compelled by it.
Can you imagine that freedom? A thought arises, but it does not govern you. A craving appears, but it does not compel you. An old pattern surfaces, and you can simply recognize it and move on.
Self-realization, being established in our innate wholeness, brings unwavering fulfillment.
Steady as a Lamp in a Windless Place
Bhagavad Gita verse 6.19 says:
“As a lamp in a windless place does not flicker, to such is compared the concentration of the meditator, whom, with mental impulses subdued, practices the yoga of samadhi.”
The yoga of samadhi is the natural, steady flow of attention and awareness resting in the peaceful purity of our essence of being. The meditation experience reflects two stages of yoga: self-discipline followed by self-surrender.
Our initial efforts to meditate require effort. We continually return attention and awareness to the point of focus whenever the mind wanders. Meditation is not sitting and daydreaming. It is returning the attention again and again, ultimately toward the pure Divine Self.
With steady discipline, our capacity to focus grows stronger. The wobble slows. Commitment deepens. Moments of peace and undistracted awareness increase, and eventually that peace becomes more pervasive.
As our capacity to hold attention steady grows stronger, meditation naturally unfolds into samadhi or superconsciousness. Attention and awareness begin to flow without interruption, like a river flowing into the ocean. There is no longer the same need to call the mind back again and again.
Pure peace prevails. The mistaken notion of a separate self is released, and we are restored to our innate wholeness.
Moderation Arises From Wholeness
We may spend a great deal of time and energy trying to gain balance in life. We adjust schedules, reconsider priorities, and make changes to our habits. These efforts can be useful and help us make positive changes.
The Gita points us toward an important change of orientation: turn and return to the soul’s perfection through the way of superconscious meditation.
Experience your innate wholeness, which is always in balance, and then bring that balance and light of awareness into all that you do.
As awareness becomes established in wholeness, moderation arises more naturally. We are less driven by excesses of self-centered desire and less compelled by the restless effort to get somewhere or avoid something.
The way of meditation brings us again and again to this inner source.
And so we can close with this contemplation:
Moderation in all things arises with realization of innate wholeness.
It comes naturally, like the sun lighting the day and the darkness of sorrow disappearing.
Listen to the full podcast episode below.
Bhagavad Gita, pt 56: From Sadhana to Samadhi - Living with Balance and Awareness
Chapter 6, v. 16-19
A balanced approach to eating, sleeping, working, and recreation supports a steady spiritual life. Through Kriya Yoga meditation and mindful self-discipline, the restless mind gradually becomes clear, focused, and receptive to the soul’s peace. These verses reveal how sadhana leads toward samadhi and the direct experience of innate wholeness. As awareness becomes established in pure consciousness, moderation, wise discernment, and inner freedom arise naturally.
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