Gita 6.23

Sadhak: "Guruji, Krishna defines yoga as disconnection from suffering. But isn't some suffering inevitable in life? We lose people we love, we face illness, we experience failures. How can yoga disconnect us from these?"

Guru: "You are confusing pain with suffering. Pain—physical sensations, the grief of loss, the disappointment of failure—these are facts of embodied existence. Suffering is what we add to pain through resistance, through identification, through the mind's stories about what the pain means. Yoga disconnects you from this addition, not from life itself."

Sadhak: "But when I lose someone I love, am I supposed to feel nothing? That seems inhuman."

Guru: "No! You will feel everything—perhaps more intensely than before, because the heart becomes more open, not more closed. The difference is you will not add 'this should not be happening' or 'I cannot bear this' or 'life is meaningless now' to the raw experience of grief. You will grieve purely, completely, and naturally—and then grief will complete itself rather than becoming chronic suffering."

Sadhak: "The verse says practice with determination. But I find my determination comes and goes. Some days I am inspired, other days I cannot even sit for meditation."

Guru: "This is precisely why Krishna emphasizes 'niścaya'—firm resolve. Motivation based on feeling will always be unreliable because feelings fluctuate. True determination is a decision made at a level deeper than mood. You practice not because you feel like it, but because you have understood what is at stake. Would you forget to eat because you don't feel motivated? Practice must become like eating—necessary regardless of mood."

Sadhak: "But what creates such deep determination? Right now mine feels superficial."

Guru: "Honest suffering. When you have tasted enough of the ordinary mind's capacity to create misery—when you have seen clearly how your own patterns generate unnecessary pain—determination arises naturally. It is not manufactured; it is the inevitable response to clear seeing. Contemplate deeply your own experience of suffering and its causes."

Sadhak: "'Unwearied mind'—I definitely don't have that. After months of practice with little visible progress, I feel discouraged."

Guru: "The unwearied mind is not one that never feels discouragement—it is one that continues anyway. You feel discouraged, you notice it, and you practice regardless. This very capacity—to continue despite discouragement—is actually a sign of progress, even if you cannot see other signs."

Sadhak: "Sometimes I wonder if I am doing the practice wrong. Maybe that is why progress is slow."

Guru: "Perhaps. But more likely you are expecting the wrong kind of progress. The ego wants dramatic experiences, special states, obvious transformations. Real progress is often subtle: slightly less reactivity, marginally more awareness, a bit more acceptance of what is. These compound over time into radical transformation, but moment to moment they are nearly invisible."

Sadhak: "How long should I continue before concluding the path is not working for me?"

Guru: "Have you given it genuine, consistent, intelligent effort for years, not months? Have you worked with a qualified teacher who can point out your blind spots? If not, you haven't actually tested the path—you have tested your own partial, inconsistent approach. The path works; the question is whether you have truly walked it."

Sadhak: "That is hard to hear but probably true. How do I cultivate this unwearied mind?"

Guru: "By remembering the alternative. The alternative to the yoga path is the ordinary path—continued enslavement to mental patterns, repeated cycles of suffering, a life of reactivity punctuated by brief pleasures. When you clearly see this alternative, continuing yoga becomes natural, not heroic. The unwearied mind comes from understanding, not willpower."