Verse 6.35

असंशयं महाबाहो मनो दुर्निग्रहं चलम् ।

अभ्यासेन तु कौन्तेय वैराग्येण च गृह्यते ॥

6.35

Transliteration

asaṃśayaṃ mahābāho mano durnigrahaṃ calam |

abhyāsena tu kaunteya vairāgyeṇa ca gṛhyate ||

By Sanskrit System · Machine draft · @indic-transliteration/sanscript 1.3.3

Translation

The Blessed Lord said Undoubtedly, O mighty-armed Arjuna, the mind is difficult to control and restless; but by practice and by dispassion it may be restrained.

From the owner's sheet · +1 more

Word by word

undoubtedly
O mighty-armed
the mind
hard to restrain
restless

by practice
but
O son of Kunti
by dispassion
and
is held

By Sanskrit System · Machine draft · claude-opus-5-5 · 2026-11-08

Explanation

Krishna does not deny the difficulty. He agrees that the mind is restless and hard to restrain. But he names two means by which it can be held: practice (abhyāsa), the repeated, patient effort of returning the mind to its focus, and dispassion (vairāgya), the gradual loosening of attachment to objects. The pair has become a classic formula in Indian thought. Practice gives direction, and dispassion removes what pulls the mind away. The answer is encouraging precisely because it does not deny the problem.