114. Avoiding Extremes

Krishna spoke about treating gold, stone and a handful of soil as equal (6.8), further he said that he who has equal regard for the patrons, strangers, relatives, friends, enemies, meditators, hateful beings, righteous and ungodly, is the best (6.9). Krishna started with things and suggested treating them as equals. Then he moved on to people in our lives and told us to regard friends and enemies; righteous and ungodly; strangers and relatives as equals. A closer look would indicate that these are all labels we assign to the people around us and our behaviour towards them would be based on this labelling. Interestingly, a friend to us can be an enemy to another person and a friend today can become our enemy tomorrow which indicates that all these labels are situational or biased. Hence, Krishna suggests treating them as equals by dropping these labels. The subtle message in this area of things, people and relationships is not to treat people and relationships as consumables. This is the chief complaint that we hear from someone who had a broken relationship or a bitter experience with people by whom they weren't given the respect they deserved. Finally, Krishna says, "Yoga is not for one who eats too much or doesn't eat at all nor for one who sleeps too much or keeps awake." (6.16) Here eating can be taken as a metaphor for the ways of the indriyas (senses). In the area of obesity and emotional binging, it is well established that we eat to satisfy the mind and tongue but not as per the needs of the body leading to poor health. The same is the case with our abusive talking and extreme use of other senses leading to misery. That's why Krishna talks about balance in the use of the senses.