12.9 And if you cannot Krishna speaks
अथ चित्तं समाधातुं न शक्नोषि मयि स्थिरम्
अभ्यासयोगेन ततो मामिच्छाप्तुं धनञ्जय
atha chittaṁ samādhātuṁ na śhaknoṣhi mayi sthiram
abhyāsa-yogena tato mām ichchhāptuṁ dhanañjaya
If you cannot hold your thought steadily on me, then seek to reach me by the practice of returning, Arjuna.
Explanation
And if you cannot — the sentence that changes the chapter.
atha — if, then. Having stated the practice at its highest, Krishna immediately supposes the reader unable to do it, and offers abhyāsa-yoga: the practice of returning, again and again, to what the mind will not stay on.
Almost nothing else in the book is structured this way. The teaching does not assume it has been received; it plans for failing at it.
Going further
Word by word
- atha
- if
- chittam
- mind
- samādhātum
- to fix
- na śhaknoṣhi
- (you) are unable
- mayi
- on me
- sthiram
- steadily
- abhyāsa-yogena
- by uniting with God through repeated practice
- tataḥ
- then
- mām
- me
- ichchhā
- desire
- āptum
- to attain
- dhanañjaya
- Arjun, the conqueror of wealth
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Four verses in descending order, and this is the shape of the chapter's kindness.
Fix your mind on me. Can't? Then practise returning. Can't practise? Then work for my sake. Can't do that? Then give up the fruit of what you do anyway.
Each rung asks less than the one above. Nowhere is the reader told that failing the first means failing. Very little religious writing is built this way.