Bhagavad Gita 6.23
तं विद्याद्दुःखसंयोगवियोगं योगसंज्ञितम् | स निश्चयेन योक्तव्यो योगोऽनिर्विण्णचेतसा ||
taṁ vidyād duḥkha-saṁyoga-viyogaṁ yoga-saṁjñitam | sa niścayena yoktavyo yogo 'nirviṇṇa-cetasā ||
Translation
let that be known by the name of devotion, a disconnexion from the connexion with pain. That devotion should be practised with steadiness and with an undesponding heart.
Reflection
What sorrow have you been treating as part of yourself that this verse says was only joined and can be unjoined?
Read this verse in its chapter: Chapter Six
The name Krishna gives the whole project is precise and worth holding. Yoga, he says, is the disjoining from the joining with sorrow. Sorrow is described not as something life pours over the man, but as something he has been joined to. The work is to unhook. And the work is to be carried with two specific qualities. With decision, meaning not in the half-hearted style of the mind that picks it up on bright mornings and drops it on dim ones. And with a heart that does not slump. Despondency is the most common way the practice fails. The verse cuts it off in advance.