“A man must elevate himself by his own mind, for the self is the friend of the self, and the self is the enemy of the self.”Bhagavad Gita · Bhagavad Gita · -200 · capitolul 6, versetul 5
A trained mind lifts you; an untrained one drags you down — the choice is daily yours.
Krishna answers Arjuna, who complains that the mind is harder to master than the wind. The point is that deliverance comes from nowhere external — not from gods, luck, or other people — but from a person's relationship with their own interiority. The mechanism cuts both ways: a mind trained through practice and detachment becomes a friend that pulls you upward; an untrained mind becomes an enemy that drags you down through fear, craving, and self-deception. Arjuna himself is the example: the same man before and after clarity — first paralyzed by despair, then able to act.
The friend and the enemy are not two different minds, but the same mind in two states. Krishna does not say to banish it, but to train it. Practice means returning, day after day, to the same point. Detachment means not identifying with every thought that appears. Think of someone who wakes up anxious and, instead of sinking into negative thoughts, observes them and returns to the breath. Within weeks, that same anxiety becomes a signal, not a prey. The mind does not change through one decision, but through repetition. Yet what makes it slide into being an enemy when no one trains it?
Why it matters It reminds someone that tomorrow's state depends more on how they train their thoughts than on circumstances — and that inner discipline is a duty, not a luxury.