September 20, 2026

Neither Too Much Nor Too Little

There is no possibility of one's becoming a yogi, O Arjuna, if one eats too much or eats too little, sleeps too much or does not sleep enough.

Krishna speaks these words to Arjuna in the middle of the battlefield at Kurukshetra, teaching him that yoga is not won through extremes but through steadiness. Arjuna has just heard that yoga demands full mastery of mind and body, and might assume this calls for harsh austerity. Krishna corrects him at once: overeating or starving, oversleeping or refusing rest, all disturb the calm needed for the mind to turn inward. This echoes the Buddha's own discovery generations later, when years of brutal fasting nearly killed him before he found awakening through balance instead. Across the Eastern tradition, moderation is not a lesser path but the very ground that makes depth of practice possible.

A principle of Eastern Wisdom: The Middle Way →