Bhagavad Gita 2.48
योगस्थः कुरु कर्माणि सङ्गं त्यक्त्वा धनञ्जय । सिद्ध्यसिद्ध्योः समो भूत्वा समत्वं योग उच्यते ॥
yoga-sthaḥ kuru karmāṇi saṅgaṃ tyaktvā dhanañjaya | siddhy-asiddhyoḥ samo bhūtvā samatvaṃ yoga ucyate ||
Translation
Established in yoga, O Dhananjaya, perform actions, having abandoned attachment, being even-minded in success and failure. Evenness is called yoga.
Reflection
When did you last act from evenness rather than from the swing of how it was going?
Read this verse in its chapter: Chapter Two
The working definition. Samatvaṃ yoga ucyate. Evenness is called yoga. Not stillness in a separate hour. The capacity to remain the same when the work works and when it doesn't. Yoga-sthaḥ. From a place of yoga. The action is not performed and then the yoga happens. The yoga is the stance from which the action issues. This is one of the chapter's key inversions: yoga is not a retreat from work but the place from which work is rightly done. Aurobindo's line that the Gita's yoga is "skill in action from a stable seat" lives here.