Dhyāna Yoga

The ideal yogī — temperance (BG 6.16–6.17)

Before describing the lamp simile, Kṛṣṇa describes the conditions that make meditation possible: "Yoga is not for one who eats too much or too little, nor for one who sleeps too much or too little. For one whose diet and activities are regulated, whose efforts in actions are regulated, whose sleep and waking are regulated — yoga becomes the destroyer of sorrow" (BG 6.16–6.17). The middle path: neither extreme asceticism nor indulgence, but the regulated, moderate life that supports sustained practice.

BG 6.16–6.17. Gambhirananda (trans.), pp. 272–276.

Arjuna's challenge — the restless mind (BG 6.33–6.36)

Arjuna raises one of the most practically honest objections in the Gīta: "The yoga you have described as equanimity — I do not see its stable foundation, O Mādhava, because of the restlessness [of the mind]. The mind is restless, turbulent, obstinate, and powerful; I think it is as difficult to control as the wind" (BG 6.33–6.34).

Kṛṣṇa's answer does not dismiss the difficulty: "Undoubtedly, O Mahābāhu, the mind is difficult to control and restless. But it is controlled by practice (abhyāsa) and dispassion (vairāgya)" (BG 6.35). Two instruments: practice (sustained, repeated effort) and vairāgya (dispassion — the loosening of attachment to the objects that pull the mind outward). Both are necessary; neither alone is sufficient. This is the most practical instruction in the entire chapter.

BG 6.33–6.36. Gambhirananda (trans.), pp. 288–294.

Śaṅkara on BG 6.5 — two senses of ātman

Śaṅkara's commentary on BG 6.5 distinguishes the two uses of ātman in the verse: the first occurrence (lift the self by the self) uses ātman to refer to the empirical or lower self — the mind and its operations. The second occurrence in BG 6.6 (the self is the friend of the self; the self is the enemy of the self) uses ātman in the same empirical sense but distinguishes between two conditions of the same entity: the lower self under discipline is a friend; the lower self left undisciplined is its own enemy.

The practical instruction is therefore: use the disciplined mind to train the undisciplined mind. What appears paradoxical — using the mind to control the mind — is the normal situation of spiritual practice. The mind's higher discriminative functions (Viveka) are employed to steadily restrain the mind's reactive and habitual tendencies. The Advaita reading: the ultimate lifting agent is recognition of the pure Ātman — but the practice proceeds through the empirical self's self-discipline as the means.

BG 6.5–6.6. Śaṅkara, Gītābhāṣya (Gambhirananda trans., pp. 255–260).

BG 6.29–6.32 — the experience of equality (samatva)

BG 6.29–6.32 describes the experiential state of one who has achieved the goal of Dhyāna Yoga: the recognition that the same Self that inhabits one's own being is the Self in all beings. BG 6.31: sarvatra-sthitam ekaṃ māṃ sarvabhūtāni sevate — the yogī who worships Me dwelling in all beings, abides in Me whatever way they live. BG 6.32: the supreme yogī is one who sees pleasure and pain in all beings as in oneself (ātmaupamyena — by analogy with oneself). This is the Gīta's formulation of universal empathy grounded in metaphysical unity.