Chapter 2 · Verse 64·Spoken by Krishna
रागद्वेषवियुक्तैस्तु विषयानिन्द्रियैश्चरन्। आत्मवश्यैर्विधेयात्मा प्रसादमधिगच्छति
rāga-dveṣha-viyuktais tu viṣhayān indriyaiśh charan ātma-vaśhyair-vidheyātmā prasādam adhigachchhati
But one who moves among the objects of the senses with the senses under control, free of attraction and aversion, self-disciplined, attains serenity.
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Sanskrit recitation by Swami Brahmānanda
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Convergence
his verse turns a corner in Krishna's argument. The verses just before warned that brooding on objects breeds attachment, then anger, then ruin. Here Krishna gives the positive alternative: how a person can still live among objects and not fall. The commentators read it as the direct answer to Arjuna's earlier question about how the steady-minded sage (sthitaprajna) actually walks, eats, and moves in the world. The little word 'tu' ('but') marks the contrast: the one described before is dragged down, but this one is lifted up. So the verse is not advising you to flee the world; it is describing the inner condition that lets you remain in it untouched.
Braided from 12 commentators
Śaṅkarācārya · Śrī Ānandagiri · Madhusūdana Sarasvatī · Śrī Nīlakaṇṭha · Dhanapati Sūri · Śrīdhara Svāmī · Śrīla Viśvanātha · Śrīla Baladeva · Swami Sivananda · Swami Ramsukhdas · Śrī Puruṣottama · Ācārya Abhinavagupta
The whole weight of the verse falls on being free of raga and dvesha. Raga is attraction or liking; dvesha is aversion or dislike. The commentators explain that the senses do not move toward objects on their own; they are pulled outward by these two currents of liking and disliking. Several note that this is the real difficulty raised here: since the senses naturally lean toward objects, isn't contact unavoidable, and so isn't a steady mind impossible? The answer is that the danger is not the contact itself but the liking and disliking riding on it. Pull out raga and dvesha, and the bare meeting of sense and object that life requires does no harm at all and leaves no stain.
Braided from 11 commentators
Śaṅkarācārya · Śrī Ānandagiri · Madhusūdana Sarasvatī · Śrī Nīlakaṇṭha · Śrīdhara Svāmī · Sant Jñāneśvar · Swami Sivananda · Śrīla Viśvanātha · Śrīla Baladeva · Swami Ramsukhdas · Dhanapati Sūri
The verse names two masteries that work together. 'Vidheyatma' means one whose self is governed, that is, whose mind or inner instrument (antahkarana) has been brought under his own command, made tractable and obedient. 'Atma-vashya' means senses that are under the control of the self, obedient to him. Many commentators point out the order between them: the mind is primary, and once the mind is genuinely mastered, the senses fall into line, because the senses depend on the mind. When the mind is in one's own sway there is no liking and disliking, and with those gone the senses have nothing to drive them outward. This is why subduing the mind is treated as the necessary thing; outer sense-restraint without it is not enough.
Braided from 8 commentators
Śaṅkarācārya · Madhusūdana Sarasvatī · Śrī Nīlakaṇṭha · Śrīla Baladeva · Śrīla Viśvanātha · Swami Ramsukhdas · Śrīdhara Svāmī · Dhanapati Sūri
Such a person is not passive or withdrawn; he still moves among objects and uses them. But the commentators stress that he takes only what living requires, food, drink, clothing and the like for the body's maintenance, and never with grasping. He does not chase forbidden things. Ramsukhdas draws this out sharply as the difference between seva and bhoga: such a one does the needed dealings with objects (seva) but no indulgent enjoyment (bhoga), since it is enjoyment-driven contact alone that ruins. The point is not how much you handle, but that liking does not rise when you take a thing and aversion does not rise when you let it go.
Braided from 7 commentators
Dhanapati Sūri · Madhusūdana Sarasvatī · Śrī Jayatīrtha · Śrīdhara Svāmī · Swami Sivananda · Śrīla Baladeva · Swami Ramsukhdas
The fruit is 'prasada'. Most commentators read it as the clarity, serenity, or transparency of the mind, the inner organ cleansed of the mire of imagination and choice and made calm. This is no small reward. Several Advaita voices add that this cleared mind becomes fit for the realization of the supreme Self, and that the mind's clarity is really the clarity of the inmost Self showing through, since the mind takes on its quality. The next verse (which several read together with this one) completes the chain: in this clarity all sorrow is destroyed and the discerning intellect (buddhi) quickly becomes steady. So prasada is the doorway: when liking and disliking fall away, the mind grows clear, sorrow ends, and the intellect settles in the Supreme.
Braided from 10 commentators
Śaṅkarācārya · Madhusūdana Sarasvatī · Śrī Nīlakaṇṭha · Madhvācārya · Rāmānujācārya · Śrī Bhāskara · Śrīdhara Svāmī · Swami Ramsukhdas · Vallabhācārya · Śrīla Baladeva
Divergence
Advaita Vedānta
For these commentators prasada is the clarity of the mind, its transparency and fitness for realizing the supreme Self. They press this further than mere calm: the clarity of the mind is finally the clarity of the inmost Self itself, because the mind partakes of the Self's quality and shows it through once the mire of attachment and choice is washed away. The reasoning runs: senses driven by liking and disliking cause fault; master the mind and those vanish; with them gone the senses have no impulse, and the unavoidable bare apprehension of objects leaves purity unobstructed. The goal in view is liberating knowledge, and this cleared mind is its ground.
Śaṅkarācārya · Madhusūdana Sarasvatī · Śrī Nīlakaṇṭha
Dvaita
These commentators frame the verse as stating the fruit of the conquest of the senses, and they are careful about the logical chain. Jayatirtha distinguishes a direct fruit from a mediate one: the removal of liking and aversion yields conquest of the senses, and conquest of the senses in turn yields knowledge, so knowledge is the mediate fruit reached through this serenity rather than directly. He also guards a precise point: 'serenity' might seem to be a property of the self, but it is to be understood as a property of the mind, which is why the following verse speaks of 'serene mind.' The accent here is on getting the order of cause and fruit exactly right.
Madhvācārya · Śrī Jayatīrtha
Viśiṣṭādvaita
Ramanuja makes the condition explicitly devotional and theistic. The one who attains serenity is the one who has set his mind on the Lord of all, the auspicious resort of the mind, and whose every taint is thereby burned away. With mind fixed on the Lord he moves among objects with senses freed from passion and aversion and obedient to himself, living in effect by setting the objects aside. The serenity he reaches is described as the inner organ becoming pure. The distinctive note is that the freedom from raga and dvesha is grounded in devotion to the Lord, not in a bare disciplining of the mind on its own.
Rāmānujācārya
Śuddhādvaita
These commentators give prasada a frankly theistic and graced meaning. Purushottama reads even 'vidheyatma' as the self in which the Lord has been made amenable to one's will, and he allows that the senses are touched by liking and aversion yet are under the control of the self and of Bhagavan. The objects themselves are enjoyments granted by Bhagavan's will, and the devotee uses them only so far as the work requires, knowing the Lord has given them through senses longing for the divine relish (rasa). On this reading prasada is not merely a clear mind but the grace of Bhagavan, and Purushottama cites the Bhagavata (11.14.18) that the devotee is not overpowered by objects. Vallabha, reading 2.64 with 2.65, ties this inner clearness to the destruction of all sorrow and the quick steadying of the intellect for the clear-minded.
Vallabhācārya · Śrī Puruṣottama
Bhakti
These commentators make offering the mind to Krishna the heart of the matter and then press a bold conclusion. Baladeva says that once the mind is conquered and offered to the Lord, even the non-conquest of the outer senses is no fault; the impurities of the mind are burned away by that offering, and such a one, with senses freed of liking and aversion, may move even among forbidden objects and still attain serenity, a clear mind in which no impurity arises. Vishvanatha pushes the same point: for so qualified a person, grasping objects is not merely no fault but a positive virtue, so that both his renunciation and his acceptance of objects, both his 'sitting' and his 'moving,' are auspicious. Jnaneshwari gives the famous image: as the sun touches the whole world with its rays yet is never stained by any impurity it contacts, so one who abides in the Self, free of passion and wrath, enjoys objects yet feels nothing but the Self in them; water cannot drown water, nor fire burn fire. This emphasis that acceptance itself becomes blameless, even virtuous, distinguishes these voices from those that confine the sage strictly to unforbidden, life-sustaining objects.
Śrīla Viśvanātha · Śrīla Baladeva · Sant Jñāneśvar
Kashmir Shaivism
Abhinavagupta reads the verse against the mere ascetic and exposes a trap in renunciation itself. The man of austerity who tries to give up objects must first dwell on them in thought to renounce them, and at the very moment of that dwelling, attachment and the rest arise again. So his giving-up is never clean; it carries the seed of the very attachment it means to drop. Therefore giving up objects 'without lapse,' without that backdoor return of attachment, belongs to the steady of wisdom alone, the one free of liking and aversion described here. This is a distinctive angle: the verse is read less as license to engage objects and more as showing why only the raga-and-dvesha-free person can truly let them go at all.
Ācārya Abhinavagupta
Modern
Ramsukhdas, reading in a non-sectarian devotional Vedanta key, foregrounds the seva-versus-bhoga distinction and the practical mechanics of prasada. The sage does the needed dealings with objects (seva) but no indulgent enjoyment (bhoga); the words 'vidheyatma' and 'atmavashya' are there precisely to negate the enjoying attitude. He explains prasada as prasannata, the mind's cleanness, and identifies it with the mental austerity (manasika tapa) of Gita 17.16, which he ranks above bodily and verbal austerity. He then traces the full causal chain forward into the next verse: liking breeds dejection, dejection breeds craving, craving breeds all sorrow; remove liking and clarity arises, dejection goes, the craving for pleasure goes, the bond with the body-world is cut, and so all sorrows are absent and the intellect at once turns inward and settles in the Supreme. He cross-refers to Gita 3.34 and 5.3 on liking and aversion as the seeker's true foes.
Swami Ramsukhdas
A Seeker Asks
If I still have to deal with objects every day, how can simply removing my liking and disliking really keep contact from corrupting me, when the pull toward what I enjoy feels automatic?
The commentators meet this doubt head-on; it is in fact the very objection several of them raise before explaining the verse. Their answer is that the corruption was never in the contact itself. The senses do not drag you down on their own; they are pulled outward by raga (liking) and dvesha (disliking). What feels 'automatic' is exactly this liking and disliking at work. So the verse does not ask you to stop all contact, which is impossible while you live; it asks you to withdraw the liking and disliking that ride on it.
Śaṅkarācārya · Śrī Ānandagiri · Madhusūdana Sarasvatī · Śrī Nīlakaṇṭha · Śrīdhara Svāmī
And the automatic feeling is addressed by the two-fold mastery the verse names. The mind (vidheyatma) is brought under command first; once it is genuinely your own, liking and disliking do not arise, and with them gone the senses lose the engine that drove them outward, so they too come under control (atma-vashya). The seeming automatism is not nature speaking but an untrained mind speaking, and it can be retrained. This is why the commentators insist that mastering the mind is the necessary work, not merely tying down the outer senses.
Śaṅkarācārya · Madhusūdana Sarasvatī · Śrī Nīlakaṇṭha · Śrīla Baladeva · Swami Ramsukhdas
When that is in place, the bare meeting of sense and object that life requires leaves no stain at all. Jnaneshwari's image makes it vivid: the sun touches everything with its rays yet is never soiled by what it touches; one who rests in the Self enjoys objects yet feels only the Self in them, as water cannot drown water nor fire burn fire. The fruit, the commentators say, is prasada, a clear and serene mind; and the next verse adds that in this clarity all sorrow ends and the intellect quickly settles. So the practical answer is not heroic suppression but patiently draining the liking and disliking out of your daily contact, until the contact itself stops leaving a mark.
Sant Jñāneśvar · Swami Ramsukhdas · Śrīla Viśvanātha · Śrīdhara Svāmī · Madhusūdana Sarasvatī
Contemplation
Try this with the very next small thing you reach for or push away. When you pick something up, watch that liking does not quietly rise with it; when you set something down or let it go, watch that aversion does not rise either. Ramsukhdas points out that the grasping or releasing of objects is not really the important thing; not letting liking and disliking arise in the senses is. So in your daily dealings, do the needed work with things (this is seva) without sliding into indulgent enjoyment of them (bhoga). When even a little of this cleanness of mind appears, do not turn around and cling to it or enjoy it either, or it becomes one more object. Just let it stand. He calls this very clearness the doorway to the Supreme: in it the world's pull loosens and the mind turns inward on its own. The work is gentle and constant, not a single heroic renunciation but a steady refusal, again and again, to let liking and disliking ride along with what your hands and senses must touch.
Sit with this · Swami Ramsukhdas
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