Advaita Vedānta

These commentators read the verse as the seed of dhyana-yoga set within a larger path that culminates in the truth-knowledge that liberates. The sequence is: action-yoga purifies the inner organ, then comes renunciation of action, then knowledge of the truth which is the means of liberation; meditation is the inner means that brings about right vision. The 'putting outside' is explained as the power of supreme dispassion: an object lodged within only through attachment can be put out again by dispassion, whereas if it were inherently inner no means could expel it. One source maps the half-closed gaze to the need to restrain all five mental modifications (sleep on full closing, and the four scattering modifications on full opening). One source goes further and reads the whole verse against Patanjali's eight-limbed yoga, mapping 'free of desire' to the yamas, 'free of fear' to the niyamas, 'free of anger' to the four mind-clearing meditations, and the stages of sense-, mind-, and intellect-restraint to the successive levels of samadhi (savitarka, savichara, ananda and asmita, culminating in the objectless asamprajnata), and even allows samyama on an external object like the sun for those unable to do pratyahara.

Śaṅkarācārya · Madhusūdana Sarasvatī · Śrī Nīlakaṇṭha · Dhanapati Sūri

Viśiṣṭādvaita

These commentators read the verse as describing the ease of karma-yoga, which has obligatory and occasional action as its duty and meditation as its crown. The decisive point is that the senses, mind and intellect are rendered 'unfit for any activity except the beholding of the self.' The muni is one who has the habit of looking upon the self (atma-avalokana). One source carefully resolves an apparent repetition: 'restrained-sensed' was used in earlier verses to mean fitness for spiritual engagement, but here the same idea names the fruit, namely the senses' unfitness for any unbidden engagement, so it is no mere repetition. The same source reads the singular 'eye' as a sign that the two eyes share one operative form, and treats the inward silence of speech as more central than it first appears.

Rāmānujācārya · Vedānta Deśika

Dvaita

These commentators frame the verse as Krishna stating the very manner of meditation, and they address a logical worry: if the meditator's liberation were direct, it would conflict with the recognized means of valid knowledge, and if it were through knowledge, the statement would be a mere repetition. So they take 'he is liberated indeed' as praise of the meditative discipline. They explain how 'outer' contacts can be 'put outside': when the senses are unrestrained, a firm and attentive impression from past practice can make sounds and the rest feel as if inward, but once the senses are restrained by withdrawal, the outer ones are genuinely kept out. They also gloss 'making the breath even' specifically as steady, motionless retention (kumbhaka), the other senses of evening-out serving only that retention.

Madhvācārya · Śrī Jayatīrtha

Bhedabheda

This commentator gives the briefest reading: having put the outer objects outside, when by the mind they do not approach the inner Self, then the objects simply remain outside. The whole weight falls on the mind's refusal to carry the objects inward to the Self.

Śrī Bhāskara

Śuddhādvaita

These commentators read the meditation here as valuable only as the outward shape of an inward leaning on the Lord; the yoga is 'Lord-supported.' One source, citing the Nibandha, warns that yoga which truly rests on the Lord ripens, over many births, into bhakti and bears fruit, while a yoga of merely 'settling the body' by forbidden means yields fruit only in imagination even to the end of the world-age; the body is composed and the breath steadied only so that the soul may rest more fully in Purushottama. The other source reads the verse against the difficulty of the touchless state, and gives a vivid devotional gloss: fixing the eye between the brows is to see oneself as of the very form of time and death, and evening the breath is the equal experience of joy in union and in separation.

Vallabhācārya · Śrī Puruṣottama

Kashmir Shaivism

This commentator reads the bodily instructions as inward symbols. The space between the brows is the spot free of the leftward and rightward glances that are made of anger and passion; the in-breath and out-breath that are to be made even are dharma and adharma; and the 'nose' (nasa) is taken as the operation of the mind, so called because it moves crookedly (nasate), unevenly, under the sway of anger and the rest. To even the breath within the mind's operation is thus to steady the mind beyond the pull of opposites. He adds that this same teaching holds in the plain outward reading too, and concludes that such a yogin is released even while carrying on all worldly dealings.

Ācārya Abhinavagupta

Bhakti

These commentators give the most detailed practical gloss of the technique and set it within the path that begins with desireless karma-yoga purifying the inner instrument. They are careful that the posture be a steadying, not a violent stopping: the eyes half-lowered, the breath made even, the senses no longer fetching their objects. One source offers an alternative reading of 'even breath' as letting prana and apana move only in the very middle of the nose by gentle out- and in-breath, rather than forced retention. The Marathi voice carries the practice to its climax: the prana and apana, joined with the mind, are forced up toward the brahmarandhra at the crown; as streams lose themselves in the Ganga and the Ganga in the sea, the mind merges in the brahmarandhra, desires cease, the 'linen' of the mind on which worldly existence is painted is torn, and one who tastes this oneness becomes the very being and power of Brahman even while in a human body.

Śrīdhara Svāmī · Śrīla Viśvanātha · Śrīla Baladeva · Sant Jñāneśvar

Modern

These commentators read the verse plainly as the yoga of meditation and add cautions and clarifications for the contemporary seeker. One stresses that rhythmical, harmonious breathing steadies the mind and brings the whole system into harmony, and that objects are shut out simply by the mind not thinking of them. One warns that these are genuine Yoga-sutra practices that are like athletics for the body: they help only the disciplined seeker who has already passed through the yamas and niyamas and conquered fear, and that without purity of mind and body they can lead a person astray and deeper into delusion; for this reason Patanjali gave first place to the cardinal and casual vows. One non-sectarian devotional voice deepens the central point: outer objects are never the real obstruction; the obstruction is the relationship of attachment (raga) we have accepted with them, and dhyana-yoga severs that bond by making the Supreme alone the object of attention, just as karma-yoga severs it through service and jnana-yoga through discernment.

Swami Sivananda · Mahatma Gandhi · Lokmanya Tilak · Swami Ramsukhdas