Chapter 6 · Verse 19·Spoken by Krishna
यथा दीपो निवातस्थो नेङ्गते सोपमा स्मृता। योगिनो यतचित्तस्य युञ्जतो योगमात्मनः
yathā dīpo nivāta-stho neṅgate sopamā smṛitā yogino yata-chittasya yuñjato yogam ātmanaḥ
As a lamp in a windless place does not flicker, so is the yogi of controlled mind who practices concentration on the Self.
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Sanskrit recitation by Swami Brahmānanda
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Convergence
his verse offers one of the Gita's most loved images: the mind of the deep meditator is like a lamp standing in a windless place. The Sanskrit says dipo nivata-stho na ingate, a lamp set where no wind reaches does not flicker, does not move. The point of comparison is steadiness. As long as no wind disturbs it, the flame holds perfectly still. In just that way the mind of the yogi who has gathered and restrained his thought stays unwavering. The commentators agree this is a simile (upama), an example deliberately recalled by those who know yoga to mark what the settled mind is like.
Braided from 17 commentators
Śaṅkarācārya · Śrī Ānandagiri · Madhusūdana Sarasvatī · Śrī Nīlakaṇṭha · Dhanapati Sūri · Rāmānujācārya · Vedānta Deśika · Vallabhācārya · Śrī Puruṣottama · Ācārya Abhinavagupta · Śrīdhara Svāmī · Śrīla Viśvanātha · Śrīla Baladeva · Sant Jñāneśvar · Swami Sivananda · Lokmanya Tilak · Swami Ramsukhdas
The yogi in view is described very precisely. His chitta, his inner instrument or thinking mind, is yata, restrained, brought under control (the previous verse called it viniyata; here the word is yatachittasya). All the ordinary movements of the mind, its running out toward objects, have ceased. The wind in the image is exactly this restless movement: thought chasing after sense-objects, wanting, gaining, resting, starting again. When that wind of thought-objects is stilled, the flame of the mind stops trembling. The steadiness is not imposed from outside by force; the flame is still simply because what would move it is no longer present.
Braided from 9 commentators
Śaṅkarācārya · Madhusūdana Sarasvatī · Rāmānujācārya · Vedānta Deśika · Vallabhācārya · Ācārya Abhinavagupta · Śrīdhara Svāmī · Śrīla Baladeva · Swami Ramsukhdas
The yogi is one who is yoking the self in yoga (yunjato yogam atmanah). Several commentators stress that this steadiness is not a kind of deadness or dullness. The lamp, while it stands without flicker, is still burning and shining; its very stillness lets it give light cleanly. So too the composed mind is not blank but luminous, the very organ by which the truth is revealed. What was before scattered in ten directions is now gathered into one steady shining in which the Self discloses itself.
Rāmānujācārya · Śrīdhara Svāmī · Śrīla Baladeva · Swami Sivananda
Divergence
Advaita Vedānta
These commentators read the yoga here as the absorption of the Self by the Self: through strong practice the mind becomes one-pointed and, like the windless lamp, finally motionless. One of them works out the simile in technical detail, treating the inner organ itself as the lamp: when its movement stops, its sattva (its clear, light-giving quality) becomes dominant and its own illumining nature shines. He also explains why the verse adds the word 'self' (atmanah): the mind is always of the nature of the Self, so yoga does not create the mind's Self-form but only removes the non-Self forms that overlay it. The word 'self' is there precisely to keep the example sharp, marking that what shines, once stilled, is the Self's own light.
Śaṅkarācārya · Madhusūdana Sarasvatī
Viśiṣṭādvaita
Here the lamp pictures the self's (atman's) own nature. When the mind's other workings have all ceased, the self stands unmoving and shining with knowledge, like the steady, bright flame. One of these commentators adds a careful caution: the comparison is in steadiness alone, not in self-luminosity. The simile must not be pressed to suggest that the mind, like a lamp, becomes a source of light merely because it has stopped moving. The exact point of likeness is the absence of wavering, since the wind of thought-objects has been stilled; the figure is meant to mark stillness, nothing more.
Rāmānujācārya · Vedānta Deśika
Dvaita
For this school the yoga of the self is specifically the yoga whose object is the Lord: the self's discipline is meditation directed at God. On the grammar, one of them explains that the word 'self' and the genitive case in 'yunjato yogam atmanah' are deliberate. The phrase is read as 'the yoga of the self,' and the word 'yoga' is added precisely to rule out an idle reading like 'of the yogin, of the self'; otherwise the words would serve no purpose.
Madhvācārya · Śrī Jayatīrtha
Śuddhādvaita
These commentators read the verse devotionally and develop the physics of the lamp into a spiritual image. One keeps the comparison stripped to its plain geometry: a place sealed against the wind, an upright flame, no quiver; the cit-portion of the mind, withdrawn from the wind of objects, holds the same unflickering pose. The other draws out the lamp's nature as heat and the wind's nature as cold: in a windless place the cold that would make the flame tremble and undo it never arises. So too, for the devotee whose very nature has become the warding-off of the cold of separation from the Lord, the wind that is craving for one's own enjoyment has ceased, and the flame stands. Such a heart, answering to nothing but His warmth, does not waver, and only such a steady heart can hold the Lord's image without spilling it.
Vallabhācārya · Śrī Puruṣottama
Kashmir Shaivism
This commentator names plainly what the flickering would be: the efforts of the mind, the gaining and resting and the rest, set in motion by objects. When the lamp of the mind stands in the windless place, those object-driven exertions fall away, and the yogi is still.
Ācārya Abhinavagupta
Bhakti
These commentators read the steady mind as fixed in the single form (akara) of the atman, and they stress that the stillness is alive and luminous, not dull: as the lamp, while burning, has neither shaking nor any other motion yet stands forth in its sheer power of light, so the meditator's mind is composed yet luminous, the very organ of revelation in which the atman discloses itself. One offers the broader counsel of his Marathi tradition: such a one is steadied in the yoga discipline, and the seeker should not fear its hardships, for the rebellious senses make a goblin out of nothing; in truth nothing is so simple as success in yoga.
Śrīdhara Svāmī · Śrīla Viśvanātha · Śrīla Baladeva · Sant Jñāneśvar
Modern
These voices each take the simile in their own register. One calls it a beautiful image that yogis quote constantly, and adds that a steady mind serves as a powerful searchlight to find the hidden spiritual treasures of the Self. Another places the Gita's lamp among the Mahabharata's other similes for the concentrated (yukta) mind, like carrying a brim-full oil vessel down a staircase or steering a boat in a storm, and notes that here the Lord is describing the samadhi of total control of the mental vision. A third presses the physics: no place is wholly free of air, for air is everywhere; in some places it moves (spanda) and in some it is motionless (nihspanda), so the example is really of air in its motionless form, picturing a mind so settled in its own true nature (svarupa) that no thought beside that one arises.
Swami Sivananda · Lokmanya Tilak · Swami Ramsukhdas
A Seeker Asks
If the meditating mind has to be as motionless as a flame in still air, is that not just a blank, shut-down state rather than something alive and awake?
The stillness in this verse is the opposite of deadness. The flame in the windless place is still burning. It has stopped shaking, but it has not stopped shining; in fact its steady stillness is exactly what lets it give clean, undisturbed light. The composed mind is the same: not blank but luminous, the very organ through which the truth is revealed.
Śrīdhara Svāmī · Śrīla Baladeva · Rāmānujācārya
What stops is not awareness but the wind, the restless running of thought out toward objects, the cycle of wanting, gaining, and resting. When that movement ceases, the mind's own clear, light-giving quality comes to the fore, and what was scattered in ten directions is gathered into one steady shining in which the Self discloses itself.
Madhusūdana Sarasvatī · Ācārya Abhinavagupta · Śrīdhara Svāmī
Seen this way, the steadiness is not something forced onto a struggling mind from outside. The flame is still simply because what would move it is absent. As you settle deep into your own true nature, the thoughts that chased other things no longer have anything to chase, and the mind rests awake and bright on its own.
Vallabhācārya · Swami Ramsukhdas · Swami Sivananda
Contemplation
Notice the quiet realism in the image. No place is truly free of air; air is everywhere. In some places it stirs, in some places it rests motionless. So the lamp is not in a vacuum; it stands in air that has simply grown still. Your own mind is the same. You will not empty it of all movement by force or by holding your breath against it. The steadiness comes when the mind settles so deeply into its own true nature that, beside that one thing, no other thought has any reason to arise. Do not fight the wind. Let your attention rest in the one reality (svarupa) until the restlessness that ran toward other objects simply has nothing left to chase, and the flame stands on its own.
Sit with this · Swami Ramsukhdas
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