Chapter 6 · Verse 20·Spoken by Krishna
यत्रोपरमते चित्तं निरुद्धं योगसेवया। यत्र चैवात्मनाऽऽत्मानं पश्यन्नात्मनि तुष्यति
yatroparamate chittaṁ niruddhaṁ yoga-sevayā yatra chaivātmanātmānaṁ paśhyann ātmani tuṣhyati
When the mind, restrained by the practice of yoga, comes to rest, and when one sees the Self by the self and is content in the Self alone;
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Sanskrit recitation by Swami Brahmānanda
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Convergence
he verse describes the inner condition of true yoga, and its first mark is that the mind comes to rest. Krishna says that by the steady service of yoga (yoga-seva, the repeated practice of the discipline) the chitta (the thinking mind, the inner instrument) is niruddha, restrained or checked, so that it stops its restless ranging toward objects on every side and simply quiets down. Several commentators tie this directly to Patanjali's famous definition, 'yoga is the restraint of the modifications of the mind' (Yoga Sutra 1.2), and treat this resting as the essential nature-mark (svarupa-lakshana) of yoga: the mind no longer touches any object at all, but grows still like a flame with no more fuel to feed it.
Braided from 15 commentators
Śaṅkarācārya · Madhusūdana Sarasvatī · Rāmānujācārya · Vallabhācārya · Śrīdhara Svāmī · Śrīla Viśvanātha · Śrīla Baladeva · Sant Jñāneśvar · Swami Sivananda · Lokmanya Tilak · Śrī Nīlakaṇṭha · Dhanapati Sūri · Śrī Puruṣottama · Ācārya Abhinavagupta · Swami Ramsukhdas
The second mark is self-seeing. When the mind has been purified and quieted, it 'sees the Self by the Self' (atmana atmanam pashyan): with the inner instrument now made pure and one-pointed, the yogi perceives his own true Self. For the commentators in the Advaita and Bhakti streams this is a direct, immediate beholding of the inmost consciousness, often described as luminous by its own light, the very ground of awareness that no longer needs the body or the senses to be known. The seeing is not of some outer thing; it is the Self turned toward the Self.
Braided from 15 commentators
Śaṅkarācārya · Śrī Ānandagiri · Madhusūdana Sarasvatī · Rāmānujācārya · Dhanapati Sūri · Śrīdhara Svāmī · Śrīla Viśvanātha · Śrīla Baladeva · Sant Jñāneśvar · Swami Sivananda · Lokmanya Tilak · Śrī Nīlakaṇṭha · Ācārya Abhinavagupta · Swami Ramsukhdas · Madhvācārya
The third mark is the contentment that follows: 'he is content in the Self alone' (atmani tushyati). Having seen the Self, the yogi rests satisfied in the Self by itself, and nowhere else. The commentators stress the word 'alone': his contentment is not in the body, not in the senses, not in any object enjoyed by them. The reasoning is that once the supreme Self has actually been seen, there is simply no remaining cause for any other satisfaction. This contentment is full and self-grounded, needing nothing further, because the Self that has been found lacks nothing.
Braided from 13 commentators
Śaṅkarācārya · Śrī Ānandagiri · Madhusūdana Sarasvatī · Rāmānujācārya · Dhanapati Sūri · Śrīdhara Svāmī · Śrīla Viśvanātha · Śrīla Baladeva · Sant Jñāneśvar · Swami Sivananda · Lokmanya Tilak · Śrī Nīlakaṇṭha · Ācārya Abhinavagupta
Many commentators read this verse not as a free-standing line but as the opening of a single connected passage, usually running three and a half verses through 6.23, in which Krishna defines what yoga is by its own nature (svarupa) and by its fruit (phala). On this reading the several 'where' clauses (yatra) that begin here are answered only at the close, 'let him know that to be yoga.' The whole sequence is set off because, earlier, the word 'yoga' had been used loosely (for karma, and then for samadhi); here Krishna marks out the principal, highest sense of yoga, the absorption that culminates in resting in the Self.
Braided from 8 commentators
Madhusūdana Sarasvatī · Vedānta Deśika · Vallabhācārya · Śrī Puruṣottama · Śrīdhara Svāmī · Śrīla Viśvanātha · Śrīla Baladeva · Swami Sivananda
For the commentators who frame this technically, the resting described here is the deeper of two grades of absorption (samadhi). They distinguish samprajnata samadhi, the 'cognitive' absorption in which the object of meditation is still held distinctly in awareness, from asamprajnata samadhi, the 'non-cognitive' absorption in which even that distinct holding has dissolved. This verse, they say, is describing the deeper, non-cognitive grade: the mind has passed beyond even one-pointed dwelling on a single object into the full restraint of all movement.
Śrī Ānandagiri · Madhusūdana Sarasvatī · Dhanapati Sūri · Śrīla Viśvanātha · Swami Ramsukhdas
Divergence
Advaita Vedānta
The Self that is seen is the supreme, non-dual consciousness itself, identical with the meditator's own inmost being. The seeing is glossed through the great Vedantic equation: the 'Self' (atman) seen is the meaning of 'That' (tat), the supreme, and the 'Self' in which one rests is the meaning of 'thou' (tvam), one's own self, so that the two are realized as one. The Self is described as the dense, undivided mass of being-consciousness-bliss, endless and without a second, made directly evident by the means of knowledge given in the Vedanta. Contentment is total because, the supreme Self being seen as one's very nature, no further ground for any other satisfaction can remain. Some here also insist on a precise grammatical point: the line must be read as the very definition of yoga, not loosely as 'when, at which time,' or the connecting word would dangle.
Śaṅkarācārya · Śrī Ānandagiri · Madhusūdana Sarasvatī · Dhanapati Sūri · Śrī Nīlakaṇṭha
Viśiṣṭādvaita
The verse is read as setting out yoga as the highest human goal, so that the seeker brings to it the greatest care. The 'where' clauses give a cluster of marks: the held-in mind, the seeing of the self by the self, the inward joy beyond the senses, the standing firm in reality, counting no other gain higher, and not being shaken even by the heaviest pain. These six together name one inner state from six angles. Yoga itself is defined here as duhkha-samyoga-viyoga, the un-joining from all joining with pain, the disjunction of the suffering of samsara. The accent falls on the seeker's resolve: not 'let me see how far I get,' but 'I will continue without breaking until the state arrives.'
Rāmānujācārya · Vedānta Deśika
Dvaita
Here the three terms are kept strictly distinct and not collapsed into identity. 'By the self' means by the mind; 'in the self' means in the body; and 'the Self' that is seen is the Lord. So the verse reads: with the mind, within the body, one sees the Lord. The word 'seeing' is taken as marking out the place or state in which this occurs, and the construction is read with a transposition of the words to bring out this threefold sense, preserving the difference between the seer's mind, the embodied locus, and the supreme Lord who is seen.
Madhvācārya · Śrī Jayatīrtha
Śuddhādvaita
While accepting the restraint (nirodha) as the form of the state, this school insists that what then fills the quieted mind is not a bare unconditioned stillness but Vasudeva, the Lord himself. On the 'pushti' reading the held-in chitta is held in through the service of Bhagavan, a union that is the very form of bhava (devotional feeling); its resting is a delighting in the nearness of that union. The 'seeing the self by the self' is read as the self in its bhava-form seeing the bhava-form Self, with bhava-form alone, so that the contentment is the inward standing in the relish that arises when one's whole inner being has become a Vraja-stage on which the Lord plays. The yoga named here is not generic stillness but this devotional savor.
Vallabhācārya · Śrī Puruṣottama
Bhakti
These commentators take 'yoga' here to mean samadhi specifically, marked out by its own nature (the restraint of the mind, in line with Yoga Sutra 1.2) and by its fruit (the gaining of the desired, the great happiness that clings to the quieted mind). The seeing is done by an inner instrument that has taken the form of the supreme Self, and the happiness reached is the well-known ultimate happiness, beyond the senses because free of all contact between sense-objects and the senses. One source adds that the practice must be sustained without weariness, illustrated by the tale of the small bird who vowed to dry up the sea drop by drop and, persisting through every discouragement, was finally aided by Garuda and graced; just so, the one who sets out in yoga, knowledge, or devotion with faith and perseverance is graced by the Lord himself.
Śrīdhara Svāmī · Śrīla Viśvanātha · Śrīla Baladeva · Sant Jñāneśvar
Kashmir Shaivism
This commentator sets out the own-form of Brahman, which is one's very own nature, through the many qualifiers running across these verses, and explicitly contrasts it with the forms conceived in other systems. The mind, held back, comes to rest of itself. The happiness known here is absolute, arising from the absence of the turbidity that objects make; it is set against the ordinary 'gain' of wealth, wife, sons and the like got by external conjunction, from which the sense of happiness eventually turns away. A distinctive note: even the realized one may have a movement at the first moment, but only by the force of residual impression and the sway of compassion, never through delusion or the cry 'alas, I am lost.' From this comes the sundering of the joining with pain, to be practised in every way with resolve and a faith born of holding-the-teaching-as-true.
Ācārya Abhinavagupta
Modern
These commentators give a clear, practice-facing reading. When the mind is completely withdrawn from sense-objects and made steady by long and constant practice of concentration, supreme peace reigns within and the yogi beholds the Supreme Self with a mind rendered pure and one-pointed, attaining supreme satisfaction in the Self. One source lays out the inner stages in detail: dharana (fixing the mind on the chosen form), then dhyana (the unbroken flow of the mind toward that form while the triad of meditator, meditation, and object still stands), then samadhi (when first the sense of being the meditator, then the act of meditation, and at last even the name of the object drop away, leaving only the object). It further distinguishes sabija (with-seed) from nirbija (seedless) samadhi, noting that the subtle latent tendencies of the world that remain in sabija samadhi give rise to powers (siddhis), which look like glory from the worldly view but are obstacles from the spiritual view; only when the yogi turns away from these as without substance does the seedless samadhi described here arise.
Swami Sivananda · Lokmanya Tilak · Swami Ramsukhdas
A Seeker Asks
If true contentment comes only from seeing the Self and not from anything the senses can reach, does that make the ordinary satisfactions of life worthless, or just unable to be the final resting place?
The verse does not call ordinary satisfactions worthless; it locates where lasting contentment actually rests. Its claim is precise: the yogi is content 'in the Self alone,' because once the Self has truly been seen there is no remaining cause for any other satisfaction. The point is not that food, family, and comfort are bad, but that they cannot be the final ground, since a contentment that depends on objects rises and falls with them.
Śaṅkarācārya · Madhusūdana Sarasvatī · Śrī Ānandagiri · Dhanapati Sūri
Several commentators sharpen this by contrasting two kinds of happiness. There is the happiness got by outward conjunction, gaining wealth, spouse, children and the rest, and there is the absolute happiness known here, which arises precisely from the absence of the turbidity that objects stir up. The first kind is real enough, but the sense of happiness eventually turns away from it; the second is beyond the senses because it is free of all contact between sense-objects and the senses, and so it does not fade.
Ācārya Abhinavagupta · Śrīla Baladeva · Śrīla Viśvanātha
What this verse describes, then, is a shift of where the heart finally rests, not a contempt for life. The mind is withdrawn and steadied, the Self is seen with a purified inner instrument, and satisfaction is found in the Self itself rather than chased through the senses. Ordinary satisfactions can still be received, but they are no longer asked to do what only the Self can do; the seeker who reaches this state truly never moves from his own essential nature and reckons no other gain greater than this one.
Swami Sivananda · Rāmānujācārya · Śrīla Viśvanātha · Śrīla Baladeva
Contemplation
If the resting in the Self seems far off and your practice feels slow, take heart from the tale this verse invites. A small shore-bird, robbed of her eggs by the sea, vowed to empty the ocean drop by drop with the tip of her beak. Friends reasoned with her to stop; she would not. Even when the sage Narada came, she renewed her vow before him: in this birth or another, I will dry up this sea. And in the end Garuda was sent to her aid, and the sea, terrified, gave the eggs back. The teaching is plain. Hold your practice with a mind made firm by one resolve, 'this yoga of mine shall surely be accomplished,' and let go of all despondency. Do not torment yourself with 'so much time has passed and still nothing.' Let it ripen in this life or in another; you need not hurry. The one who sets out in yoga, or knowledge, or devotion with faith in the scripture, full of enthusiasm and steady perseverance, is graced by the Lord himself. This is to be firmly resolved.
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