Advaita Vedānta

The yoga to be climbed is the yoga of meditation that ripens into Self-realization, and shama for the one settled is the deliberate turning-away from all action, the repose in which knowledge matures. Action here is purifying preparation: scripturally enjoined obligatory duty, such as the fire-offering, performed in the attitude of offering to the Lord, which produces the dispassion that is purity of the inner organ. Once that purity is gained, the more the sage turns from action, the more, free of strain and master of his senses, his mind is gathered and he becomes mounted on yoga. The Mahabharata is cited in agreement: nothing is the brahmin's true wealth like oneness, evenness, truthfulness, good conduct, steadiness, the laying-down of the rod, uprightness, and, step by step, the withdrawal from actions. On this reading the verse genuinely names the cessation of action as the means for the established knower.

Śaṅkarācārya · Śrī Ānandagiri · Madhusūdana Sarasvatī · Śrī Nīlakaṇṭha · Dhanapati Sūri

Modern

This reading flatly rejects that shama means the cessation of action, calling the renunciatory interpretation a doctrine-serving distortion. The argument is detailed. First, the chapter's opening stanza already declared that the true yogi is the one who performs his duty without clinging to the fruit, and that the inactive man (akriya) is no yogi; it would be self-contradictory for the same Lord then to advise the yogarudha to give up action. Second, the word shama elsewhere in the Gita means peace of mind, not the ending of works; reading it as the stopping of karma is forced. Third, karana (means) is a relative term that requires an effect: if nothing remains for the perfected man to do, calling shama his means is empty. The verse is instead read as a figure of speech (anyonya-alankara) in which the cause-and-effect relation is reversed across the two stages: in the preparatory stage action is the means of attaining calm, but in the state of perfection calm itself becomes the means for action. The yogarudha, having no self-interest left, still cannot escape work for the welfare of the world (lokasamgraha), and now performs all his duties desirelessly and with a peaceful mind for as long as he lives.

Lokmanya Tilak

Modern

This modern voice agrees that the man who has purged all impurity and gained even-mindedness easily reaches Self-realization, but insists this does not mean the one who has scaled yoga will disdain to work. On the contrary, such work becomes to him the very breath of his nostrils, as natural as breathing, done by the sheer force of will. So the height of yoga is read not as withdrawal from action but as effortless continued action for the guidance of the world.

Mahatma Gandhi

Viśiṣṭādvaita

The yoga to be climbed is the beholding of the self (atma-darshana), and the seeker is the one who seeks liberation. Until liberation is gained, action is to be done; for the one firmly settled, calm, the ceasing from action, is the means. This school is careful about how far the ceasing extends: shama is named as a restrained prohibition (shesha-nishedha-para), meaning action is withheld only from the arudha who is already settled, while for the climbing arurukshu action is the very means. So the verse is not a blanket ban on action for the settled sage; it states the aid appropriate to each stage. The shama of the settled one is not the bare withdrawal of the senses but the inner quietude by which the yoga, once gained, is conserved.

Rāmānujācārya · Vedānta Deśika

Dvaita

The arurukshu is one whose means is not yet complete; the yogarudha is the man of direct knowledge, whose means is complete. The cause spoken of is the cause of the supreme bliss, which is the bliss of liberation. The means is samadhi alone; that is what shama signifies. A completeness is given to the means by setting its measure: action is to be done up to the point at which direct knowledge is attained, and that is its completeness. The distinctive note is that even the perfected knower still has something to do. Objectless samadhi arises rightly only when the prarabdha karma that must yet be experienced has worn away; while it still operates, the great devotees abide in the deeds of the Lord, passing their time with the muttered name and the telling of His tale. So shama as samadhi is the cause of the increase of bliss, and other devotional activity is not in conflict with it.

Madhvācārya · Śrī Jayatīrtha

Śuddhādvaita

The action that climbs is the doing of one's own dharma, and for one purushottama frames it more specifically as service that imitates the Lord's own play; shama for the settled one is the giving-up of every sankalpa, every self-willed resolve. Yoga is described as the holding-in of the self, and once that state is reached, dropping all resolve firms it in place, the way driving a post firms it. The arurukshu climbs by way of action; the yogarudha, with mind now pervaded by the rasa (relish) of union, takes the stable posture inclined to inner contemplation, free from the work of any further imitation. The means changes with the stage, but the goal remains the relish of Bhagavan.

Vallabhācārya · Śrī Puruṣottama

Bhakti

The yoga to be climbed is the yoga of unwavering meditation (jnana-yoga or dhyana-yoga), and action is its cause because it purifies the mind; shama, for the one who has ascended and gained steadiness in meditation, is the cessation of the action that scatters the mind, the calm in which jnana ripens. One source paints the ascent vividly as the climb of the eightfold yoga: up the foothills of self-restraint (yama and niyama), to the height of breath-regulation (pranayama), then up the slippery precipice of withdrawing the senses, where even the intellect can scarcely keep its footing and unskilled yogis fall, until the plateau of mental abstraction and finally the even ground of rapt meditation. There the path ends and the clinging to action ceases, for the end and the means meet and become one.

Śrīdhara Svāmī · Śrīla Viśvanātha · Śrīla Baladeva · Sant Jñāneśvar

Kashmir Shaivism

A merely actionless renunciation does not hold good, as was shown by the saying that it is like a gambling without dice or a kingdom without a throne; so action is to be done by the sage of knowledge, and that action is the cause, meaning what brings yoga about. Shama, calm, is the resting once the higher ground is reached. The word cause here functions as a defining mark, the sign by which each stage is recognized.

Ācārya Abhinavagupta

Modern

The yoga to be climbed is samata, evenness of mind; for the reflective yogi who wishes to climb into it, the means is the doing of one's bounden duty (kartavya-karma) in a desireless spirit (nishkama bhava). The reasoning is distinctive: a person, having been born, reared, and kept alive by others, owns nothing that is not borrowed from prakriti (nature), beginning with body, senses, mind, intellect, and ego. Until he puts all these prakritic things into the service (seva) of the world, he cannot become settled in evenness, because every prakritic thing belongs to the world, not to the self. When he gives them all to the service of others, his whole flow of action turns toward the world and he himself becomes yogarudha. Action is also the means because evenness can only be tested and recognized in the doing: only when one acts does it become clear whether likes and dislikes (raga-dvesha) still arise. If, in acting, evenness holds, that action has become the cause of yoga; if it fails and raga-dvesha arise, bond with inert matter is formed and that action has not.

Swami Ramsukhdas