Chapter 6 · Verse 45·Spoken by Krishna
प्रयत्नाद्यतमानस्तु योगी संशुद्धकिल्बिषः। अनेकजन्मसंसिद्धस्ततो याति परां गतिम्
prayatnād yatamānas tu yogī sanśhuddha-kilbiṣhaḥ aneka-janma-sansiddhas tato yāti parāṁ gatim
The yogi who strives with effort, cleansed of all sin and perfected through many births, then reaches the highest goal.
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Sanskrit recitation by Swami Brahmānanda
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Convergence
his verse caps the long arc that Arjuna's worry opened: the fate of the yogi who slips from the path. Krishna's answer is that such a seeker is never lost. The word translated 'striving with effort' (prayatnad yatamanas) means working harder and harder, beyond even the earlier effort. Several commentators read it as effort intensified out of fear of the very obstacles that caused the earlier fall. The reassurance is total: however far a candidate falls he does not lose his footing forever, and however far he reaches he does not stop until the goal is reached.
Braided from 9 commentators
Śaṅkarācārya · Śrī Ānandagiri · Madhusūdana Sarasvatī · Rāmānujācārya · Vedānta Deśika · Śrīdhara Svāmī · Śrīla Viśvanātha · Śrīla Baladeva · Lokmanya Tilak
Through that intensified effort the yogi becomes samshuddha-kilbisha, 'cleansed of sin' or fault. Kilbisha is the stain or impurity that obstructs higher knowledge. The yoga itself is what washes it away. Some say the sin that is removed is precisely the sin that blocks knowledge, so that once it is gone the path to truth lies open; others describe it as the impurities being fully ripened or burned away.
Braided from 8 commentators
Śaṅkarācārya · Madhusūdana Sarasvatī · Śrī Nīlakaṇṭha · Rāmānujācārya · Vedānta Deśika · Śrīdhara Svāmī · Śrīla Viśvanātha · Śrīla Baladeva
The perfecting does not happen in a single lifetime. The phrase aneka-janma-samsiddha, 'perfected through many births', is emphatic. Across birth after birth the yogi gathers a store of impressions (samskaras), each life adding 'a little here and a little there' of disposition toward yoga, until the accumulated whole brings him to consummation. The point is that perfection takes as many births as the yoga needs to ripen; the seeker should not expect it the instant he begins again.
Braided from 9 commentators
Śaṅkarācārya · Śrī Ānandagiri · Madhusūdana Sarasvatī · Rāmānujācārya · Vedānta Deśika · Madhvācārya · Śrīla Viśvanātha · Swami Sivananda · Sant Jñāneśvar
Then (tatah), with the means matured, he reaches param gatim, 'the supreme goal'. Most commentators identify this as liberation: the end of bondage and the round of birth, attained through right vision or knowledge of the Self. For these readers the final destination is freedom, gained when the long accumulation of yoga and merit finally ripens into its fruit.
Braided from 8 commentators
Śaṅkarācārya · Madhusūdana Sarasvatī · Śrī Nīlakaṇṭha · Dhanapati Sūri · Śrīla Viśvanātha · Śrīla Baladeva · Swami Sivananda · Lokmanya Tilak
Read alongside the preceding verses, this one closes the chapter on a note of consolation rather than despair. Many commentators draw out a 'how much more' (kaimutya) logic: if even the one who slipped from the path is in the end gathered up into the very goal of the perfected, how much more surely is the steady, never-slack practitioner safe. The chapter that seemed to open onto the danger of the restless mind closes on a tranquil promise that no honest effort in yoga is ever wasted.
Braided from 6 commentators
Śrī Ānandagiri · Madhusūdana Sarasvatī · Śrīdhara Svāmī · Śrīla Viśvanātha · Śrī Puruṣottama · Vedānta Deśika
Divergence
Advaita Vedānta
The supreme goal is liberation through right vision or knowledge of the Self. The yogi, cleansed of the sin that obstructs knowledge, becomes fit for knowledge by transcending fitness for mere action, and on gaining the fruit is released from the round of birth. One source draws a practical lesson from the gradation: one who wants quick liberation should put forth greater effort, while one of slight effort becomes a partaker of liberation only after a long time. One source specifies that the intensified effort here can include hatha practices such as breath-restraint, which remove sin but are means to truth-realization rather than its direct cause.
Śaṅkarācārya · Śrī Ānandagiri · Madhusūdana Sarasvatī · Śrī Nīlakaṇṭha · Dhanapati Sūri
Viśiṣṭādvaita
The supreme destination is the attaining of the self (atma-prapti), the surpassing human goal in which the yogi is settled above all others. The 'many births' raises no objection: the way is long but the way is sure; the fallen one is not derailed, only slowed. This school reads the verse as the close of a long arc of consolation, answering Arjuna's question with the assurance that the candidate neither loses by falling nor stops short of consummation.
Rāmānujācārya · Vedānta Deśika
Bhedabheda
This source mainly develops the prior verse, stressing that even the mere desire to know yoga outweighs the Word-Brahman, the ritual action enjoined in the Veda. For the present verse it carries forward the same line that the latent impression gathered in a former birth carries the yogi onward even without his choosing, and gives the verse plainly: the yogi who strives, his sins purified, perfected through many births, reaches the supreme goal.
Śrī Bhāskara
Dvaita
Perfection is emphatically not the work of a single birth, and not the result of a mere wish to know yoga; if a mere wish sufficed, the practice of yoga would be pointless. The seeker, having come to know, makes the effort, and so, perfected through many births, becomes a man of direct knowledge and reaches the supreme goal. The Naradiya is cited: the seeker joined with exceeding faith, given over to Vishnu, having known, meditated, and then seen, through many births enters the God Narayana, and in no other way at all. Because there is no cause for delay once yoga is complete, the 'many births' belongs to the ripening before perfection, not after.
Madhvācārya · Śrī Jayatīrtha
Śuddhādvaita
This school reads two endpoints of the fallen-yogi arc. On one reading the yogi gains tattva-jnana (knowledge of reality) across many births and in his final birth attains the supreme goal as the aksara, the imperishable form of the Lord's self. On the higher (pushti) reading, the ripening of many births converts bare yoga into bhakti (devotion), and by bhakti he attains the Lord's abode named Vaikuntha, the very office of long birth-ripening being to make this conversion. One source frames the supreme goal as the state of dasya (loving servitude), so that the fall itself becomes the long road of the seeker's perfection and the arc closes on a triumphal note.
Vallabhācārya · Śrī Puruṣottama
Bhakti
These devotional commentators read the goal as liberation marked by the beholding of one's own self and the Supreme Self. The fall from yoga is caused by slackness of effort alone; one who is never slack is not even to be called 'fallen', yet even he is not perfected in a single birth, as the words of Kardama in the Bhagavata Purana attest. One source describes the consummation in vivid terms: the seeker, having swept out the accumulated dirt of fancies across many births, is 'wedded' to the Brahmic state and, even while in the body, becomes that Supreme Brahman from which the universe springs and into which it dissolves.
Śrīdhara Svāmī · Śrīla Viśvanātha · Śrīla Baladeva · Sant Jñāneśvar
Modern
One source reads the verse straightforwardly: the yogi gains experiences little by little over many births, eventually attains perfection, then gets the knowledge of the Self and the final beatitude. Another reads the whole passage specifically as Karma-Yoga: the words yoga, fallen-from-yoga, and yogi mean Karma-Yoga and its practitioner, so that even a little desireless action, performed with as much purity as possible, gradually drags a person forward and ultimately, in this life or the next, yields complete Release and the nirguna Brahman beyond the Word-Brahman; even Janaka and others, who seem to have succeeded in one life, must have earned the fruit through training in many previous births. A third notes that this verse turns to a fresh case: the dispassionate fallen yogi born among knower-yogis attains the Supreme easily, but the verse now describes how the fallen yogi born into a wealthy home attains the Supreme.
Swami Sivananda · Lokmanya Tilak · Swami Ramsukhdas
A Seeker Asks
If perfection takes many lifetimes, what consolation is this verse to me now, when I have fallen and cannot see the end of the road?
The whole point of the verse is that the falling does not undo you. The candidate, however far he falls, does not lose; the way may be long, but the way is sure, and the one who slipped is not derailed but only slowed.
Vedānta Deśika · Rāmānujācārya
Nothing of your effort is wasted. Birth after birth the work gathers as a store of impressions, a little here and a little there, until the accumulated whole carries you to consummation; even those who seem to succeed in a single life were drawing on training built up across many previous births.
Śaṅkarācārya · Lokmanya Tilak
And the reassurance runs the other way too. If even the one who fell from the path is in the end gathered up into the very goal of the perfected, then your steady effort from here is all the more safe; the chapter that opened onto the fear of a restless mind closes on the promise that no honest effort in yoga ever goes to waste.
Śrīdhara Svāmī · Śrīla Viśvanātha
Contemplation
Take heart from how small the starting point is allowed to be. Begin with as much pure-mindedness as you honestly can, and act. However little that effort is, it does not vanish. By a rule the commentary gives, 'a small beginning brings safety', the little practice slowly drags you forward by degrees, and once you are in the mill of yoga, sometime or other, in this life or the next, you cannot fail to come through. So the task in front of you is not to reach the end today. It is only to put forward this one honest, desireless act, and then the next, trusting that nothing of it is lost.
Sit with this · Lokmanya Tilak
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