Bhagavad Gītā Chapter 2, Verse 66: Krishna to Arjuna — Sāṅkhya-Yoga

Bhāṣyakāra purports

• Śaṅkaraadvaita

  For one whose inner organ (antaḥkaraṇa) remains unsteadied — who has not achieved the samāhita (collected, settled) condition — there arises no buddhi (discriminative intelligence) turned toward the ātman's own nature. Without that ātma-viṣayā buddhi, there can be no bhāvanā, no sustained inclination toward ātma-jñāna. And one who refuses to cultivate that inclination cannot reach śānti (upaśama — the cessation of the senses' compulsive thirst for objects); how then could one in whom upaśama is absent ever taste sukha, which is nothing other than the extinction of viṣaya-tṛṣṇā — for tṛṣṇā itself is duḥkha, and where tṛṣṇā persists, not even the fragrance of sukha is possible.

• Rāmānujaviśiṣṭādvaita

  One who has not surrendered mind to Bhagavān (mayi saṃnyasta-manaḥ) and instead labors by raw self-effort (sva-yatna) to restrain the senses will never attain, even occasionally, the vivikta-ātma-viṣayā buddhi — the clear inner vision of the self as distinct and luminous. Because that buddhi never arises in him, bhāvanā (the settled contemplative dwelling in Bhagavān's form) cannot take root either. One who fails to hold the vivikta-ātman steady in thought remains afflicted by viṣaya-spṛhā (longing for sense-objects), so śānti eludes him; and for one beset by that longing, nitya-niratiśaya-sukha — the unsurpassable, eternal bliss that is kainkarya — is utterly out of reach.

• Madhvadvaita

  Without Bhagavān Hari's prasāda (gracious bestowal), yukti (the proper restraint of citta) does not arise — this verse states the consequential fault. In the absence of prasāda, the ayukta jīva (the unsteadied soul, whose eternal distinctness from Brahman makes it wholly dependent on Hari's will) lacks samyag-jñāna — the right knowledge that aligns the jīva with its Lord. Śānti here means mukti itself — as the lexicon confirms: śāntiḥ = mokṣaḥ = nirvāṇam — and sukha follows only from that liberation; for the jīva unsupported by Hari's grace, neither the path nor the goal is available.

• Vallabhaśuddhādvaita

  This verse establishes, by the path of vyatireka (negation), that mano-nigraha (mind-restraint) is the sādhana for sthita-prajñatā. The ayukta — one devoid of nirodha-yoga, truly non-existent as a spiritual subject — cannot possess the one-pointed vyavasāyātmikā buddhi, for without Kṛṣṇa's prasāda flooding the antaḥkaraṇa as līlā-grace, no single-pointed cognition is possible. Without that buddhi, tattva-cintana (the bhāvanā that contemplates Kṛṣṇa's svarūpa) cannot arise; and what is plainly said of śānti and sukha follows: they too are gifts of prasāda, not achievements of the self-asserting puruṣa.

• Śrīdharabhakti

  This verse demonstrates by vyatireka that indriya-nigraha is sādhana for sthita-prajñatā: for the ayukta — the one who has not brought the senses under control — the ātma-viṣayā buddhi born of śāstra and ācārya-upadeśa simply does not arise; its very appearance is foreclosed. Without buddhi so grounded, bhāvanā (dhyāna — sustained contemplative absorption) is absent; without dhāvanā, the buddhi cannot find its pratiṣṭhā in the ātman. Without that pratiṣṭhā comes no śānti — no citta-uparati (the mind's withdrawal and rest); and for the aśānta, sukha — meaning mokṣānanda — is nowhere accessible.

• Madhusūdanaadvaita-bhakti

  This verse drives home by negation what has already been argued affirmatively. The ajita-citta (the one who has not conquered the mind) cannot generate ātma-viṣayā buddhi — the buddhi born of Vedānta-vicāra in the form of śravaṇa and manana; in its absence there is no bhāvanā, which Madhusūdana specifies precisely as nididhyāsana — the unbroken flow of sajātīya-pratyaya (cognition of the same class as brahman-awareness) uninterrupted by vijātīya-pratyaya; without such bhāvanā there is no śānti (the destruction of avidyā together with its effects, the Brahma-ātmaikatva-sākṣātkṛti born of Vedānta-vākya); and for one devoid of ātma-sākṣātkāra, sukha — mokṣānanda — is a question not even worth posing.