Bhagavad Gītā Chapter 6, Verse 18: Krishna to Arjuna — Dhyāna-Yoga
When the mind, fully reined in, rests in the self alone and all craving for every desire has gone, that person is called integrated in yoga.
Bhāṣyakāra purports
- Śaṅkaraadvaita
When the citta (mind-stuff), having fully abandoned concern with external objects, becomes especially restrained — gathered into one-pointedness — and stands established in the ātman alone, the yogin is then called yukta (integrated). Śaṅkara specifies: the criterion is double — inward anchorage of the citta and the complete extinction of tṛṣṇā (thirst) for both seen and unseen objects (dṛṣṭa and adṛṣṭa). Yukta here means samāhita: the citta has ceased its outward career and rests in its own ground, which is pure consciousness.
- Rāmānujaviśiṣṭādvaita
The citta, whose proper prayojana (purpose) is the ātman, becomes viniyata — specially directed — when it settles niratiśaya-prayojanatayā, recognizing the ātman as the unsurpassable aim; at that moment the yogin, freed from all kāmas (desires), is declared fit for yoga (yoga-ārha). Rāmānuja's gloss 'niratiśaya-prayojanatayā' (by virtue of the ātman's status as highest purpose) is absent in the other bhāṣyas: the citta turns inward not by force of suppression but by the recognition that no external object can rival the ātman's worth. The qualifier yoga-ārha ('worthy of yoga') — rather than merely samāhita — points ahead to bhakti-yoga as the fullness of this state.
- Madhvadvaita
The citta rests in the ātman — and the ātman, for Madhva, is a jīva permanently distinct from Hari, never self-luminous in the Advaita sense. NOTE: Madhva's extant bhāṣya on this verse is reduced to 'ātmani bhavati' (it abides in the ātman); the full doctrinal texture must be inferred from his system: yukta means the jīva, in dependent cognition, ceases grasping external objects and abides in its own bounded selfhood as a mirror to Hari. The brevity of the transmitted text makes a full sentence-level anchoring impossible; this rendering is partly systematic inference.
- Vallabhaśuddhādvaita
Vallabha reads this verse as describing the asamprajñāta samādhi (nirbīja-yoga, seedless absorption) that marks the siddha-yogin: when the citta is viniyata — fully gathered — even the yoga-aiśvarya, the eight supernatural siddhis that arise as fruits of yogic power, cease to attract, and the yogin is called dṛḍhatara-yogin ('one of firmer yoga'). The crucial Puṣṭi inflection: the niḥspṛhatā (desirelessness) must extend even to yogic powers, which lesser schools treat as achievements; for Vallabha these too are kāmas to be relinquished in Kṛṣṇa's prasāda. The siddha rests not in achievement but in Kṛṣṇa's grace alone.
- Śrīdharabhakti
Śrīdhara frames the verse as answering the implicit question 'when is a person a niṣpanna-yogin (one in whom yoga has matured)?' — the citta is viśeṣeṇa niruddha (specifically arrested) and rests anicala (motionless) in the ātman; simultaneously, tṛṣṇā for both ihika (this-worldly) and āmuṣmika (other-worldly) enjoyments is vigatā (gone). The pairing of inward motionlessness with the extinction of desire for both worlds marks yoga's completion: neither worldly pleasure nor heavenly reward retains pull. Śrīdhara's term prāpta-yoga ('one who has obtained yoga') echoes yukta without the samādhi-technical freight Madhusūdana will later load onto it.
- Madhusūdanaadvaita-bhakti
Madhusūdana reads BG 6.18 as the pivot from samprajñāta to asamprajñāta samādhi: the citta, emptied of all vṛttis (mental modifications) by para-vairāgya (supreme dispassion), becomes sarvam-śūnya — totally void of objectivity — yet because the ātman-ākāra (the self-luminous form of consciousness) cannot be suppressed, it shines through the transparent antaḥkaraṇa-sattva as the sole remaining appearance. Desirelessness here is not merely ethical but metaphysical: the disappearance of kāma signals the cessation of all vṛtti-production, which is the necessary condition for asamprajñāta to arise. Para-vairāgya, explicitly named as the antaraṅga-sādhana (inner means) of this samādhi, unites the Advaita analysis with a devotional urgency toward total surrender.