Bhagavad Gītā Chapter 6, Verse 20: Krishna to Arjuna — Dhyāna-Yoga

Bhāṣyakāra purports

• Śaṅkaraadvaita

  When the citta (mind-stuff), fully withdrawn from all outward movement through yoga practice, comes to rest — and in that very stillness, by means of the antaḥkaraṇa (inner instrument) purified through samādhi, one perceives the ātman as pure caitanya (consciousness), self-luminous — in that ātman alone one abides in tuṣṭi (contentment). Śaṅkara insists the perceiver is not a separate jīva but the very cit-jyotis (light of awareness) that was never bound. Satisfaction arises not as a new acquisition but as the natural resting of what had only appeared to wander.

  divergence: Śaṅkara: 'āśrayaṇena... āśraye sati chittam uparamet... ātmanā samādhiparishuddhena antaḥkaraṇena ātmānam param caitanyam jyotiḥsvarūpam paśyan... sve eva ātmani tuṣyati' — the key term is jyotiḥsvarūpa (self-luminous nature); no external object is cognized, for the seer and seen collapse into a single cit (awareness).

• Rāmānujaviśiṣṭādvaita

  When the citta, entirely restrained through yoga-sevā (sustained yoga practice), settles into the yoga-state and there finds atiśayita-sukha (surpassing delight) — recognizing 'this alone is it' — and by manas (mind) beholds the ātman as anya-nirapekṣa (independent of all else), it is satisfied in the ātman without recourse to any external support. Rāmānuja reads this as the stage where the individual self, recognized as an aṃśa (mode) of Bhagavān, rests in its own intrinsic bliss as body of the Lord. The 'surpassing delight' signals qualitative distinction of ātman-bliss from sensory pleasure, not its annihilation into brahman.

  divergence: Rāmānuja: 'atiśayitasukham idam eva iti ramate... anyanirapekṣam ātmani eva tuṣyati' — the phrase anyanirapekṣa (requiring nothing else) is Rāmānuja's marker that jīva-bliss is genuine, not dissolved; the self rests as Bhagavān's śarīra (body), not as a featureless identity.

• Madhvadvaita

  Through mind (manas) made an instrument, one sees Bhagavān within the deha (body-field), and in that perception alone finds satisfaction. Madhva's gloss is pointedly brief — 'āśrayaṇā manasā ātmani dehe ātmānam Bhagavantam paśyan' — because the verb paśyan (seeing) has Bhagavān as its object, not the jīva's own svarūpa. The yogin's stillness is not a collapse of distinction but a purified worship: the jīva abides in its own real but dependent nature, ever distinct from Hari, satisfied because it has found the Lord present in the very field it inhabits.

  divergence: Madhva: 'ātmanā manasā ātmani dehe ātmānam Bhagavantam paśyan' — object is Bhagavān, not generic cit; the trimūrti of knower-known-knowing remains fully real, distinguishing Dvaita from both Advaita collapse and Viśiṣṭādvaita modal identity.

• Vallabhaśuddhādvaita

  Vallabha marks this verse as a three-and-a-half verse unit delineating the yoga's own svarūpa (essential nature) and its phala (fruit): when the citta restrained by yoga-tantra-sevā comes to rest on all sides, that is the svarūpa-lakṣaṇa (intrinsic definition) of yoga — 'yogaś citta-vṛtti-nirodhaḥ' as Patañjali confirms. Vallabha reads the satisfaction (tuṣyati) not as mere meditative quiescence but as the ātman touching the śuddha-sattva of Kṛṣṇa's own nature, since for Puṣṭi-mārga the jīva is a genuine aṃśa of the Lord's bliss-essence. Rest in ātman is rest in Kṛṣṇa's līlā-prakāśa (play-luminosity).

  divergence: Vallabha: 'yatra yogatantrasevayā niruddham cittam uparamate sarvata iti svarūpalakṣaṇamuktam... tathāca pātañjalasūtram 1.2 yogaś citta-vṛtti-nirodhaḥ' — he cites Patañjali to anchor the svarūpa, then extends via Puṣṭi-mārga doctrine that the reached stillness is not nirvāṇa but Kṛṣṇa-contact.

• Śrīdharabhakti

  Śrīdhara distinguishes two uses of the word yoga in the Gītā: in 'yaṃ sannyāsam iti prāhuḥ' (6.2) it denotes karma-yoga, while in 'nātyaśnatas tu yogo'sti' (6.16) it denotes samādhi — the latter being the mukhya-yoga (principal yoga). This verse opens a three-and-a-half verse unit defining samādhi as mukhya by both its svarūpa and phala: by yoga practice the citta becomes uparata (withdrawn), and in that state — with śuddha manas perceiving only ātman, no longer deha-ādi (body etc.) — tuṣṭi arises in ātman alone, not in viṣayas (sense-objects). The fourth verse (6.23) will supply the antecedent for all four yat-pronouns here.

  divergence: Śrīdhara: 'mukhyo yogaḥ ka ity apekṣāyāṃ samādhim eva svarūpataḥ phalataś ca lakṣayan sa eva mukhyo yoga ity āha... yatra ca ātmanā śuddhena manasā ātmānam eva paśyati na tu dehādi paśyaṃś cātmany eva tuṣyati na tu viṣayeṣu' — his exegetical move of disambiguating two yoga usages is a philological contribution absent from other commentators.

• Madhusūdanaadvaita-bhakti

  Madhusūdana distinguishes nirodha-samādhi (total suppression of vṛttis) from the ekāgratā (one-pointed flow) mentioned earlier: here the citta, reaching a specific pariṇāma (transformation) through yoga practice, transcends even the single-object flow and becomes still 'like a fire without fuel' — nirindhanāgni-vat — all vṛttis ceased. In that pariṇāma, by the antaḥkaraṇa purified to śuddha-sattva alone (rajas and tamas fully suppressed), one sees the ātman as pratyak-caitanya (inward-facing consciousness), non-different from paramātman, sat-cit-ānanda-ghana (dense being-consciousness-bliss), and rests in the ātman alone — not in the body-sense aggregate nor in its objects.

  divergence: Madhusūdana: 'nirindhanāgni-vad upaśāmyan nirvṛttikayā sarvavṛttinirodharūpeṇa pariṇatam bhavati... ātmānam pratyakcaitanyam paramātmābhinnam saccidānandaghanam anantadvitīyam paśyan... ātmany eva paramānandaghane tuṣyati na dehendriyasaṃghāte' — the nirindhanāgni image is Madhusūdana's own; his synthesis locates bhakti's paramānanda as the content of Advaita's nirodha-state.