Bhagavad Gītā Chapter 6, Verse 23: Krishna to Arjuna — Dhyāna-Yoga

Bhāṣyakāra purports

• Śaṅkaraadvaita

  Know this state—called yoga (yoga-saṃjñita)—through its inverse mark: it is the severing of all contact with suffering (duḥkha-saṃyoga-viyoga). Yoga bears this paradoxical name because its very nature is the dissolution of the bond that pain requires. Therefore, having understood the fruit, one must practise this yoga with firm resolve (niścaya) and with a mind from which despondency has been expelled (anirviṇṇa-cetasā).

  divergence: Śaṅkara glosses yoga-saṃjñita as 'named yoga by an inverted definition' (viparīta-lakṣaṇena) and unpacks anirviṇṇa as the privative: not-dejected, i.e. a mind purged of nirvedā. Niścaya is the resolute determination required as the proximate instrument of practice.

• Rāmānujaviśiṣṭādvaita

  Know as 'yoga' that cognition (jñānam) whose very form is the opposite of contact with suffering—it stands as the counter-reality to duḥkha-saṃyoga. Because this yoga is so defined, one must begin its practice in a spirit of joyful eagerness (hṛṣṭa-cetasā), with conviction, never with a drooping heart.

  divergence: Rāmānuja identifies the yoga referenced here as a specific jñāna whose form (ākāra) is duḥkha-saṃyoga-pratyānīka—'that which stands against contact with pain.' He substitutes hṛṣṭa-cetasā (a gladdened mind) for the mere 'un-dejected' of Śaṅkara, inflecting the practice devotionally.

• Madhvadvaita

  That from which one is released from contact with suffering is duḥkha-saṃyoga-viyoga. Yoga does not merely destroy suffering once it has arisen—the word saṃyoga (contact, conjunction) shows that yoga cuts off the very arising of such contact at its root. Therefore anyone who genuinely desires liberation (bubhūṣu) must practise this yoga without ambiguity—it is simply obligatory (yoktavya eva).

  divergence: Madhva stresses the saṃyoga compound: not only does yoga remove duḥkha, it prevents its origination (utpattim eva nivārayati). He reads yoktavya eva as an unqualified injunction for the mumukṣu—the aspirant to liberation—leaving no room for optionality.

• Vallabhaśuddhādvaita

  This yoga bears a self-contradictory name by design: it is called 'yoga' (union) but is defined as viyoga (separation from suffering)—the contradiction itself signals that ordinary dualistic logic cannot contain Kṛṣṇa's gift. This yoga, whose fruit is the simultaneous attainment of the desired and removal of the undesired, must be practised with sustained effort (niścayena = yatnena). The paradox of its name is the signature of prasāda.

  divergence: Vallabha reads viruddha-lakṣaṇā (contradictory secondary denotation) explicitly: yoga is named by its opposite, viyoga, as a pointer beyond conventional meaning. He glosses niścayena as yatnena—the effort of loving application—linking the verse forward to the sustained anuśīlana of the next lines.

• Śrīdharabhakti

  The word duḥkha here absorbs even sense-pleasure, since pleasure is mixed with suffering (duḥkha-miśritatvāt). The particular state called yoga is that in which even the mere touch (sparśa-mātra) of contact with pain has been severed. Yoga is defined by its opposite through a figure of speech like calling a hero 'coward' (śūre kātara-śabdavat). One must practise it with the resolve born of scripture and teacher (śāstrācārya-upadeśa-janita); even if success is slow, the mind must never flag—for slackening of effort out of frustration is itself the obstacle (nirvedaḥ).

  divergence: Śrīdhara supplies the śūre-kātara analogy to explain yoga named viruddha-lakṣaṇayā; he is explicit that vaiṣayika-sukha (worldly pleasure) falls within duḥkha because of its mixture. He identifies nirvedaḥ precisely as daurbalya born of a perception that practice is painful—the thing anirviṇṇa-cetasā forbids.

• Madhusūdanaadvaita-bhakti

  The unique mental state described from 6.20 onward—a cessation of all mental modifications (citta-vṛtti-nirodha) that manifests supreme ānanda—is called yoga precisely because it opposes, like a counter-force, the entire aggregate of suffering constituted by those modifications. This is Patañjali's own formulation: yogaś citta-vṛtti-nirodhaḥ. One must therefore practise with conviction (niścaya: certainty that scripture and teacher are authoritative) and without dejection (anirviṇṇa: the patience of knowing that success may come this birth or another). As the bird who tried to drain the ocean one beak-drop at a time was eventually aided by Garuḍa—so the Lord aids the undiscouraged yogin.

  divergence: Madhusūdana explicitly cites Patañjali's sūtra to ground the verse's definition and invokes Gauḍapāda's ocean-metaphor verse. He glosses niścaya as acceptance of śāstrācārya-vākya-tātparya (the intent of scriptural and teacher's word) and anirviṇṇa as the courage of one who is willing to wait across births. The allegorical story of the bird and the ocean is his unique bhāṣya flourish here.