Bhagavad Gītā Chapter 6, Verse 25: Krishna to Arjuna — Dhyāna-Yoga

Bhāṣyakāra purports

• Śaṅkaraadvaita

  Withdraw gradually — never abruptly — through a buddhi (discernment) fortified by patience (dhrti). Having made the mind fully settled in the Atman — understanding that the Atman alone is all, that nothing whatsoever exists apart from It — think of absolutely nothing else. Sankara calls this the supreme rule (parama vidhi) of yoga: not a technique layered atop other practices, but the final cessation itself, for when the mind is thus established, there is no longer any object left to cognize.

  divergence: Sankara treats atmasamstha as jnana-recognition, not devotional rest — the mind dissolves into its own true nature, not into a personal deity.

• Rāmānujaviśiṣṭādvaita

  Desires are of two kinds: those born of contact (touch, cold, heat) and those born of mental construction (sons, fields, wealth). The latter can be relinquished by the mind's own refusal to associate with them; the former require equanimity of response. Having renounced both — withdrawing the entire sense-aggregate (indriya-grama) from all objects — one restrains the mind gradually through a viveka-saturated buddhi, until it rests in the Atman: the individual self as a mode of Bhagavan. Then think of nothing else.

  divergence: Ramanuja's 'Atman' here is the jiva understood as sarira (body) of Isvara — atmasamstha does not mean dissolution into undifferentiated Brahman but the soul resting in its own authentic mode within Bhagavan.

• Madhvadvaita

  The buddhi is the efficient cause of the mind's restraint and of the mind's rejoicing in the Atman. The Atman to rest in is always the jiva — eternally distinct from Hari — and no practice of gradual restraint can collapse that eternal difference. Restraint of the mind, step by patient step, leads not to absorption in Brahman but to the jiva finding its delight (ramana) within the domain of Hari's will.

  divergence: Madhva's commentary here is terse (a single line in the source). Buddhi-primacy for mano-nigraha is affirmed; atma-ramana retains permanent jiva-Brahman distinction — bhashya is sparse but unambiguous on this ontological floor. [NOTE: Madhva bhashya for this verse is highly compressed; inference from his wider siddhanta supplements.]

• Vallabhaśuddhādvaita

  This verse completes the description of the yoga worth knowing: the yoga that yields what is desired and removes what is not desired — and this yoga is itself called the 'dissolution of the union with sorrow' (duhkha-samyoga-viyoga). Since this yoga bears such great fruit, it must be practised with resolution (niscayena) and effort (yatna). Gradually, with the buddhi gripping firm, bring the mind to rest in the Self that is Krsna's own svarupa — and then think of nothing else, for Krsna is the only object worth holding.

  divergence: Vallabha's commentary spans verses 6.22-6.25 as a unit; he reads atmasamstha as rest in Krsna-svarupa under the Pustimarga lens of total dependence on grace, not autonomous jnana-effort. [NOTE: Vallabha bhashya covers this verse only in a block with 6.22; rendering supplements from Pustimarga siddhanta.]

• Śrīdharabhakti

  If prior-karma impressions (prakta-karma-samskaras) disturb the mind and cause it to waver, then stabilise it through firm holding (dharana). Do this by means of a buddhi made fully gripping and taut by patience. Make the mind utterly still — 'atmasamstha' meaning well-established in the Atman alone, motionless. This must happen gradually, through the sequence of practice (abhyasa-krama), never all at once. The culmination: think of nothing at all. When the mind is truly still, the Atman — whose nature is supreme bliss (parama-ananda) — self-illuminates spontaneously, and one does not then turn away even from Atman-meditation.

  divergence: Sridhara alone among the panel explicitly names the fruit within the restraint-process itself — the self-luminous parama-ananda that arises when the mind goes still — giving this verse a positive, not merely privative, telos.

• Madhusūdanaadvaita-bhakti

  Withdraw stage by stage (bhumika-jaya-kramena), gradually. The buddhi that is 'gripped by patience' means the resolute understanding that 'someday this yoga will certainly be accomplished — why then be anxious?' By that unhurried conviction, following the path shown by the guru, restrain the mind step by step. This points to the two qualities previously mentioned: non-despondency and resolve. The process follows the fourfold movement the Katha Sruti maps: restrain speech into mind, mind into knowing-awareness, that awareness into the great self (mahat-tattva), and the great self into the peaceful Atman — and having done so, think of nothing at all.

  divergence: Madhusudhana's synthesis is most architecturally elaborate — he reads the verse through the four Katha Sruti stages, making it a map of Advaita levels of dissolution, while retaining the guru-path and patient non-despondency of devotional praxis.