Bhagavad Gītā Chapter 6, Verse 26: Krishna to Arjuna — Dhyāna-Yoga

Bhāṣyakāra purports

• Śaṅkaraadvaita

  Wherever the unstable, restless mind wanders outward — drawn by sound or other sense-objects through the defect of its own nature — from each such cause the yogin must restrain it: by disclosing that cause as mere appearance (āvabhāsīkṛtya) through recognition of its true nature and by the cultivation of dispassion (vairāgya-bhāvanā). Having restrained it thus, he brings it under the sway of the Self alone. By the force of yogic practice, the mind of the yogin falls quiet in the Self itself.

• Rāmānujaviśiṣṭādvaita

  The mind, by its very nature prone to movement and therefore unstable in the Self, wanders outward from the Self toward objects — driven by attachment to sense-pleasures (viṣaya-prāvaṇya). The sādhaka must deliberately restrain it from each such direction with effort (yatna), and bring it under control within the Self by vividly contemplating the supremely blissful state (atiśayita-sukha-bhāvanā) available in the Self alone. Devotion supplies both the motive and the savor that makes this inward return sustainable.

• Madhvadvaita

  Wherever the mind runs — just as it is said in Bhāgavata 10.1.42 'yato yato dhāvati' — from each and every such place it must be brought under subjection, directed back to the Self alone (ātmaviṣaya eva vaśīkuryāt). For Madhva, 'Self' here means the jīva attending on Hari: to control the mind in the Self is to anchor it in its proper dependent relationship to the Lord, not in false autonomy.

• Vallabhaśuddhādvaita

  Through the discipline of withdrawal (pratyāhāra), the mind is to be made stable — 'bring it under the sway of the Self alone' means render it seed-free (nirbīja), empty of the saṃkalpas that pull it outward. For Vallabha, this seedlessness is not cold negation but the clearing of the vessel so that Kṛṣṇa's grace (puṣṭi) can fill it; the stabilized mind becomes capable of receiving the gift of bhakti without distraction.

• Śrīdharabhakti

  Even while being held, the mind — *svabhávataś cañcalam* (restless by nature), *asthiram* (unsteady) — if, under the power of *rajo-guṇa* (*rajogurṇavaśād*), it *pracalet* (breaks loose), then again by *pratyāhāra* (withdrawal, *pratyāhāreṇa vaśīkuryāt*) one must bring it under control. *Yaṃ yaṃ viṣayaṃ prati nirgacchati* — toward whatever object it moves outward — *tatas tataḥ pratyāhṛtya ātmany eva sthiraṃ kuryāt*: from there, withdrawing it, one makes it steady in the Self alone. The going-out is *svabhāva*, not fault; the practice is the patient, repeated return.

• Madhusūdanaadvaita-bhakti

  Madhusūdana distinguishes two enemies of samādhi: vikṣepa (distraction toward objects via desire and cognition) and laya (dissolution into sleep or torpor). Wherever the mind wanders outward into distraction or sinks inward into dissolution, the yogin restrains it and brings it into the Self — self-luminous, dense with supreme bliss (svaprakāśa-paramānanda-ghana) — taking care neither to let it be distracted nor to let it sink. Following Gauḍapāda's five verses, even the pleasure of samādhi itself must not be savored as a separate experience, lest attachment re-form.