Bhagavad Gītā Chapter 6, Verse 33: Krishna to Arjuna — Dhyāna-Yoga
Arjuna says: This yoga of equal-seeing you've described, Madhusūdana, I cannot see how it could hold steady, given the mind's restlessness.
Bhāṣyakāra purports
- Śaṅkaraadvaita
O Madhusūdana, the yoga you have taught is characterized by sameness (sāmya — equanimity toward all phenomena). Yet I cannot perceive a stable, unmoving foothold in it, because the mind is inherently restless (cañcalatva — the quality of being unsteady). Śaṅkara notes this objection as self-evident and well-known (prasiddham etat), confirming the difficulty is not Arjuna's weakness alone but the acknowledged predicament of any aspirant seeking the still ground of pure awareness.
- Rāmānujaviśiṣṭādvaita
Arjuna observes that the yoga Kṛṣṇa described is sameness of vision across all jīvas — beings as apparently differentiated as gods and humans — held together under the single luminous form of Īśvara-sāmya (equality with the Lord). This sameness is not mere mental calm but a cognition that all selves share one mode of awareness (jñāna-ekākāratā — the condition of being solely of the form of knowledge). Because the mind flickers, Arjuna cannot see how such sustained equal-vision could be maintained — the difficulty is real, not rhetorical, for it concerns the precondition of bhakti-yoga itself.
- Madhvadvaita
Madhva's commentary is terse by design: the only doctrinal point extracted is that Arjuna cannot see a firm, stable establishment (sthirā sthiti) in this yoga, the obstacle being the mind's cañcalatva. In Dvaita terms, the jīva's dependence on Hari is so complete that even the capacity to sustain yoga is a gift; Arjuna's admission of inability is thus already an act of appropriate humility before the Lord. [NOTE: Madhva bhāṣya supplied is minimal — one sentence — no further elaboration available in the panel payload.]
- Vallabhaśuddhādvaita
Vallabha reads 6.33–6.34 together: Arjuna believes the yoga just described to be impossible (asambhava), and his ground is the demonstrated difficulty of nirodha (restraint of the citta — mind-stuff). Vallabha cites the famous cases of Āgnīdhra and Saubhari — sages whose citta broke free despite long practice — as instances where that impossibility was historically visible. The comparison of restraining the wind in the sky (ākāśe dhodhūyamānasya vāyoḥ nirodha — the restraint of wind churned in open sky) captures Puṣṭi-mārga's conviction: unaided self-effort cannot bind the mind; only Kṛṣṇa's grace-prasāda can.
- Śrīdharabhakti
Śrīdhara glosses sāmya as the condition in which the mind rests in the form of the Self alone, free of both dissolution (laya) and distraction (vikṣepa) — the twin enemies of sustained practice. The yoga Arjuna questions is thus not mere calmness but the sustained single-pointed awareness of ātman (ātmākāra-avasthāna — abiding as the form of the Self). Arjuna's objection is that he cannot see how this stable, long-term state (dīrghakālaṃ sthiti) could be maintained given the mind's natural restlessness — a fair and honest assessment, not a failure of faith.
- Madhusūdanaadvaita-bhakti
Madhusūdana frames Arjuna's speech as a formal objection (ākṣepa) to the position just established. The yoga is the highest, marked by equal vision everywhere (sarvatra sama-dṛṣṭi), achieved through the elimination of rāga-dveṣa and all the other asymmetric distortions of perception (viṣama-dṛṣṭi-hetavaḥ — the causes of unequal seeing). The address 'Madhusūdana — slayer of Madhu, originator of all Vedic traditions' is not ornamental: Arjuna is acknowledging that even the founder of the entire sampradāya-lineage cannot, from Arjuna's vantage, make this yoga look achievable for a practitioner such as himself.