Bhagavad Gītā Chapter 6, Verse 36: Krishna to Arjuna — Dhyāna-Yoga

Bhāṣyakāra purports

• Śaṅkaraadvaita

  For one whose inner organ (antaḥkaraṇa) is not restrained through abhyāsa (practice) and vairāgya (dispassion), yoga remains difficult to attain — this is my considered view. But one whose mind has been made vasya (obedient, brought under control) through those same two means, and who continues striving, can attain yoga by the prescribed upāya (method). Śaṅkara is explicit: the unsanctioned aspirant has renounced worldly action for yoga, yet without samyag-darśana (right vision), wanders off the yogamārga at death — the verse thus initiates Arjuna's fear of precisely that fate.

  divergence: Advaita frames yoga here as preparation for jñāna, not as terminal goal; the upāya is instrumental to mokṣasādhana (liberation-means), not devotional surrender.

• Rāmānujaviśiṣṭādvaita

  One whose mind remains unconquered — even by great exertion — cannot attain yoga; but one who strives through the upāya of madārādhana-rūpa karma (action whose inner essence is worship of the Lord) with a mind made obedient can certainly attain this samadaśana-rūpa yoga (the yoga whose form is equal vision of all as pervaded by Bhagavān). Rāmānuja then pivots: Arjuna's next question about yoga's greatness is precisely because he has already heard the mahātmya at 2.40 and now wants to understand it fully. The vāśya-ātman here is one steeped in antargata-jñāna — inner knowledge of Bhagavān's pervasion — not merely a disciplined mind.

  divergence: Where Śaṅkara's upāya is the dyad abhyāsa-vairāgya leading toward jñāna, Rāmānuja's upāya is devotional karma-yoga as kainkarya; the goal is samadaśana as bhakti, not jñāna as mokṣa.

• Madhvadvaita

  The mind does not come under control by the jīva's own effort alone; for those lacking śubhecchā (auspicious desire) toward Ramāpati (Viṣṇu), for those who are dveṣiṇas (hostile to him), and for nāstikas (those without faith), liberation is definitively precluded — this is the Brahma-scripture's ruling. The asaṃyatātman is thus not merely the undisciplined yogi but the structurally ineligible jīva: without Hari's anugrahā (grace), no vśyatā of the mind is possible even in principle.

  divergence: Madhva is the sharpest divergence: yoga's inaccessibility is not a technical difficulty of practice but an ontological fact — the mind cannot be controlled without Hari's grace, and grace is withheld from the Viṣṇu-averse jīva.

• Vallabhaśuddhādvaita

  Kṛṣṇa has just established that only through samatā (equanimity) does yoga function — and here confirms: for one whose ātman remains asaṃyata (unrestrained), yoga simply does not occur; there is no alternative path. Vallabha's bhāṣya is deliberately terse — spaṣṭam etat ('this is obvious') — because for Puṣṭi-mārga the real operative is prasāda (grace-gift): no amount of vairāgya or abhyāsa can substitute for Kṛṣṇa's direct gift of a vśya-ātman. The verse's upāya is therefore the upāya of surrendered receptivity, not self-engineered discipline.

  divergence: Vallabha's terseness is doctrinal: extended upāya-analysis implies the practitioner can engineer liberation; Puṣṭi-mārga refuses this premise, so the verse needs no elaboration beyond acknowledging Kṛṣṇa's condition.

• Śrīdharabhakti

  Śrīdhara crystallizes the chapter's conclusion: the person whose citta (mind-stuff) has not been made saṃyata through abhyāsa and vairāgya cannot attain this yoga; the person whose citta has been made vaśavartin (subject, obedient) through those same means, striving by that very same upāya, can attain it. The verse closes the prior debate by asserting that the method stated earlier is both necessary and sufficient — nothing new is added, nothing is excessive.

  divergence: Śrīdhara's voice is integrative rather than polemical; he preserves the Advaita grammatical analysis while pointing toward bhakti's relational register, treating abhyāsa-vairāgya as preparation for surrender rather than for impersonal jñāna.

• Madhusūdanaadvaita-bhakti

  Even a tattva-sākṣātkāra-vān (one who has had direct realization of truth) can be a non-supreme yogi if prārabdha-karma-driven citta-cāñcalya (restlessness from already-ripened karma) persists and abhyāsa-vairāgya have not actually restrained the antaḥkaraṇa. Madhusūdana's Yoga-Vāsiṣṭha citations establish the counter-argument: śāstriya pauruṣa (scripture-aligned human effort) is stronger than prārabdha; vasanā-flow can be redirected to the śubha (auspicious) stream by sustained practice; and only when the vāsanā-ocean itself abates does the jivanmukta's stability become complete. Without citta-vṛtti-nirodha, even the jñānin remains an aparam yogin — a secondary, not supreme, yogi.

  divergence: This school uniquely allows that a jñānin can still be disqualified from the highest yoga; the verse is thus not merely about beginners but about the advanced practitioner who has seen truth yet not fully stilled the mind — a position no other school in this panel articulates.