Bhagavad Gītā Chapter 6, Verse 7: Krishna to Arjuna — Dhyāna-Yoga
For one who has conquered the mind and found inner stillness, the supreme Self stands gathered and present, unshaken by cold or heat, pleasure or pain, honor or dishonor.
Bhāṣyakāra purports
- Śaṅkaraadvaita
One who has conquered the aggregate of body and instruments — that is, the one called 'jitātmā' (the self-conquered) — and whose inner faculty has become utterly stilled: for such a renunciant the Paramātman is not sought elsewhere but stands present as one's very own Self, directly as Ātman. This sameness must hold across the paired extremes: cold-heat, pleasure-pain, honor-dishonor — for any tilt toward them signals the inner organ has not yet been won. Śaṅkara's reading: the Self is already 'sammāhita' (well-established) — the yogin does not attain it but ceases to obstruct it.
divergence: panel_commentary_devanagari — kāryakaraṇa-saṅghāta passage; prasannāntaḥkaraṇa; sākṣād-ātmabhāvena vartate
- Rāmānujaviśiṣṭādvaita
The 'jitātmā' (self-conquered one) is specifically the one with a mind emptied of vikāra (distortion); the term 'praśānta' denotes the mind — not a generic calm but the mind as locus where Paramātman becomes 'samyag-āhita' (rightly established). Rāmānuja names this inner self 'pratyag-ātmā' and calls it 'Paramātman' in a relative sense: it is 'higher' compared to each prior unstable state. The construction 'ātmā paraṃ samāhitaḥ' (the Self supremely gathered) holds — and this gathered state is the precondition for the devotional absorption that follows.
divergence: vikāra-rahita-manasa; pratyag-ātmā atra paramātmā ity-ucyate; pūrva-pūrvāsthāpekṣayā paramattvāt
- Madhvadvaita
Madhva announces this verse as stating 'the fruit of being a jitātmā (self-conquered one)': when the mind no longer runs toward objects, Paramātman becomes 'hṛdi sannihitaḥ' — directly present in the heart, which is the mark of 'aparokṣa-jñāna' (non-mediated cognition of Viṣṇu). The kūṭastha (the immovable one, unshaken like space) is defined not as identity with Brahman but as resemblance to ākāśa (space) in its imperviousness. 'Vijñāna' here is Madhva's technical term: the special, direct vision of Hari that cannot be reduced to inferential knowledge.
divergence: aparokṣa-jñānī bhavati; hṛdi sannihitaḥ; kūṭasthaḥ nirvikaraḥ kūṭavat-sthita; vijñānaṃ śambhur-abravīt passage
- Vallabhaśuddhādvaita
Vallabha reads the verse as revealing the inner-self (antaryyāmin, the indwelling one) becoming 'samādhigata' (entered into samādhi) — but crucially, even amid the seasonal dharmas (śīta, uṣṇa, etc.) that are Kṛṣṇa's own līlā-play. For Vallabha, 'kevalam ātmā samāhitaḥ' means the Self becomes purely absorbed in the Paramātman who is never external: the antaryyāmin is already Kṛṣṇa, so the absorption is a recognition of what prasāda (grace) has already given, not a yogic achievement.
divergence: kāla-dharmeṣu śītoṣṇādiṣu satsv-api; paraṃ kevalam-ātmā samāhito bhavati; antaryyāmi-samādhigata
- Śrīdharabhakti
Śrīdhara specifies that 'praśānta' here means 'rāga-ādi-rahita' (freed from passion and the rest) — only for such a one does 'ātmā samāhitaḥ' hold, meaning the self becomes 'svātma-niṣṭha' (grounded in its own nature), not dependent on another. He offers a second reading without abandoning the first: 'hṛdi paramātmā samāhitaḥ' — the Paramātman becomes established in that heart. Both readings stand; neither cancels the other. The equanimity in śīta-uṣṇa (cold-heat) and māna-apamāna (honor-dishonor) is the criterion, not the cause.
divergence: rāgādi-rahitasyaiva; svātma-niṣṭho bhavati nānyasya; hṛdi paramātmā samāhitaḥ — yadvā construction
- Madhusūdanaadvaita-bhakti
Madhusūdana anatomizes the obstacles precisely: śīta-uṣṇa-sukha-duḥkha are 'citta-vikṣepa-kara' (mind-dispersing) and māna-apamāna are 'citta-vikṣepa-hetu' (causes of dispersion) — naming both effect and cause. For the one who achieves 'sama-buddhyā rāga-dveṣa-śūnya' (equanimous vision, emptied of attraction and aversion), the Paramātman is the 'svaprakāśa-jñāna-svabhāva ātmā' (the Self whose very nature is self-luminous awareness), and 'samāhitaḥ' becomes 'samādhi-viṣayaḥ yogārūḍhaḥ' — the very object of samādhi, the one who has ascended yoga. He also preserves Śrīdhara's 'paraṃ kevalam' reading as an alternative, demonstrating his synthesizing approach.
divergence: citta-vikṣepa-kareṣu; svaprakāśa-jñāna-svabhāva; samādhi-viṣayo yogārūḍho bhavati; tasmāj-jitātmā praśāntaś-ca bhavet