When the wavering finally stops, what was called a search turns out to have already arrived.
It sounds like a simple promise: settle your mind, and yoga is yours. What is harder to hear is that the settling is not one more idea to add to all the others pulling at you, but the very thing that lets the pulling stop.
Right now your intellect is pulled in different directions by everything you have heard about duty and reward. When it stops wavering and rests unshaken in deep absorption, you will have reached yoga.
The reading read whole, as one unhurried piece
Where it stands
Krishna has spent several verses building toward a single, steady intellect, the mind that no longer flinches at gain or loss. Now he closes that teaching with a promise: reach this stillness, and yoga is yours. It is a large claim, made almost in passing, and it is exactly this claim that will pull Arjuna's next question out of him, the question about what a person who has actually arrived at this stillness looks like.
The teaching
Right now, everything you have heard is working against your rest. Scripture, counsel, custom, each promises something different through some different means, and a mind that takes each promise at face value ends up pulled toward all of them at once, which is to say, settled in none of them. This is not a moral failing. It is simply what happens to an intellect that has listened widely without yet resting anywhere. The verse does not ask you to resolve every one of those competing claims first. It asks for a change of state: let the intellect come to stand, unshaken by the pull of distraction, and further, immovable against the return of doubt. These are two different achievements, and both are needed. A mind that has stopped chasing but still second-guesses itself has not arrived; a mind free of doubt but still restless under new distraction has not arrived either. Only when both are met together does the promise land. Then, the verse says, and only then, you will attain yoga.
The doubt that rises
You will attain yoga. But which yoga is meant: absorption into the non-dual Self, the direct vision of one's own true nature through action purified of craving, a grace-given blissful vision of the Lord, consciousness simply recognizing that it was never actually divided, or devotion finally resting, unshaken, in the one object that does not shift?
Where the paths divide
Read as the end of inquiry.
The scattering you feel comes from scripture's own ritual portion, the countless promised fruits and prescribed means that pull a literal-minded hearing toward action and away from inquiry. Let discrimination do its work: tell what is real from what only appears so, and let dispassion follow naturally once the difference is actually seen. Do this until the intellect stands unmoving, no longer needing anything outside the Self to complete it. What you reach is the identity taught by the great saying, that thou art, the individual self recognized as the supreme Self, entire and undivided. After this, nothing further remains to be sought. The path of knowledge has reached its own end, not a resting point along a longer road.
Read as action and knowledge working as one.
What you have gained through hearing is real and true: an understanding of the self as eternal, subtle, and utterly unlike the body. But this understanding does not yet stand firm in you. It is action, done without any grasping at its outcome, that purifies the mind enough to hold what hearing has given it. Walk the order as it is given: knowledge from scripture first, steadiness earned through unattached work next, and only then the direct beholding of your own true nature, distinct from the Lord and forever dependent on Him. This is not dissolution into an undifferentiated absolute. It is the self, finally purified, seeing itself exactly as it is.
Read as a grace-given ascent in two stages.
Your intellect has been set at odds with the very Vedas you have heard, pulled into apparent contradiction by a hearing that has not yet grasped their unified sense. Settle that first: fix the Veda's true meaning against every rival and mistaken reading, until no counter-argument can shake you. This is as far as reasoning alone can carry you. Beyond it lies a further, deeper stillness, sunk in supreme bliss through the Lord's own grace-given, direct vision of Himself, an absorption so complete that no outward disturbance could reach it. What is attained is not self-generated peace but a gift, granted to a soul whose fitness for it has finally been made ready.
Read as recognition, not acquisition.
The confusion you feel is fragmentation: consciousness mistaking scripture's many partial descriptions for the whole truth, and splintering inward to match. Samadhi, on this reading, is not a new state manufactured by technique. It is consciousness ceasing to forget what it already is, undivided, self-luminous awareness that never actually depended on any one formula to be complete. When the buddhi stops chasing the fragments, nothing has been added. Something habitual has simply been dropped, and what remains is recognition: the search ends not because an answer was found elsewhere, but because it was never actually missing.
Read as devotion matured into rest.
The confusion this verse names is wider than any one class of scripture; it is every competing voice a sincerely seeking heart meets along the way. Samadhi here is nothing more exotic than the mind well placed in the Lord himself, resting exactly where its longing was always aimed. This is not a technical absorption won through method. It is love grown steady enough that it no longer needs to test itself against every new claim it hears, because it has found, in the Lord, the one object that does not shift. What is reached is knowledge of the truth together with an unshaken rest in the Supreme, carried so completely that such a person is said to walk the world already free.
Read as two distinct, checkable conditions.
Strip away the metaphysics for a moment and look at the verse's own careful language: it names two separate qualities, unshaken and immovable, freedom from distraction and freedom from doubt, and it withholds its promise until both are actually present together. This reading treats the verse less as poetry and more as a precise diagnostic: ask honestly whether your mind still chases outcomes, and separately, whether it still doubts its own settled ground. Only when both answers are no has the condition the verse describes actually been met.
All six readings agree that the wavering must fully stop before anything is promised. They part entirely on what is found once it does. Is it the self dissolving into a wider identity, the self finally seeing itself clearly, a vision granted by grace, a recognition that nothing was ever missing, or a heart resting at last in the one it loves? The verse names the arrival. It does not settle, and this page will not settle for it, what exactly has arrived.
A question to carry
When you imagine your own mind finally unshaken by every competing voice you have ever heard, what do you picture as still there, listening, in the silence that follows?
Where this teaching travels
Verses that sit near this one, each going its own way; follow whichever calls you.
So let the many claims on your attention fall quiet for a while. Rest where nothing further needs to be added. What this verse calls arrival may be closer than the search has let you notice.
Each school is voiced from the commentators named above. Their full words, every translation, and where the schools agree and differ wait in the reading desk just below. Open the commentary desk.
Krishna has been building the case for a steady intellect since he named the death-proof Self; here he closes that teaching with a promise, and the promise is exactly what draws Arjuna's next, most famous question.
Where they agreethe convergence
Across schools and centuries the commentators come to the same ground. These are the points they share, and the voices that hold each one.
The scattering is real: many texts and voices, promising many things, will pull an untrained mind in as many directions.
Across Advaita, Dvaita, BhaktiŚaṅkara · Madhva · ŚrīdharaIn Śaṅkara, Madhva, and 1 others’ words
The verse names a real condition before it names any cure: the buddhi, the deciding faculty, has been set at odds with itself by everything it has heard. Scripture and counsel promise many things through many means, and a mind that takes each promise separately is pulled in as many directions as it has listened to voices.
The cure is not one more argument won, but a change of state, a mind that stops chasing and comes to rest.
Across Advaita, Viśiṣṭādvaita, DvaitaŚaṅkara · Rāmānuja · Madhva · MadhusūdanaIn Śaṅkara, Rāmānuja, and 2 others’ words
The remedy is not more information but a change of state: the intellect must come to rest in samadhi, a deep, undistracted absorption rather than one more competing conclusion added to the pile. Whatever the absorption is finally in, the movement toward it is the same movement in every reading.
Unshaken and immovable are two different achievements, not one idea said twice; both are needed before the fruit follows.
Across Advaita, Bhakti, DvaitaMadhusūdana · Śrīdhara · MadhvaIn Madhusūdana, Śrīdhara, and 1 others’ words
That stillness carries two distinct qualities, not one restated. It must be unshaken by the pull of distraction, no longer chasing after this fruit or that duty, and it must be immovable against doubt, no longer dislodged by any counter-argument once it has settled.
The promise is withheld until the double stillness is complete, not granted piece by piece along the way.
Across Advaita, Viśiṣṭādvaita, DvaitaŚaṅkara · Rāmānuja · Madhva · MadhusūdanaIn Śaṅkara, Rāmānuja, and 2 others’ words
The promise of the verse is withheld until that double stillness is actually reached. Attainment is not treated as automatic or gradual so much as a threshold: only once the wavering has fully stopped does the text say, then, you will attain yoga.
This verse ends one teaching only to open the next: a settled mind is what Arjuna will now ask to see described.
Across Advaita, ViśiṣṭādvaitaŚaṅkara · RāmānujaIn Śaṅkara and Rāmānuja’s words
The verse closes a teaching and opens one. It completes what Krishna has been saying about the steady intellect, and it is precisely this promise, that such steadiness ends in yoga, that draws Arjuna's next question: what does a person who has actually reached this settled state look like, act like, sound like.
This is the shared ground; it can be carried as it is. Below is where they differ.
Where they differthe divergence
Viśiṣṭādvaita, in their fuller words
Ramanuja reads the sequence as action and knowledge working together rather than knowledge alone: scriptural understanding of the self, received through hearing, is stabilized only by a mind purified through unattached action, and that steadied mind then accomplishes yoga, defined as the direct beholding of one's own true nature, distinct from the Lord and dependent on Him, not absorption into an undifferentiated absolute.
Dvaita, in their fuller words
Madhva reads vipratipanna as active opposition to the Vedas, resolved in two stages: first an unwavering intellect achieved by settling the Veda's true meaning against rival readings, then an unmoving absorption in supreme bliss through the direct, grace-given vision of Brahman, so complete that no external disturbance, not even kettledrums, could break it.
Bhakti, in their fuller words
Sridhara widens the confusion beyond ritual texts to every competing voice a devoted heart hears, and reads samadhi as the mind well placed in the Lord himself, devotion matured into steadiness rather than technique perfected; the yoga attained is direct knowledge of the truth joined to an unshaken resting in the Supreme, carried by one who is said to live already liberated.
A modern reading, in their fuller words
Read against the verse's own careful wording, a modern-facing gloss stresses that niścalā and acalā name two distinct achievements: freedom from distraction and freedom from doubt, both required together before any fruit is granted, so that the verse functions as a precise diagnostic checklist for a settled mind rather than a vague call to inner peace.
A few questions to carry
These ask for understanding, not recall; each answer is settled by the commentary itself.
For a second sitting
Carry this with youwhat stays
Notice, today, how many separate voices are asking for your intellect's allegiance: this advice, that expectation, this promised outcome, that feared one. Do not try to referee between them all at once. Instead, let your attention rest in one settled place, whatever you name it, and watch how the competing pulls quiet down not because you answered them but because you stopped running to meet each one.
So let the many voices you have heard fall quiet for a moment, and let your attention rest in the one place that does not shift; what you have been walking toward may already be nearer than the search itself.
Read deeper
Everything a full study holds, folded below.
Word by word
All the commentary, woven together
The commentary, woven together
machine-assisted draft, pending review
Convergence
he verse names a real condition before it names any cure: the buddhi, the deciding faculty, has been set at odds with itself by everything it has heard. Scripture and counsel promise many things through many means, and a mind that takes each promise separately is pulled in as many directions as it has listened to voices.
Śaṅkarācārya · Madhvācārya · Śrīdhara Svāmī
The remedy is not more information but a change of state: the intellect must come to rest in samadhi, a deep, undistracted absorption rather than one more competing conclusion added to the pile. Whatever the absorption is finally in, the movement toward it is the same movement in every reading.
Śaṅkarācārya · Rāmānujācārya · Madhvācārya · Madhusūdana Sarasvatī
That stillness carries two distinct qualities, not one restated. It must be unshaken by the pull of distraction, no longer chasing after this fruit or that duty, and it must be immovable against doubt, no longer dislodged by any counter-argument once it has settled.
Madhusūdana Sarasvatī · Śrīdhara Svāmī · Madhvācārya
The promise of the verse is withheld until that double stillness is actually reached. Attainment is not treated as automatic or gradual so much as a threshold: only once the wavering has fully stopped does the text say, then, you will attain yoga.
Śaṅkarācārya · Rāmānujācārya · Madhvācārya · Madhusūdana Sarasvatī
The verse closes a teaching and opens one. It completes what Krishna has been saying about the steady intellect, and it is precisely this promise, that such steadiness ends in yoga, that draws Arjuna's next question: what does a person who has actually reached this settled state look like, act like, sound like.
Śaṅkarācārya · Rāmānujācārya
Divergence
Advaita Vedānta
Shankara reads the scattering as caused by scripture's own ritual portions, whose promised fruits pull the mind toward action and away from inquiry, until discrimination and dispassion let the buddhi settle unmoved in the Self. Madhusudana sharpens the fruit into a precise technical claim: the union realized is the identity of the individual self and the supreme Self taught by the great saying that thou art, an undivided realization after which nothing further remains to seek.
Śaṅkarācārya · Madhusūdana Sarasvatī
Viśiṣṭādvaita
Ramanuja reads the sequence as action and knowledge working together rather than knowledge alone: scriptural understanding of the self, received through hearing, is stabilized only by a mind purified through unattached action, and that steadied mind then accomplishes yoga, defined as the direct beholding of one's own true nature, distinct from the Lord and dependent on Him, not absorption into an undifferentiated absolute.
Rāmānujācārya
Dvaita
Madhva reads vipratipanna as active opposition to the Vedas, resolved in two stages: first an unwavering intellect achieved by settling the Veda's true meaning against rival readings, then an unmoving absorption in supreme bliss through the direct, grace-given vision of Brahman, so complete that no external disturbance, not even kettledrums, could break it.
Madhvācārya
Kashmir Śaiva
Abhinavagupta reads the buddhi's confusion as fragmentation, consciousness mistaking scripture's many partial formulas for the whole, and reads samadhi not as a state acquired from outside but as recognition, pratyabhijna, consciousness ceasing to forget that it is already undivided, self-luminous awareness needing no external absorption to complete it.
Ācārya Abhinavagupta
Bhakti
Sridhara widens the confusion beyond ritual texts to every competing voice a devoted heart hears, and reads samadhi as the mind well placed in the Lord himself, devotion matured into steadiness rather than technique perfected; the yoga attained is direct knowledge of the truth joined to an unshaken resting in the Supreme, carried by one who is said to live already liberated.
Śrīdhara Svāmī
Modern
Read against the verse's own careful wording, a modern-facing gloss stresses that niścalā and acalā name two distinct achievements: freedom from distraction and freedom from doubt, both required together before any fruit is granted, so that the verse functions as a precise diagnostic checklist for a settled mind rather than a vague call to inner peace.
Madhusūdana Sarasvatī
A Seeker Asks
I have read and heard so much conflicting spiritual advice that I no longer trust my own judgment. How am I supposed to reach the stillness this verse promises?
The verse assumes exactly your situation. It does not treat this scattering as unusual or as a sign you are doing something wrong; it treats it as the normal condition of a mind that has heard many things, and it names a specific way through, not around, the confusion.
Śaṅkarācārya · Madhvācārya
The way through is not to resolve every contradiction intellectually first. Ramanuja's ordering matters here: steady conduct, action done without grasping at its outcome, does the purifying work that argument alone cannot do, and a purified mind can hold a teaching that a restless one keeps dropping.
Rāmānujācārya
And you do not need every voice to fall silent before you can rest. Sridhara's reading offers a place to actually stand: let your attention settle on one steady object, however you understand it, and let the competing counsel lose its grip gradually, from having a rival at last, rather than all at once.
Śrīdhara Svāmī
Contemplation
Notice, today, how many separate voices are asking for your intellect's allegiance: this advice, that expectation, this promised outcome, that feared one. Do not try to referee between them all at once. Instead, let your attention rest in one settled place, whatever you name it, and watch how the competing pulls quiet down not because you answered them but because you stopped running to meet each one.
Sit with this · sonnet-5-authored
All the translations and commentary
Pull up a chair.
You have come to sit with this verse. When you are ready to hear the translators and the commentators in full, open a tradition in the doorways below, or add a voice by name above.
Also hear this verse, tradition by tradition.