How to take your seat in meditation: a settled mind, fearless and continent, fixed wholly on Me.
Before the mind can rest in the Lord, an inner condition has to be carried to the seat: not a serenity you manufacture by force, but the swings of liking and disliking loosened, and your whole aim narrowed to one. The verse does not ask you merely to empty the mind, which would slip back into wandering; it asks you to draw it home and hold it there.
Let him sit with a calm mind, free from fear, firm in the vow of celibacy. Controlling the mind, fixing his thoughts on me, let him stay absorbed, with me as his supreme goal.
Having laid out the posture and the place of meditation in the verses just before, Krishna now turns inward and names the condition of the meditator himself, the peace, the fearlessness, and the single aim he must bring before he can sit.
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.
Come to the seat already at peace within, with attraction and aversion loosened at the root, so the disturbance cannot quietly return.
Across Advaita, Bhakti, and the modern voicesŚaṅkara · Ānandagiri · Madhusūdana · Śrīdhara · Ramsukhdas · SivanandaIn Śaṅkara, Ānandagiri, and 4 others’ words
The verse names the inner condition the meditator carries to the seat. 'Prashantatma' means his inner instrument, the antahkarana or citta, has come to deep peace. The commentators are specific about what this peace is: it is freedom from raga and dvesha, attraction and aversion, the push and pull that keep the mind in motion. Several add that this is not just calming the surface but cutting the root: the very cause of attachment and aversion is removed, so the disturbance cannot return. One modern voice puts it cleanly: the dvandvas, the pairs like joy and grief, arise only because of our entanglement with the world, and they alone break our peace; when they are wiped out, the peace that was always there by its own nature simply shows itself.
Let fear be gone and stand firm in the vow of the chaste student; this is the settled certainty of one who no longer second-guesses his path.
Across Advaita, Bhakti, and the modern voicesŚaṅkara · Ānandagiri · Madhusūdana · Śrīdhara · SivanandaIn Śaṅkara, Ānandagiri, and 3 others’ words
'Vigata-bhih' means fear is gone, and 'brahmachari-vrate sthitah' means he is established in the vow of the brahmacharin, the chaste student. The commentators read the vow concretely as continence, service of the teacher, eating food received as alms, and the related disciplines of purity. Some go further on fearlessness: it is not merely an absence of dread but a settled, doubt-free conviction. The aspirant has renounced works, and the doubt 'is this proper or not?' that such renunciation can raise has been quieted by the firmness of scriptural certainty. So courage here is the steadiness of one who no longer second-guesses his path.
First draw the mind back from food and the senses and all outer things; but an empty mind is not yet meditation, so this clearing is only half the work.
Across Advaita, BhaktiŚaṅkara · Ānandagiri · Madhusūdana · Dhanapati · ŚrīdharaIn Śaṅkara, Ānandagiri, and 3 others’ words
'Manah samyamya' means restraining the mind, and the commentators explain it as pratyahara: drawing the mind's movements back from their objects, from food and the senses and outward things, so that the mind is made empty of the forms it usually chases. This withdrawal is the practical core of the verse. But the commentators are careful: a merely empty mind is not yet meditation, because meditation is itself a flow of mental movement. So the emptying is only half the instruction; the mind drawn back from everything else must then be set on a single object.
Now rest the mind on Me and hold Me as supreme: the place where your thought rests and the goal you live for must be one and the same.
Across Advaita, Bhakti, ŚuddhādvaitaŚaṅkara · Madhusūdana · Nīlakaṇṭha · Dhanapati · Śrīdhara · Vallabha · PuruṣottamaIn Śaṅkara, Madhusūdana, and 5 others’ words
That single object is given by 'mat-chittah' and 'mat-parah': with his mind on Me, holding Me as the supreme. The commentators stress that these two phrases say two different things, and the verse needs both. 'Mat-chittah' is where the mind rests, its object; 'mat-parah' is what the man lives for, his highest goal. The Gita's striking image makes the point: a passionate man fixes his mind on a woman, yet he does not take her as the supreme worthy of worship; he still looks up to a king or a god as that. The yogin is not like this. For him the object on which the mind rests and the supreme end of his whole life are one and the same. Krishna is both the seat of his thought and the goal of his living, and that is why the verse will not let 'in Me alone' be softened into a vague generality.
Sit, then, yoked within, so that the outer sitting only serves the inner: the mind seated in the Lord and resting steadily there.
Across Advaita, Śuddhādvaita, BhaktiŚaṅkara · Ānandagiri · Puruṣottama · Śrīdhara · VallabhaIn Śaṅkara, Ānandagiri, and 3 others’ words
The whole verse, finally, is a posture of the inner man, not only of the body. 'Yukta asita' means yoked, let him sit and so remain, settled in this union. The outer sitting is taken up only so that the inner sitting may stand: the mind seated in the Lord and resting there. The commentators present this as a fruitful stage of practice, the absorbed concentration in which a single form holds steady; one calls it the intermediate fruit of yoga, the purity of the inner organ already won on the way to the goal.
This is the shared ground; it can be carried as it is. Below is where they differ.
Where they differthe divergence
Advaita Vedānta, in their fuller words
For these commentators 'Me' is the supreme Lord understood as the inmost, non-dual Self, and the goal is realization of Brahman. The mind is restrained and turned toward the Self alone, and the practice may take the form either with attributes or without. One develops this carefully: the seeker holds Me as supreme because I alone am of the nature of supreme bliss and so am the highest human aim, dearer than son or wealth or all else, as scripture says the Self is the most inward and dearest of all. Another draws the contrast sharply with worshippers who hold the Lord apart from the Self, fix the mind on Him as a separate object of worship, yet do not regard Him as the final goal and instead seek some other fruit by His grace; this yogin, by contrast, seeks Me as the inmost non-dual reality. The culminating state, where outer and inner objects and even the savor of meditative bliss are renounced and only pure I-sense remains, is what is variously called the discrimination of consciousness from nature, or Brahman-realization, the supreme human goal.
Bhakti, in their fuller words
For these commentators 'Me' is Vasudeva, the Lord in His own form, and the verse is the hinge where yoga as meditative absorption becomes devotion. They refuse to let the stilled mind come to rest on a bare imperishable or a mere mental form of the Self read off from scripture. The peace of the inner organ is its homecoming to Vasudeva, who is at once the object on which it rests and the very end for which the man lives, and from these two together comes the title 'mat-parah'. One says the still self is reached by mastering the refinements of the mind such as friendliness and is freed from the afflictions, and that the very act of stilling becomes a mode of devoted approach, the meditation turning into bhakti-yoga in the mode of grace. Another reads 'prashantatma' itself as the heart wholly entered into the savor of devotion, and fearlessness as freedom from the doubt that the hard, dust-of-His-feet path might never reach Him.
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 where the peace this verse asks for actually comes from. You do not manufacture serenity by force. The peace is already there, settled in you by its own nature; what hides it is your entanglement with the world, out of which arise the swings of joy and grief, liking and disliking. So the work is not to add calm but to loosen those swings, and the way to loosen them is to change what you are living for. When your one aim stops being some worldly gain, some special power or attainment, and becomes firmly the Supreme alone, the grip of attraction and aversion goes slack and falls away on its own. Then the peace that was always yours simply shows itself, and that quiet condition is the very meaning of the word 'prashantatma', the one whose self is wholly at peace.
Do not strain after calm today; loosen instead what you are living for, let your one aim become the Supreme, and the peace that was always yours will quietly show 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 the inner condition the meditator carries to the seat. 'Prashantatma' means his inner instrument, the antahkarana or citta, has come to deep peace. The commentators are specific about what this peace is: it is freedom from raga and dvesha, attraction and aversion, the push and pull that keep the mind in motion. Several add that this is not just calming the surface but cutting the root: the very cause of attachment and aversion is removed, so the disturbance cannot return. One modern voice puts it cleanly: the dvandvas, the pairs like joy and grief, arise only because of our entanglement with the world, and they alone break our peace; when they are wiped out, the peace that was always there by its own nature simply shows itself.
Braided from 6 commentators
Śaṅkarācārya · Śrī Ānandagiri · Madhusūdana Sarasvatī · Śrīdhara Svāmī · Swami Ramsukhdas · Swami Sivananda
'Vigata-bhih' means fear is gone, and 'brahmachari-vrate sthitah' means he is established in the vow of the brahmacharin, the chaste student. The commentators read the vow concretely as continence, service of the teacher, eating food received as alms, and the related disciplines of purity. Some go further on fearlessness: it is not merely an absence of dread but a settled, doubt-free conviction. The aspirant has renounced works, and the doubt 'is this proper or not?' that such renunciation can raise has been quieted by the firmness of scriptural certainty. So courage here is the steadiness of one who no longer second-guesses his path.
Śaṅkarācārya · Śrī Ānandagiri · Madhusūdana Sarasvatī · Śrīdhara Svāmī · Swami Sivananda
'Manah samyamya' means restraining the mind, and the commentators explain it as pratyahara: drawing the mind's movements back from their objects, from food and the senses and outward things, so that the mind is made empty of the forms it usually chases. This withdrawal is the practical core of the verse. But the commentators are careful: a merely empty mind is not yet meditation, because meditation is itself a flow of mental movement. So the emptying is only half the instruction; the mind drawn back from everything else must then be set on a single object.
Śaṅkarācārya · Śrī Ānandagiri · Madhusūdana Sarasvatī · Dhanapati Sūri · Śrīdhara Svāmī
That single object is given by 'mat-chittah' and 'mat-parah': with his mind on Me, holding Me as the supreme. The commentators stress that these two phrases say two different things, and the verse needs both. 'Mat-chittah' is where the mind rests, its object; 'mat-parah' is what the man lives for, his highest goal. The Gita's striking image makes the point: a passionate man fixes his mind on a woman, yet he does not take her as the supreme worthy of worship; he still looks up to a king or a god as that. The yogin is not like this. For him the object on which the mind rests and the supreme end of his whole life are one and the same. Krishna is both the seat of his thought and the goal of his living, and that is why the verse will not let 'in Me alone' be softened into a vague generality.
Braided from 7 commentators
Śaṅkarācārya · Madhusūdana Sarasvatī · Śrī Nīlakaṇṭha · Dhanapati Sūri · Śrīdhara Svāmī · Vallabhācārya · Śrī Puruṣottama
The whole verse, finally, is a posture of the inner man, not only of the body. 'Yukta asita' means yoked, let him sit and so remain, settled in this union. The outer sitting is taken up only so that the inner sitting may stand: the mind seated in the Lord and resting there. The commentators present this as a fruitful stage of practice, the absorbed concentration in which a single form holds steady; one calls it the intermediate fruit of yoga, the purity of the inner organ already won on the way to the goal.
Śaṅkarācārya · Śrī Ānandagiri · Śrī Puruṣottama · Śrīdhara Svāmī · Vallabhācārya
Divergence
Advaita Vedānta
For these commentators 'Me' is the supreme Lord understood as the inmost, non-dual Self, and the goal is realization of Brahman. The mind is restrained and turned toward the Self alone, and the practice may take the form either with attributes or without. One develops this carefully: the seeker holds Me as supreme because I alone am of the nature of supreme bliss and so am the highest human aim, dearer than son or wealth or all else, as scripture says the Self is the most inward and dearest of all. Another draws the contrast sharply with worshippers who hold the Lord apart from the Self, fix the mind on Him as a separate object of worship, yet do not regard Him as the final goal and instead seek some other fruit by His grace; this yogin, by contrast, seeks Me as the inmost non-dual reality. The culminating state, where outer and inner objects and even the savor of meditative bliss are renounced and only pure I-sense remains, is what is variously called the discrimination of consciousness from nature, or Brahman-realization, the supreme human goal.
Śaṅkarācārya · Madhusūdana Sarasvatī · Śrī Nīlakaṇṭha
Bhakti
For these commentators 'Me' is Vasudeva, the Lord in His own form, and the verse is the hinge where yoga as meditative absorption becomes devotion. They refuse to let the stilled mind come to rest on a bare imperishable or a mere mental form of the Self read off from scripture. The peace of the inner organ is its homecoming to Vasudeva, who is at once the object on which it rests and the very end for which the man lives, and from these two together comes the title 'mat-parah'. One says the still self is reached by mastering the refinements of the mind such as friendliness and is freed from the afflictions, and that the very act of stilling becomes a mode of devoted approach, the meditation turning into bhakti-yoga in the mode of grace. Another reads 'prashantatma' itself as the heart wholly entered into the savor of devotion, and fearlessness as freedom from the doubt that the hard, dust-of-His-feet path might never reach Him.
Śrīdhara Svāmī · Vallabhācārya · Śrī Puruṣottama
A Seeker Asks
If the very point of meditation is to empty the mind of all objects, why does the verse then plant it firmly on one object, Krishna, rather than leaving it blank?
Because a merely blank mind is not yet meditation at all. The commentators point out that meditation is itself a steady flow of mental movement, so a mind that has been wholly emptied has nothing to do and slips back into its old wandering. The withdrawal of the mind from food, senses, and outer things is only the first half of the instruction; it clears the field, but the field must then be planted.
Śrī Ānandagiri · Madhusūdana Sarasvatī · Śrīdhara Svāmī
So the mind drawn back from everything else is set on a single object, the Lord, and held there. This is not a step backward into multiplicity but the discipline of one-pointedness: in place of the many forms the mind used to chase, a single form holds steady, and that steady, absorbed concentration is the yoga the verse is teaching.
Madhusūdana Sarasvatī · Vallabhācārya · Śrī Puruṣottama · Śaṅkarācārya
And this one object is not arbitrary. The verse pairs 'mind on Me' with 'holding Me as supreme', so the object the mind rests on is the same as the highest goal the man lives for. That is why it is steadying rather than just one more distraction: it is the seat of his thought and the end of his whole life at once, the place the mind can finally come home and stay.
Śaṅkarācārya · Śrīdhara Svāmī · Śrī Nīlakaṇṭha
Contemplation
Notice where the peace this verse asks for actually comes from. You do not manufacture serenity by force. The peace is already there, settled in you by its own nature; what hides it is your entanglement with the world, out of which arise the swings of joy and grief, liking and disliking. So the work is not to add calm but to loosen those swings, and the way to loosen them is to change what you are living for. When your one aim stops being some worldly gain, some special power or attainment, and becomes firmly the Supreme alone, the grip of attraction and aversion goes slack and falls away on its own. Then the peace that was always yours simply shows itself, and that quiet condition is the very meaning of the word 'prashantatma', the one whose self is wholly at peace.
Sit with this · Swami Ramsukhdas
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, tap a name in The seating.