The held mind opens onto a peace that rests, at last, in Krishna himself.
This is the verse that names the destination of everything the chapter has been teaching. It is easy to hear liberation as an empty ending; the verse instead ties the final rest directly to the Lord.
Joining the mind to the Supreme this way, always, in the manner just described, the yogi of disciplined mind reaches the peace that has liberation as its summit and abides in me.
The reading read whole, as one unhurried piece
Where it stands
Krishna has walked through the practical steps of meditation, the clean and steady seat, the upright spine, the senses drawn in, the mind gathered. Now he names the destination all of that practice has been aimed at.
The teaching
Keep joining the mind this way, in the manner just described, and keep doing it always, as a continual, sustained habit, not a single successful sitting. Hold the mind in; restrain it; keep it from running out toward the things the senses want. To a mind held steady in this way comes peace, and this peace has liberation, nirvana, as its highest point, its summit. Wherever the sources speak of this at any length, they are careful that this peace not be mistaken for a bare, negative quiet, an emptiness with nothing in it. Its substance, on the fuller readings, is positive: the peace abides in Krishna, rests in him, is of his own nature, settles under his sway. The ceasing of the restless round of worldly existence and the abiding in the Lord are read, by the sources that treat the verse most fully, as one and the same moment rather than two separate events. So the whole discipline the chapter has laid out, step by careful step, finds its proper end here, not in a stillness that belongs to no one, but in a rest that has always had Krishna as its home.
The doubt that rises
Is the liberation named here an emptying-out, the erasure of the one who practices, or a real, positive resting in someone? And is the peace something won once and kept, or something that must be sustained, moment after moment, by the same continual holding that reaches it?
Where the paths divide
Read from a genuinely brief surviving comment.
Shankara's own extant words here are compressed: yoking himself always in this way, the yogi of restrained mind reaches peace, the rest whose highest point is liberation, the peace that rests in Krishna and lies under his sway. The comment does not, at this verse, unfold further how the individual Self stands to Brahman in that rest; that fuller architecture belongs to Shankara's teaching elsewhere and should not be read into these two brief sentences as though stated here.
Read as steadiness won specifically through contact with the Lord.
Ramanuja holds that the mind is made unmoving by being made pure through contact with Krishna, the supreme Person and welcome resting place of the mind. Purification and final steadiness are, on this reading, one single movement rather than two stages. The peace stands at the very edge of liberation and abides in him, so the practice is God-centered from its very first step, not a neutral technique that happens to end near the divine.
Read from a single surviving sentence, narrow but exact.
The one line that survives from Madhva at this verse says only that the highest point named nirvana is the peace that comes after the body is given up, full liberation after death rather than a lesser calm attained while still living. This is a thin fragment, and the honest reading stays with exactly this narrow claim rather than building a fuller position that the extant text does not itself contain.
Read as the tail end of a combined six-verse comment, not a standalone remark.
Abhinavagupta's surviving commentary treats verses 6.10 through 6.15 as one continuous passage; the words that reach forward to 6.15 specifically say only that for the one who joins and gathers himself in this way, holding Krishna as the highest, peace comes, and at its farthest reach he attains Krishna. On a fuller Kashmir Shaiva reading, offered here clearly as extension and not as his stated words, one might read that peace as consciousness settling back into recognition of its own unbounded nature.
Read as a positive standing in the Lord, never a bare quiet.
Sridhara will not let this peace fall away into mere negative stillness. Its substance, he insists, is positive: to stand in the very form of Krishna, and that standing is exactly what is here called liberation. The ceasing of worldly existence and the abiding in the Lord are the same moment, not two events in sequence, so every condition the chapter has laid down finds its proper end in this one positive rest.
Read as a technical map of the mind's stages, and a caution about its by-products.
Madhusudana assigns each phrase of the verse to a specific stage of a scheme of deepening absorption, from the mind fixed on a single cognized object through to a final state that ends ignorance and its effects. He warns as he goes that mystic powers arising along this road are obstacles to the deeper absorption, not marks of success, and that the whole fruit demands sustained, deliberate effort rather than arriving as an easy byproduct of casual practice.
All six sources that speak here agree the held mind opens onto peace, and where they speak at length, they agree that peace is not empty but rests in Krishna. They part on how much can honestly be said beyond that: Shankara and Madhva leave only brief, precise remarks; Abhinavagupta's words survive only as the close of a longer combined passage; Ramanuja, Sridhara, and Madhusudana say more, each in their own register, devotional, positive, and technical in turn. This page keeps that unevenness visible rather than smoothing it into six matched positions.
A question to carry
When your own mind finally grows quiet, even for a moment, what do you notice it resting on, and is that something you would call empty, or something you would call home?
Where this teaching travels
Verses that sit near this one, each going its own way; follow whichever calls you.
So hold the mind steadily today, gently and without force, and let the quiet you find at the end of the holding be received as a resting place already prepared for you, rather than a void you must brace against.
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 just laid out the seat, the spine, the gathered senses, the settled mind; here he names what all of that practice is finally for.
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.
Everything the chapter has taught, the seat, the spine, the gathered senses, points to this one fruit: a peace that culminates in liberation.
Across Advaita, Viśiṣṭādvaita, BhaktiŚaṅkara · Rāmānuja · Śrīdhara · MadhusūdanaIn Śaṅkara, Rāmānuja, and 2 others’ words
Every commentator here reads this verse as the payoff line of the whole chapter's practical instruction. The seat, the upright spine, the drawn-in senses, the gathered mind that Krishna has been describing all lead here: the yogi who keeps doing this, in the prescribed way and continually, as a steady habit, reaches the highest fruit the practice offers.
That fruit depends on a mind actually restrained and held in, sustained continually, not achieved in a single sitting and then left behind.
Across Advaita, Viśiṣṭādvaita, BhaktiŚaṅkara · Rāmānuja · Śrīdhara · MadhusūdanaIn Śaṅkara, Rāmānuja, and 2 others’ words
The condition for that fruit is named as a restrained, held-in mind, a mind yoked and kept from running out toward objects. Every source treats this as a real, won steadiness, not a momentary quieting, and treats it as the direct cause of what follows, rather than as incidental to it.
The peace is read, wherever the sources speak at length, as positive rest in the Lord's own nature, not a bare absence or a passing calm.
Across Advaita, BhaktiŚaṅkara · Śrīdhara · MadhusūdanaIn Śaṅkara, Śrīdhara, and 1 others’ words
The fruit itself is called peace, and this peace has liberation, nirvana, as its highest point or summit. Wherever the extant sources speak at any length, they read this peace as the deep, settled quiet of a life that has reached its goal, the ending of the restless round of worldly existence, and not as a passing mood.
This peace abides in Krishna: it rests in him, is of his nature, settles under his sway, tying the final destination to the Lord himself.
Across Viśiṣṭādvaita, Bhakti, AdvaitaRāmānuja · Śrīdhara · MadhusūdanaIn Rāmānuja, Śrīdhara, and 1 others’ words
This peace abides in Krishna: it rests in him, is of his own nature, settles under his sway. Wherever the extant material addresses this phrase directly, it reads the final rest as tied to the Lord himself, not as a bare, ownerless stillness that could belong to no one and rest nowhere.
Where the sources are thin, as with Madhva's single line or Abhinavagupta's combined passage, the honest reading stays close to what survives.
Across Advaita, Viśiṣṭādvaita, BhaktiŚaṅkara · Rāmānuja · Śrīdhara · MadhusūdanaIn Śaṅkara, Rāmānuja, and 2 others’ words
The verse is read, wherever it is treated at length, as closing the chapter's practical teaching by naming its destination rather than adding a new technique. What has been described step by step, the sources agree, was always aimed at this single resting point, and nothing in the practice was pursued for any lesser or intermediate goal.
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
For Ramanuja the mind is steadied specifically by contact with Krishna, the supreme Person and welcome resting place of the mind; its purification and its final rest are the same single movement. The peace stands at the very edge of liberation and abides in him, so the practice and its fruit are God-centered from the start, not merely mind-centered technique that happens to end near the divine.
Dvaita, in their fuller words
The one line that survives from Madhva at this verse is narrow but exact: the highest point named nirvana is the peace that comes after the body is given up, full liberation after death rather than any lesser calm attained while living. Beyond this single sentence nothing further is extant here, so this divergence should be read as thin and precise rather than as a developed position.
Shaiva, in their fuller words
Abhinavagupta treats 6.10 through 6.15 as one continuous passage rather than commenting on this verse alone; the closing words of that combined remark say only that for the one who joins and gathers himself in, peace comes, and at its farthest reach he attains Krishna. A fuller Kashmir Shaiva reading, one would extend this into consciousness recognizing its own unbounded nature, but that extension is not in the extant fragment and must be flagged as inference, not as his stated words.
Bhakti, in their fuller words
Sridhara insists the peace named here is not a merely negative quiet; its substance is positive, to stand in the very form of the Lord, and that standing is exactly what is here called liberation. The ceasing of worldly existence and the abiding in Krishna are one and the same moment, so every condition the chapter has laid down finds its proper end in this single positive resting.
A modern reading, in their fuller words
Madhusudana reads the verse as a technical map, assigning each of its phrases to a specific stage of Patanjali's scheme of absorption, from the mind fixed on a cognized object through to the cloud-of-dharma absorption that ends ignorance itself. He is careful to warn that mystic powers arising along the way are obstacles to release, not marks of progress, and that the whole fruit demands sustained, deliberate effort rather than arriving on its own.
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
As you finish a period of quiet practice today, notice where your attention settles once the effort of holding the mind steady relaxes. Does it drop into blankness, or does it rest on something, a name, a presence, a felt nearness? Let the noticing be gentle rather than a test to pass; the verse only asks that the mind be held, not that you arrive at a final answer about what it rests in.
So hold the mind steady today, gently and continually, and let it find, at the end of the holding, not emptiness but a resting place that is already home.
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
very commentator here reads this verse as the payoff line of the whole chapter's practical instruction. The seat, the upright spine, the drawn-in senses, the gathered mind that Krishna has been describing all lead here: the yogi who keeps doing this, in the prescribed way and continually, as a steady habit, reaches the highest fruit the practice offers.
Śaṅkarācārya · Rāmānujācārya · Śrīdhara Svāmī · Madhusūdana Sarasvatī
The condition for that fruit is named as a restrained, held-in mind, a mind yoked and kept from running out toward objects. Every source treats this as a real, won steadiness, not a momentary quieting, and treats it as the direct cause of what follows, rather than as incidental to it.
Śaṅkarācārya · Rāmānujācārya · Śrīdhara Svāmī · Madhusūdana Sarasvatī
The fruit itself is called peace, and this peace has liberation, nirvana, as its highest point or summit. Wherever the extant sources speak at any length, they read this peace as the deep, settled quiet of a life that has reached its goal, the ending of the restless round of worldly existence, and not as a passing mood.
Śaṅkarācārya · Śrīdhara Svāmī · Madhusūdana Sarasvatī
This peace abides in Krishna: it rests in him, is of his own nature, settles under his sway. Wherever the extant material addresses this phrase directly, it reads the final rest as tied to the Lord himself, not as a bare, ownerless stillness that could belong to no one and rest nowhere.
Rāmānujācārya · Śrīdhara Svāmī · Madhusūdana Sarasvatī
The verse is read, wherever it is treated at length, as closing the chapter's practical teaching by naming its destination rather than adding a new technique. What has been described step by step, the sources agree, was always aimed at this single resting point, and nothing in the practice was pursued for any lesser or intermediate goal.
Śaṅkarācārya · Rāmānujācārya · Śrīdhara Svāmī · Madhusūdana Sarasvatī
Divergence
Advaita Vedānta
Shankara's own extant comment on this verse is brief: peace, culminating in liberation, resting in Krishna, named together as one settled state. He does not, in the surviving text at this verse, unfold further how the individual Self relates to Brahman in that rest; that fuller architecture belongs to his teaching elsewhere and should not be read into these two compressed sentences.
Śaṅkarācārya
Viśiṣṭādvaita
For Ramanuja the mind is steadied specifically by contact with Krishna, the supreme Person and welcome resting place of the mind; its purification and its final rest are the same single movement. The peace stands at the very edge of liberation and abides in him, so the practice and its fruit are God-centered from the start, not merely mind-centered technique that happens to end near the divine.
Rāmānujācārya
Dvaita
The one line that survives from Madhva at this verse is narrow but exact: the highest point named nirvana is the peace that comes after the body is given up, full liberation after death rather than any lesser calm attained while living. Beyond this single sentence nothing further is extant here, so this divergence should be read as thin and precise rather than as a developed position.
Madhvācārya
Kashmir Śaiva
Abhinavagupta treats 6.10 through 6.15 as one continuous passage rather than commenting on this verse alone; the closing words of that combined remark say only that for the one who joins and gathers himself in, peace comes, and at its farthest reach he attains Krishna. A fuller Kashmir Shaiva reading, one would extend this into consciousness recognizing its own unbounded nature, but that extension is not in the extant fragment and must be flagged as inference, not as his stated words.
Ācārya Abhinavagupta
Bhakti
Sridhara insists the peace named here is not a merely negative quiet; its substance is positive, to stand in the very form of the Lord, and that standing is exactly what is here called liberation. The ceasing of worldly existence and the abiding in Krishna are one and the same moment, so every condition the chapter has laid down finds its proper end in this single positive resting.
Śrīdhara Svāmī
Modern
Madhusudana reads the verse as a technical map, assigning each of its phrases to a specific stage of Patanjali's scheme of absorption, from the mind fixed on a cognized object through to the cloud-of-dharma absorption that ends ignorance itself. He is careful to warn that mystic powers arising along the way are obstacles to release, not marks of progress, and that the whole fruit demands sustained, deliberate effort rather than arriving on its own.
Madhusūdana Sarasvatī
A Seeker Asks
Is the peace this verse promises something I earn once, by enough discipline, or something that has to be renewed practice after practice?
The verse's own word for always, and its insistence on a mind kept restrained continually rather than restrained once, both point toward a steadiness that is practiced and sustained, not a prize won on a single occasion and then simply held.
Śaṅkarācārya · Śrīdhara Svāmī
At the same time, the sources that speak of a summit, liberation, nirvana, describe an actual arrival, a settling that does not need to be re-earned once reached. The practice sustains you toward that point; it does not describe an endless treadmill with no destination.
Rāmānujācārya · Madhusūdana Sarasvatī
So both are true without contradiction: the discipline of the held mind is ongoing, moment to moment, for as long as you are practicing, while the peace it opens onto is described, wherever the sources speak of it at length, as a real settling rather than a fragile mood that must be won all over again each time.
Śrīdhara Svāmī · Madhusūdana Sarasvatī
Contemplation
As you finish a period of quiet practice today, notice where your attention settles once the effort of holding the mind steady relaxes. Does it drop into blankness, or does it rest on something, a name, a presence, a felt nearness? Let the noticing be gentle rather than a test to pass; the verse only asks that the mind be held, not that you arrive at a final answer about what it rests in.
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.