Measure kept across an ordinary day is what lets yoga destroy sorrow at its root.
The prior verse shut the door on excess and deficiency alike. This one opens it: a life measured in food, movement, effort, and sleep is what actually makes the deeper work possible.
For the one who is measured in eating and recreation, measured in effort, and measured in sleep and waking, yoga becomes the very thing that destroys sorrow.
The reading read whole, as one unhurried piece
Where it stands
The verse just before this one closed a door: no yoga for the one who eats or sleeps to excess or deficiency. Here Krishna opens the same door for the one who keeps the middle, and names, for the first time in this passage, what the practice actually yields.
The teaching
Carry one quality across the whole shape of your day: measure. Keep it in your food. Keep it in your movement and recreation. Keep it in the effort you give to your work and duties. Keep it in your sleep and waking. None of these is too much; none is too little. This is not a call to punish the body, and it is not license to indulge it. It is care for the one instrument through which any inner work has to happen. Where the acaryas spell out what this looks like in practice, the picture is concrete and modest: food a little short of full appetite, light and easily taken in; movement enough to keep the body well, not so much that it wears you thin; sleep divided so that rest actually protects the work rather than swallowing the day. Keep this measure, and the text says plainly, yoga comes about. And what yoga then does to sorrow is stated strongly. Not soothed. Destroyed. Some of the acaryas are precise about the path that destruction takes: the measured life makes yoga possible, and yoga in turn ripens into a knowledge that reaches sorrow at its very root, so the cure does not merely ease the symptom, it removes the cause.
The doubt that rises
Is this destruction of sorrow total and immediate, reaching all the way to freedom, or is the measured life named here only a means, sufficiency that clears the ground for something still to come? And when an acarya's own surviving words on this exact line are brief, how much of what follows is genuinely his own reading, and how much would only be borrowed confidence?
Where the paths divide
Read as groundwork completed, sorrow destroyed at its root.
For Shankara, this verse finishes the preparation begun just before it, and the destruction of sorrow it names reaches the whole round of birth and death, root and branch. His comment closes by pointing forward to how yoga itself will next be described, which tells you this verse's job is to leave the ground fully cleared.
Read from a brief source, naming the fruit without expanding it.
What survives from Ramanuja here is compact: this discipline destroys all pain and breaks every bond, granted to the one who keeps the fourfold measure. The source does not develop, in these words, a fuller account of exactly how the Lord's own agency completes that liberation, so nothing further is supplied in his name beyond what the fragment states.
Read as a precise definition of sufficiency.
Madhva defines measured exactly: food and recreation are taken only as a support, only to the extent they keep off fatigue, never for their own sake. Read beside his comment on the verse just before, where the ban on austerity binds only the unready, this gives the positive rule for the one still building toward capacity, sufficiency rather than indulgence or denial.
Read honestly as thin here, its substance shared with the prior verse.
The record states plainly that Abhinavagupta treats this verse together with the one before it, with his developed comment recorded there. What remains attached to this specific line is mainly definitional: measured means neither clinging nor shunning, and a true teacher's word carries real knowledge. A fuller Shaiva reading, that this same measure names consciousness neither contracting around craving nor pushing away in aversion, would extend this; it is not what the surviving fragment itself claims.
Read as the direct answer to who receives yoga.
Sridhara reads this verse as answering exactly the question the prior verse leaves open: for whom does yoga come about? For the one measured in food, movement, effort, and sleep, he says, there comes the yoga that takes away sorrow, carried through to its fullness. He holds this fruit to be complete, not a partial or provisional relief.
Read as mechanism traced in full, and as seed of a later teaching.
Madhusudana gives the most detailed account: the measured life sharpens the very means of practice, so that deep absorption comes about specifically through that sharpened means. The fruit, he says, is the knowledge of Brahman, which tears out the ignorance that is sorrow's true root. He closes by naming even the effort in one's works with concrete examples, the soft sounding of Om and the reciting of the Upanishads, and notes that the remaining rules of yoga follow this same pattern of measure.
All six agree that a real measure is being named and that keeping it is what lets yoga come about. They differ on how much this verse itself claims, and how developed each source's own words on this exact line actually are. Is the destruction of sorrow already total here, or is this verse naming only the sharpened means to something further? Where a comment is brief or shared with a neighboring verse, this page marks that honestly rather than filling the gap with invented confidence. Hold the fork open; crown none.
A question to carry
Of the four zones this verse names, food, movement, effort, sleep, which one is furthest from its own measure in your life right now, and what would one small step back toward the middle actually look like today?
Where this teaching travels
Verses that sit near this one, each going its own way; follow whichever calls you.
Take up your day's ordinary measure, in what you eat, how you move, how hard you work, how you rest, and let that quiet steadiness become the ground firm enough to carry the deeper work that follows.
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.
Having just ruled out yoga for the unregulated, Krishna now names who is let in, completing the pair and turning the page toward how yoga itself comes about.
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.
One quality, measure, is asked for across four ordinary zones of your day: not four separate rules, but a single steadiness carried through all of them.
Across Advaita, Viśiṣṭādvaita, Dvaita, BhaktiŚaṅkara · Rāmānuja · Madhva · Śrīdhara · MadhusūdanaIn Śaṅkara, Rāmānuja, and 3 others’ words
The verse names the one quality that runs across four ordinary zones of a day: food, recreation or movement, effort in work, and sleep and waking. Kept measured in all four, neither too much nor too little, this is what makes yoga actually happen. The point is not four separate rules but a single quality of measure carried through the whole texture of living.
This verse completes a pair: the door closed to excess and deficiency in the verse before is opened here to the one who keeps the middle.
Across Advaita, BhaktiŚaṅkara · Śrīdhara · MadhusūdanaIn Śaṅkara, Śrīdhara, and 1 others’ words
This verse is read as the constructive answer to the one just before it. Having shut out the person whose food and sleep run to excess or deficiency, the teaching now opens the same door to the person who keeps the middle. The verse closes a contrast rather than starting a fresh topic.
The fruit is named strongly, destroyer of sorrow, and several readings trace this to sorrow's very root rather than its surface calm.
Across Advaita, Viśiṣṭādvaita, BhaktiŚaṅkara · Rāmānuja · Śrīdhara · MadhusūdanaIn Śaṅkara, Rāmānuja, and 2 others’ words
The fruit named at the end is stated strongly: this yoga is the destroyer of sorrow, not merely its soother. Several sources are specific about how the destruction runs deep, reaching to the very root of suffering rather than easing its surface.
Where an acarya's own surviving words on this line are brief, the honest choice is to say so plainly rather than dress up invention as his voice.
Across Dvaita, AdvaitaMadhva · MadhusūdanaIn Madhva and Madhusūdana’s words
The measure asked for here is care of the body as an instrument of practice, not a punishment of it and not an indulgence either. Where the mechanism is spelled out, food a little short of full appetite, movement enough to keep fit, sleep divided so as to protect the practice, the aim throughout is a body neither slack nor strained, fit to be sat with.
The measure is sufficiency: care for the body as the instrument of the work, neither punished nor indulged.
Across Viśiṣṭādvaita, Dvaita, Kashmir Śaiva, BhaktiRāmānuja · Madhva · Abhinavagupta · ŚrīdharaIn Rāmānuja, Madhva, and 2 others’ words
Where a source's own surviving words are brief, the honest reading keeps close to exactly what is there rather than expanding it into a fuller doctrine the fragment does not itself state. Several of the acaryas' comments on this particular line are compact, and the shared discipline of this page is to mark that compactness plainly rather than dress up invention as their own words.
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's brief surviving comment names the fruit in its fullest terms: this discipline destroys all pain and breaks every bond. The source stays compact, so the fuller claim about the Lord's own role in that liberation is not developed beyond this naming, and no more is supplied in his voice than the fragment itself gives.
Dvaita, in their fuller words
Madhva defines measured precisely as serving only as a support: food and recreation are taken only to the extent that they keep off fatigue, never indulged for their own sake. Read with his comment on the previous verse, where the ban on austerity binds only the unready, this verse gives the positive rule for the one still building toward capacity.
Shaiva, in their fuller words
The record is explicit that Abhinavagupta treats 6.16 and 6.17 as one passage, with the substantive comment recorded at 6.16: chiefly a glossing of terms, measured as neither clinging nor shunning, plus a remark on the authority of a true teacher's words. No separately developed reading survives for 6.17 itself; any fuller Kashmir Shaiva extension is offered here only as a clearly labeled extrapolation.
Bhakti, in their fuller words
Sridhara reads this verse as directly answering the question the prior verse leaves open, for whom does yoga come about, and holds that the fruit named here, yoga carried to its fullness, is complete rather than partial. His surviving words stay close to the verse's own terms without extending into a separately developed argument.
A modern reading, in their fuller words
Madhusudana gives the fullest account of mechanism: the measured life sharpens the very means of practice so that deep absorption comes about, and the fruit is traced precisely, this yoga brings the knowledge of Brahman that tears out the ignorance which is sorrow's root. He closes by noting that the remaining rules of yoga are to be understood on this same pattern, keeping the verse tied forward into the practice that follows.
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
Take stock today of the four zones this verse names: how you ate, how you moved, how much effort you spent on your work, how you slept and woke. Do not judge what you find. Simply notice where you ran to excess and where you fell short, and choose one of the four to bring, gently, one small step closer to its own middle.
So take stock of your own measure today, in what you eat, how you move, how hard you work, and how you sleep, and let that ordinary steadiness become the ground on which the deeper work can finally stand.
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 one quality that runs across four ordinary zones of a day: food, recreation or movement, effort in work, and sleep and waking. Kept measured in all four, neither too much nor too little, this is what makes yoga actually happen. The point is not four separate rules but a single quality of measure carried through the whole texture of living.
Śaṅkarācārya · Rāmānujācārya · Madhvācārya · Śrīdhara Svāmī · Madhusūdana Sarasvatī
This verse is read as the constructive answer to the one just before it. Having shut out the person whose food and sleep run to excess or deficiency, the teaching now opens the same door to the person who keeps the middle. The verse closes a contrast rather than starting a fresh topic.
Śaṅkarācārya · Śrīdhara Svāmī · Madhusūdana Sarasvatī
The fruit named at the end is stated strongly: this yoga is the destroyer of sorrow, not merely its soother. Several sources are specific about how the destruction runs deep, reaching to the very root of suffering rather than easing its surface.
Śaṅkarācārya · Rāmānujācārya · Śrīdhara Svāmī · Madhusūdana Sarasvatī
The measure asked for here is care of the body as an instrument of practice, not a punishment of it and not an indulgence either. Where the mechanism is spelled out, food a little short of full appetite, movement enough to keep fit, sleep divided so as to protect the practice, the aim throughout is a body neither slack nor strained, fit to be sat with.
Madhvācārya · Madhusūdana Sarasvatī
Where a source's own surviving words are brief, the honest reading keeps close to exactly what is there rather than expanding it into a fuller doctrine the fragment does not itself state. Several of the acaryas' comments on this particular line are compact, and the shared discipline of this page is to mark that compactness plainly rather than dress up invention as their own words.
Rāmānujācārya · Madhvācārya · Ācārya Abhinavagupta · Śrīdhara Svāmī
Divergence
Advaita Vedānta
Shankara reads the destruction of sorrow as reaching the whole round of birth and death, root and branch, and treats the measured life named here as completing the groundwork begun in the previous verse, with his own comment closing on a forward glance toward how yoga itself will next be described.
Śaṅkarācārya
Viśiṣṭādvaita
Ramanuja's brief surviving comment names the fruit in its fullest terms: this discipline destroys all pain and breaks every bond. The source stays compact, so the fuller claim about the Lord's own role in that liberation is not developed beyond this naming, and no more is supplied in his voice than the fragment itself gives.
Rāmānujācārya
Dvaita
Madhva defines measured precisely as serving only as a support: food and recreation are taken only to the extent that they keep off fatigue, never indulged for their own sake. Read with his comment on the previous verse, where the ban on austerity binds only the unready, this verse gives the positive rule for the one still building toward capacity.
Madhvācārya
Kashmir Śaiva
The record is explicit that Abhinavagupta treats 6.16 and 6.17 as one passage, with the substantive comment recorded at 6.16: chiefly a glossing of terms, measured as neither clinging nor shunning, plus a remark on the authority of a true teacher's words. No separately developed reading survives for 6.17 itself; any fuller Kashmir Shaiva extension is offered here only as a clearly labeled extrapolation.
Ācārya Abhinavagupta
Bhakti
Sridhara reads this verse as directly answering the question the prior verse leaves open, for whom does yoga come about, and holds that the fruit named here, yoga carried to its fullness, is complete rather than partial. His surviving words stay close to the verse's own terms without extending into a separately developed argument.
Śrīdhara Svāmī
Modern
Madhusudana gives the fullest account of mechanism: the measured life sharpens the very means of practice so that deep absorption comes about, and the fruit is traced precisely, this yoga brings the knowledge of Brahman that tears out the ignorance which is sorrow's root. He closes by noting that the remaining rules of yoga are to be understood on this same pattern, keeping the verse tied forward into the practice that follows.
Madhusūdana Sarasvatī
A Seeker Asks
How can something as ordinary as measured eating and sleeping reach all the way to destroying sorrow?
Because the measure asked for is not decoration but the condition that makes practice possible at all. A body run to excess or starved of what it needs cannot serve as the instrument through which yoga comes about; get the measure right, and the door that was closed in the prior verse now opens.
Śaṅkarācārya · Madhusūdana Sarasvatī
The word destroyer is used deliberately rather than a softer word like soother. Several readings trace a chain: the measured life makes yoga possible, and what yoga in turn produces reaches the very root of sorrow rather than easing its surface symptoms.
Śaṅkarācārya · Śrīdhara Svāmī · Madhusūdana Sarasvatī
And where the surviving words of a given acarya on this exact line are short, that brevity is itself worth sitting with rather than papering over. What is measured, on the readings that do address it directly, is sufficiency: take what actually supports the work, and let go of what only feeds appetite for its own sake.
Madhvācārya · Rāmānujācārya
Contemplation
Take stock today of the four zones this verse names: how you ate, how you moved, how much effort you spent on your work, how you slept and woke. Do not judge what you find. Simply notice where you ran to excess and where you fell short, and choose one of the four to bring, gently, one small step closer to its own middle.
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.