What Krishna calls yoga here is the parting from every union with pain.
Hear the word yoga and you might look for some new bond to be forged. What is meant instead is a severance: the cutting off of all contact with sorrow, named yoga because it stands so completely against pain that the honored name fits it by contrast.
Know this parting from all union with pain to be what is truly meant by yoga. Practice it with firm resolve, and with a heart that does not lose heart.
The reading read whole, as one unhurried piece
Where it stands
You have just been shown the meditator whose mind, drawn back from its wandering, comes to rest and abides quietly in the Self. Now that whole condition is gathered into a single word, and you are told directly what that word has meant all along.
The teaching
Know this to be what is called yoga: the parting from union with pain. The word ordinarily means a joining, so it is worth pausing on how strange it is that here it names a severance instead. Do not go looking for some new bond to be forged when you hear it; what is meant is the cutting off of every contact with sorrow, a state so completely opposed to pain that it earns the word's honored name by standing against everything the word usually points toward. From this naming, the verse turns to instruction. Practice this yoga with resolve, a firm conviction that what your teacher and the scriptures hold out is genuinely true and will, in time, be reached. Practice it, too, with a mind that does not grow despondent. Do not let the thought take hold that so much time has passed and so little has come of it; rest instead in the steadier thought that success will arrive in this birth or another, so there is no need to rush. The verse gives you this instruction twice over, once as a definition and once as an exhortation, because the fruit is great enough that you might expect no further urging to be needed, and yet a seeker who does not reach the goal quickly can still slip into doubt and turn back. The doubling is there to catch exactly that failure of nerve before it takes hold.
The doubt that rises
If this parting from pain is reached only through tireless practice that may stretch across many lifetimes, how am I meant to keep going without sinking into the very despondency the verse is warning me against?
Where the paths divide
Read as the mind's own movements coming to stillness.
The yoga named here is the quieting of the mind's own movements, its severance from pain simply what remains once that quieting is complete. The naming-by-opposite is read as a caution: do not, on account of the word yoga, imagine some fresh joining is intended. What is meant is a stillness already yours to recover, traced directly to the old definition that yoga is the holding in of the mind's movements, the same destroyer of sorrow already promised in the verses before this one.
Read as a knowing carried out with gladness.
The severance from pain is itself a knowing, a knowledge that takes the very form of being the contrary of union with pain, rather than a bare stillness reached by quieting alone. The practice this calls for is given a warmer cast: a mind unwearied from the very start, glad, and certain. The gladness matters as much as the resolve; this is not endurance gritted through but a cheerful steadiness carried by trust that the goal will be reached.
Read as warding off pain before it can even arise.
This yoga does not only destroy pain that has already come; it wards off pain's very arising, a sense drawn from the deliberate choice of the word for joining rather than pain alone. The instruction to practice with resolve excludes any holding back whatsoever. Whoever truly wants freedom has, in that very wanting, already accepted that the practice must be taken up without reservation or delay.
An honest note: the extant comment is shared with 6.20, and no separate reading survives for this verse's own wordplay.
The published record is explicit that this commentary treats verses 6.20 through 6.23 as a single continuous passage, with the fuller comment recorded at 6.20 rather than repeated here. What carries forward is that the bond with pain breaks once the mind, drawn back from objects, rests in itself and knows the highest happiness, held with resolve and an undespondent mind no longer sunk toward the pain-filled round of rebirth. No verse-specific gloss on the parting-named-as-yoga wordplay of 6.23 itself survives. Any fuller extension, such as reading the parting as consciousness ceasing to contract around the memory of suffering, is offered here only as a clearly labeled possibility, not as the master's own recorded words.
Read as holding both the literal union and the figurative parting together.
Two senses of the word stand side by side rather than competing. Literally, yoga is the joining of your own individual self with the Supreme Self, so the word keeps its plain meaning of union. Figuratively, the parting from pain is called yoga by the same turn of speech that lets a brave warrior be called, in irony, timid. Pain here reaches further than you might expect: even the happiness that comes from objects is included, since that pleasure is itself shot through with suffering, so the parting this verse names reaches into pleasure itself and not only into what obviously hurts.
Read as counsel against measuring practice by the size of the whole task.
Set this instruction beside the traditional image of the ocean emptied drop by drop with the tip of a blade of grass, sheer unwearied persistence rather than any dramatic feat. There is a story told alongside it: a small bird, having lost her eggs to the sea, vows to dry the whole ocean, casting up water one drop at a time despite every mockery, until her tirelessness itself draws the help that returns what was taken. The practical lesson is not to weigh your single day's practice against the distance still ahead, but simply to keep casting up your one drop.
All six readings agree on where your reach stops: at the parting from pain, whatever exactly that parting turns out to be. They differ on what kind of thing is being named. Is it a stillness reached by quieting the mind, a knowing carried out gladly, a warding-off of pain before it arises, or a union with the Divine held through devoted surrender? And for one source on file, the honest answer is that no developed reading of this verse's particular wordplay survives at all, only a comment folded into the verse before it. The fork stays open, and the temper each reading brings to the practice, stillness, gladness, resolve without reservation, devotion, differs as much as the definitions do.
A question to carry
When the goal may be many lifetimes away, can you cast up your single drop today without weighing it against the size of the whole sea still ahead of you?
Where this teaching travels
Verses that sit near this one, each going its own way; follow whichever calls you.
There is a small bird whose eggs the sea once carried off. Undaunted, she set out to dry the whole ocean, flinging up the water one drop at a time, and her tireless resolve drew the very help that gave the eggs back. The drop is small against the sea, and still it is the only thing that ever empties it.
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 finished describing the meditator whose mind comes to rest and abides in the Self; here he gathers that whole description into a single word and tells Arjuna plainly what yoga truly names.
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.
Take this one word, yoga, as the whole of what was just described: the mind come to rest, the seeker parted from every contact with pain.
Across Advaita, Viśiṣṭādvaita, Dvaita, BhaktiŚaṅkara · Rāmānuja · Madhva · Śrīdhara · MadhusūdanaIn Śaṅkara, Rāmānuja, and 3 others’ words
The verse gives yoga a fresh definition. Krishna says: know that to be yoga which is the parting from union with pain. The word yoga ordinarily means union or joining, so it is striking that here it names a separation instead. Every commentator on file flags this directly rather than passing over it, and each takes it to be summing up, in a single word, the settled inner state just described across the previous verses.
Do not look for some new joining when you hear the word; what is meant is a severance, named yoga because it stands entirely against sorrow.
Across Advaita, BhaktiŚaṅkara · Madhusūdana · ŚrīdharaIn Śaṅkara, Madhusūdana, and 1 others’ words
The state earns the name yoga by its opposite mark, a figure of speech in which a thing is named for what it stands against. Because this state is the complete uprooting of contact with pain, the total absence of pain deserves yoga's honored name even though the word itself points the other way, toward joining rather than parting.
The verse turns from naming to doing: practice with firm conviction that the goal held out by teacher and scripture is true, and will be reached.
Across Advaita, Viśiṣṭādvaita, Dvaita, BhaktiŚaṅkara · Rāmānuja · Madhva · Śrīdhara · MadhusūdanaIn Śaṅkara, Rāmānuja, and 3 others’ words
The second half of the verse turns from naming to practice. Having stated the great fruit of yoga, Krishna gives the instruction for reaching it: this yoga must be practiced with resolve, firm conviction that the goal held out by scripture and teacher is true and will be reached, and with a mind that does not grow despondent at the length of the road.
Do not let slow progress become despondency; rest instead in the thought that success will come in this birth or another, so there is no need to hurry.
Across Advaita, BhaktiŚaṅkara · Śrīdhara · MadhusūdanaIn Śaṅkara, Śrīdhara, and 1 others’ words
Freedom from despondency is read in the same specific way across the sources: it means refusing the discouraging thought that so much time has passed and so little has been gained, and settling instead into the patient certainty that success will come in this birth or another, so there is no need to hurry.
Measure your practice by the single drop cast today, not by the size of the whole distance still ahead, and let tireless persistence itself do its quiet work.
Across Advaita, BhaktiŚaṅkara · Madhusūdana · ŚrīdharaIn Śaṅkara, Madhusūdana, and 1 others’ words
Behind the instruction lies a shared concern: the fruit is so great that no further urging should be needed, yet a practitioner who does not reach the goal quickly could slip into doubt and turn back. The renewed call to practice, doubled with the definition, is read as a deliberate guard against exactly that failure of nerve.
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 severance as itself a knowing, a knowledge that takes the very form of being the contrary of union with pain, rather than a mere absence achieved through mental quieting. He gives the practice a warmer, more devotional cast than the other readings: it is to be carried out with a mind unwearied from the start, with gladness, and with certainty, a note of cheerful trust rather than grim endurance.
Dvaita, in their fuller words
Madhva reads the verse as naming a double action: this yoga does not only destroy pain already arisen, it also wards off pain's very arising, a sense he finds carried by the deliberate choice of the word joining rather than pain alone. He reads the instruction to practice with resolve as excluding any holding back whatsoever; whoever wants freedom has, in that very wanting, already accepted the necessity of unreserved practice.
Shaiva, in their fuller words
The published record is explicit that Abhinavagupta treats 6.20 through 6.23 as one continuous passage, with the substantive comment recorded at 6.20: the mind drawn back from objects rests in itself and knows the highest happiness, and this is to be held with resolve and an undespondent mind no longer sunk toward the pain-filled round of rebirth. No separate gloss on the yoga-as-parting wordplay of 6.23 survives in his own name; any fuller Kashmir Shaiva extension is offered here only as a clearly labeled extrapolation.
Bhakti, in their fuller words
Sridhara keeps two senses of yoga running together rather than choosing between them: literally, yoga is the joining of the individual self with the Supreme Self, so the word keeps its plain meaning; figuratively, the parting from pain is called yoga by the same turn of speech that lets a brave warrior be called, ironically, timid. He extends pain to include the happiness that comes from objects, since even that pleasure is shot through with suffering, so the parting reaches into pleasure itself and not only into obvious hurt.
A modern reading, in their fuller words
Read for the practicing aspirant, Madhusudana's own contribution is the traditional image and story he brings to the instruction: the mind is conquered as the ocean might be emptied by a single drop from the tip of a kusha blade, and the tale of the tireless bird who vowed to dry the sea rather than accept the loss of her eggs, until her persistence itself drew help. The lesson drawn is practical, measure your effort by the single drop, not by the size of the whole task.
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
Hold this image close when the practice feels hopeless. A small bird, having lost her eggs to the sea, sets out to empty the whole ocean drop by drop with her beak, undaunted by how small the drop is against how vast the sea is. Let your own practice today be one such drop: not a measuring of how far you still have to go, but a single unweighed act of return to stillness, offered without needing to see the sea grow any smaller for it.
So take up this practice with a glad and steady heart, and do not weigh your single drop against the size of the sea; let your persistence itself be enough for today.
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 gives yoga a fresh definition. Krishna says: know that to be yoga which is the parting from union with pain. The word yoga ordinarily means union or joining, so it is striking that here it names a separation instead. Every commentator on file flags this directly rather than passing over it, and each takes it to be summing up, in a single word, the settled inner state just described across the previous verses.
Śaṅkarācārya · Rāmānujācārya · Madhvācārya · Śrīdhara Svāmī · Madhusūdana Sarasvatī
The state earns the name yoga by its opposite mark, a figure of speech in which a thing is named for what it stands against. Because this state is the complete uprooting of contact with pain, the total absence of pain deserves yoga's honored name even though the word itself points the other way, toward joining rather than parting.
Śaṅkarācārya · Madhusūdana Sarasvatī · Śrīdhara Svāmī
The second half of the verse turns from naming to practice. Having stated the great fruit of yoga, Krishna gives the instruction for reaching it: this yoga must be practiced with resolve, firm conviction that the goal held out by scripture and teacher is true and will be reached, and with a mind that does not grow despondent at the length of the road.
Śaṅkarācārya · Rāmānujācārya · Madhvācārya · Śrīdhara Svāmī · Madhusūdana Sarasvatī
Freedom from despondency is read in the same specific way across the sources: it means refusing the discouraging thought that so much time has passed and so little has been gained, and settling instead into the patient certainty that success will come in this birth or another, so there is no need to hurry.
Śaṅkarācārya · Śrīdhara Svāmī · Madhusūdana Sarasvatī
Behind the instruction lies a shared concern: the fruit is so great that no further urging should be needed, yet a practitioner who does not reach the goal quickly could slip into doubt and turn back. The renewed call to practice, doubled with the definition, is read as a deliberate guard against exactly that failure of nerve.
Śaṅkarācārya · Madhusūdana Sarasvatī · Śrīdhara Svāmī
Divergence
Advaita Vedānta
Shankara reads the yoga named here as the state in which the mind's own movements have quieted, so that the severance from pain is simply what remains once that quieting is complete; the definition and the instruction to practice are two distinct moves he keeps carefully separate. Madhusudana sharpens this into a direct line to Patanjali, yoga is the holding in of the mind's movements, and reads the naming-by-opposite as a warning against imagining any fresh joining is intended, since what is meant is the mind's own stillness, not a new attainment added onto the self.
Śaṅkarācārya · Madhusūdana Sarasvatī
Viśiṣṭādvaita
Ramanuja reads the severance as itself a knowing, a knowledge that takes the very form of being the contrary of union with pain, rather than a mere absence achieved through mental quieting. He gives the practice a warmer, more devotional cast than the other readings: it is to be carried out with a mind unwearied from the start, with gladness, and with certainty, a note of cheerful trust rather than grim endurance.
Rāmānujācārya
Dvaita
Madhva reads the verse as naming a double action: this yoga does not only destroy pain already arisen, it also wards off pain's very arising, a sense he finds carried by the deliberate choice of the word joining rather than pain alone. He reads the instruction to practice with resolve as excluding any holding back whatsoever; whoever wants freedom has, in that very wanting, already accepted the necessity of unreserved practice.
Madhvācārya
Kashmir Śaiva
The published record is explicit that Abhinavagupta treats 6.20 through 6.23 as one continuous passage, with the substantive comment recorded at 6.20: the mind drawn back from objects rests in itself and knows the highest happiness, and this is to be held with resolve and an undespondent mind no longer sunk toward the pain-filled round of rebirth. No separate gloss on the yoga-as-parting wordplay of 6.23 survives in his own name; any fuller Kashmir Shaiva extension is offered here only as a clearly labeled extrapolation.
Ācārya Abhinavagupta
Bhakti
Sridhara keeps two senses of yoga running together rather than choosing between them: literally, yoga is the joining of the individual self with the Supreme Self, so the word keeps its plain meaning; figuratively, the parting from pain is called yoga by the same turn of speech that lets a brave warrior be called, ironically, timid. He extends pain to include the happiness that comes from objects, since even that pleasure is shot through with suffering, so the parting reaches into pleasure itself and not only into obvious hurt.
Śrīdhara Svāmī
Modern
Read for the practicing aspirant, Madhusudana's own contribution is the traditional image and story he brings to the instruction: the mind is conquered as the ocean might be emptied by a single drop from the tip of a kusha blade, and the tale of the tireless bird who vowed to dry the sea rather than accept the loss of her eggs, until her persistence itself drew help. The lesson drawn is practical, measure your effort by the single drop, not by the size of the whole task.
Madhusūdana Sarasvatī
A Seeker Asks
If this yoga is reached only by tireless practice that may take many lifetimes, how am I supposed to keep going without sinking into the very despondency the verse warns against?
The verse anticipates this exact danger rather than ignoring it. It does not promise instant success; it expects that a practitioner who has not reached the goal quickly might slip into doubt and turn back, and it repeats the call to practice for precisely this reason, to pin your commitment against that drift before it starts.
Śaṅkarācārya · Madhusūdana Sarasvatī
The remedy it offers is not more willpower aimed at a distant finish line but a change of scale. Rest in the thought that success will come in this birth or another, so there is no need to hurry; measure your practice by the single drop cast up today, not by the size of the whole ocean still ahead of you.
Madhusūdana Sarasvatī · Śrīdhara Svāmī
It also helps to notice that gladness, not grim endurance, is itself named as part of the practice. A mind kept cheerful and unwearied at the very start is already carrying something other than anxious effort; the certainty that the goal will be reached is meant to steady you, not to press you toward speed.
Rāmānujācārya
Contemplation
Hold this image close when the practice feels hopeless. A small bird, having lost her eggs to the sea, sets out to empty the whole ocean drop by drop with her beak, undaunted by how small the drop is against how vast the sea is. Let your own practice today be one such drop: not a measuring of how far you still have to go, but a single unweighed act of return to stillness, offered without needing to see the sea grow any smaller for it.
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.