Undo the desire at its root, the mind's own resolve, and gather the senses home from every side.
Before the senses can be stilled, the wanting that sends them outward has to be met at its source. This verse asks for a complete, gradual, and un-violent unwinding of that root, not a battle fought sense by sense.
Give up, completely and without exception, every desire that is born of the mind's own resolve, and by the mind alone draw the whole company of the senses inward from every side.
The reading read whole, as one unhurried piece
Where it stands
Krishna has just described the posture and the place of meditation. Now, before he speaks of the settled rest that follows, he names the first inward labor that has to happen: something has to be done about desire itself, and about the senses that keep running out after it.
The teaching
The desires this verse names are not said to come from nowhere. They are traced to sankalpa, the mind's own resolve, its quiet decision that an object is desirable and worth having. The instruction is to give up every desire that grows from this resolve, completely, without remainder; nothing, however small or however rare its occasion, is to be kept in reserve. Because the desire is traced to this root, the work is aimed there rather than at its outward symptom alone: undo the mind's false picture of the object, by honest reflection on what is actually there, and the wanting it fed is said to fall away with it. This giving-up is read as reaching further than the surface wish, down to the latent trace a past desire leaves behind, since an untouched trace can sprout the very same wanting again later. Alongside this, the whole company of the senses, the eye, the ear, and the rest, is to be restrained on every side, in every direction, since even one sense left unguarded keeps pulling the mind back outward. The instrument named for this restraint is, without exception, the mind, and specifically a mind that has learned to see clearly rather than a mind straining by sheer will. And this is not asked as a single forced act. More than one reading describes it as gradual, a patient wearing-down of longing's ache rather than its sudden extinguishing, done step by step so the mind is drawn inward rather than seized.
The doubt that rises
If every trace of desire must go, does that leave a person cold, someone who no longer feels anything at all? Or is something narrower being asked here, a change in where the mind's grasping lands rather than an end to feeling itself? And what, exactly, is left once the mind is said to think of nothing whatever?
Where the paths divide
Read as a total demand, undone by a change in seeing rather than by force.
Cast off all resolve-born desire, with nothing left, and hold the senses in check by a mind joined to discernment. The mechanism behind this total demand is a change of seeing: the mind lays a false charm over an object by failing to see its real ugliness, and a firm, reflective decision on that ugliness cancels the charm at its source, so the craving it fed, and the sense-activity that follows from craving, quiet down together.
Read as targeting only resolve-born desire, leaving unavoidable contact untouched.
Desire, on this reading, comes in two kinds. Contact-born desire, like cold and heat, arises simply because the body meets the world, and it cannot be avoided; what is given up here is only the gladness and agitation the mind adds to it, not the sensation itself. Resolve-born desire, like the wish for sons, grandsons, and fields, is the mind's own manufacture, and this alone is given up, by dwelling on its lack of real connection to the Self. And the goal-state, thinking of nothing whatever, does not mean an emptied mind; it means a mind narrowed from many objects down to the Self alone.
Read as a close, exacting reading of the verse's own emphatic words.
What survives of this reading holds close to the verse's language. 'All' is read as total, ruling out even a single retained desire, however slight or however rarely it arises. And the phrase 'by the mind alone' is read as excluding every other instrument: the senses can be governed only by the mind, and by nothing else whatsoever. The reading does not extend, in what is on file here, into a fuller doctrine of the soul's dependence; it stays with the precise force of these two words.
Read as gradual inward poise, explicitly not outward stillness or a doctrine of emptiness.
The real target, on this reading, is the inner plotting named by sankalpa, given up little by little and by the mind alone, with no request that outward activity itself must cease. The method is a patient wearing-down of longing's ache rather than any sudden suppression, and one is told not to dwell even on the grabbing or the refusing of objects, since that dwelling is its own quiet continuation of craving. And the closing phrase, thinking of nothing whatever, is explicitly not read as literal thoughtlessness, since that would mean a doctrine of the void that this reading does not accept.
Read as one continuous practice reaching down to desire's hidden traces.
This reading joins the verse tightly to the one before it, naming sankalpa as the very source already introduced there. The giving-up must reach the vasanas, the latent impressions a past desire leaves behind, not only its surface form, since an unaddressed trace could sprout the same wanting again. And the mind that restrains the senses must be one specially trained to see the defect in objects; giving up desire and restraining the senses are read as one single, continuous act, not two separate instructions.
Read as a disciplined, reflective attention that cancels manufactured appeal.
Read for its inner mechanism, this account describes something close to a deliberate reframing: an object looks desirable only because its real limits go unseen, and a firm, reflective attention to those limits cancels the appeal before it can generate craving or the sense-activity that follows craving. The scope given to this practice is total, covering remembered and imagined objects as fully as whatever is presently in view.
Every reading agrees the desire must be met at its root and the senses drawn in by the mind. They do not agree on how far the giving-up reaches, whether every kind of desire or only the resolve-born kind, nor on what remains once the mind is said to think of nothing whatever, whether a single object held quietly or a stillness with no object at all. This page keeps that difference open rather than settling it.
A question to carry
Where, today, would honest reflection show you the real limits of something you have been treating as desirable, if you let yourself actually look?
Where this teaching travels
Verses that sit near this one, each going its own way; follow whichever calls you.
So meet the wanting where it begins, in the quiet resolve that first calls a thing desirable. Look at it honestly. And let the senses that would have run out after it come home, unhurried, one side at a time.
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 described the seat and steadiness of meditation, Krishna now gives its first inward labor: this un-wanting and this gathering-in are the ground the coming-to-rest of the very next verse will stand on.
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 desires this verse names are traced to their root, sankalpa, the mind's own resolve that first paints an object as something to be had.
Across Advaita, Viśiṣṭādvaita, Dvaita, BhaktiŚaṅkara · Rāmānuja · Madhva · Śrīdhara · MadhusūdanaIn Śaṅkara, Rāmānuja, and 3 others’ words
All six readings agree the verse names the first inward work of meditation: give up every desire that springs from sankalpa, the mind's own resolve, and do it completely, without remainder. Sankalpa is read as the mind's fancy that paints an object as attractive and decides, let this be mine; from that resolve the desire itself is born.
The giving-up asked for is total, without remainder, reaching down even to the latent trace a desire leaves behind once its surface form has quieted.
Across Advaita, BhaktiŚaṅkara · Śrīdhara · MadhusūdanaIn Śaṅkara, Śrīdhara, and 1 others’ words
Because desire is read as growing from this resolve, the cure is aimed at the resolve first, not merely at its outward symptom. Undo the false charm that the mind lays over an object, by reflection or by discernment, and the desire it fed is said to fall away with it, on its own.
The senses are drawn in by the mind alone, and only by a mind that has learned to see clearly, not by force applied against the body or the world.
Across Advaita, Viśiṣṭādvaita, Dvaita, Bhakti, Kashmir ŚaivaŚaṅkara · Rāmānuja · Madhva · Śrīdhara · Madhusūdana · AbhinavaguptaIn Śaṅkara, Rāmānuja, and 4 others’ words
The second and inseparable movement is restraining the whole host of senses, on every side, by the mind alone. 'On every side' is read as covering every object in every direction, since even a single unguarded sense keeps pulling the mind back outward. The instrument named for this restraint is always the mind, and specifically a mind trained toward discernment.
This is deliberately gradual work, done little by little, since a mind pushed or seized too quickly only hardens and resists.
Across Bhakti, AdvaitaŚrīdhara · MadhusūdanaIn Śrīdhara and Madhusūdana’s words
Several readings insist the giving-up must reach further than the surface wish, down to the vasanas, the latent impressions a past desire leaves behind, which would otherwise sprout the same wish again. It is not enough that the wanting has gone quiet; its seed must be found and given up as well.
Nothing here is asked in isolation; the letting-go of desire and the gathering of the senses are one continuous movement, not two separate battles.
Across Viśiṣṭādvaita, Bhakti, Kashmir ŚaivaRāmānuja · Śrīdhara · AbhinavaguptaIn Rāmānuja, Śrīdhara, and 1 others’ words
More than one reading treats this as a gradual practice rather than a single forced act. Abhinavagupta names the method explicitly as 'little by little'; Ramanuja and Sridhara likewise picture an understanding held steady over time, drawing the mind inward by stages until it rests without straining against itself.
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 distinguishes desires born of unavoidable contact with the world, like cold and heat, from desires born of the mind's own resolve, which alone are this verse's target. Resolve-born desire can be given up by dwelling on its lack of real connection to the Self; contact-born sensation cannot be abolished, only the gladness and agitation it stirs. He is also emphatic that the goal, thinking of nothing whatever, means a mind narrowed to the Self as its single object, not a mind emptied of every object.
Dvaita, in their fuller words
What survives of Madhva's comment stays close to the verse's own emphatic words. 'All' is read as total, ruling out even the slightest or most occasional retained desire, and 'alone,' attached to the mind, is read as excluding any other instrument from the work of restraining the senses. The fragment does not extend into his wider teaching on the soul's dependence on the Lord, so no more than this close reading is offered in his name.
Shaiva, in their fuller words
Abhinavagupta places the whole practice at the level of intention: giving up the inner plotting named by sankalpa, done gradually and by the mind alone, explicitly without any cessation of outward activity. He records his own disagreement with a rival reading of the closing phrase as literal thoughtlessness, since that would entail a doctrine of emptiness his school does not accept; instead the aim is a steady wearing-down of longing's ache, not its violent suppression.
Bhakti, in their fuller words
Sridhara reads the verse as continuous with the one before it, sankalpa naming the very source already introduced there. He stresses that the giving-up must reach the vasanas, the latent traces desire leaves behind, and that the restraining mind must specifically be one trained to see the defect in objects. His closing grammatical note, that the construction joins to the prior verse, folds the giving-up of desire and the restraining of the senses into one single, continuous act of practice.
A modern reading, in their fuller words
Read for its psychological mechanism, Madhusudana's account describes something close to a cognitive reframing practiced with real discipline: an object appears desirable only because its faults are unseen, and a deliberate, reflective attention to those faults cancels the appeal at its source, before it can generate the sense-craving that follows. The scope he gives it is total, reaching remembered and imagined objects alike, not only what is presently in view.
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, the moment just before a want takes hold, the small mental brushstroke that paints an ordinary thing as something you must have. Look at the object honestly, its real limits and its real cost, rather than the glow the mind has laid over it. Let that honest look, held gently and without force, be the whole of your practice; let the senses that would have run out after the glow settle back on their own.
So meet the wanting at its root today, look honestly at what you thought you needed, and let the senses that ran after it come home, gently, one unhurried step at a time.
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
ll six readings agree the verse names the first inward work of meditation: give up every desire that springs from sankalpa, the mind's own resolve, and do it completely, without remainder. Sankalpa is read as the mind's fancy that paints an object as attractive and decides, let this be mine; from that resolve the desire itself is born.
Śaṅkarācārya · Rāmānujācārya · Madhvācārya · Śrīdhara Svāmī · Madhusūdana Sarasvatī
Because desire is read as growing from this resolve, the cure is aimed at the resolve first, not merely at its outward symptom. Undo the false charm that the mind lays over an object, by reflection or by discernment, and the desire it fed is said to fall away with it, on its own.
Śaṅkarācārya · Śrīdhara Svāmī · Madhusūdana Sarasvatī
The second and inseparable movement is restraining the whole host of senses, on every side, by the mind alone. 'On every side' is read as covering every object in every direction, since even a single unguarded sense keeps pulling the mind back outward. The instrument named for this restraint is always the mind, and specifically a mind trained toward discernment.
Braided from 6 commentators
Śaṅkarācārya · Rāmānujācārya · Madhvācārya · Śrīdhara Svāmī · Madhusūdana Sarasvatī · Ācārya Abhinavagupta
Several readings insist the giving-up must reach further than the surface wish, down to the vasanas, the latent impressions a past desire leaves behind, which would otherwise sprout the same wish again. It is not enough that the wanting has gone quiet; its seed must be found and given up as well.
Śrīdhara Svāmī · Madhusūdana Sarasvatī
More than one reading treats this as a gradual practice rather than a single forced act. Abhinavagupta names the method explicitly as 'little by little'; Ramanuja and Sridhara likewise picture an understanding held steady over time, drawing the mind inward by stages until it rests without straining against itself.
Rāmānujācārya · Śrīdhara Svāmī · Ācārya Abhinavagupta
Divergence
Advaita Vedānta
Shankara states the instruction as a clean, total demand: cast off all resolve-born desire with nothing left, and hold all the senses in check by a mind joined to discernment. Madhusudana supplies the mechanism behind that demand in more technical detail: sankalpa is a false charm laid over an object by failing to see its real ugliness, and a firm, reflective decision on that ugliness cancels the charm at the root, so that the desire it fed, and the sense-activity that follows from desire, subside together.
Śaṅkarācārya · Madhusūdana Sarasvatī
Viśiṣṭādvaita
Ramanuja distinguishes desires born of unavoidable contact with the world, like cold and heat, from desires born of the mind's own resolve, which alone are this verse's target. Resolve-born desire can be given up by dwelling on its lack of real connection to the Self; contact-born sensation cannot be abolished, only the gladness and agitation it stirs. He is also emphatic that the goal, thinking of nothing whatever, means a mind narrowed to the Self as its single object, not a mind emptied of every object.
Rāmānujācārya
Dvaita
What survives of Madhva's comment stays close to the verse's own emphatic words. 'All' is read as total, ruling out even the slightest or most occasional retained desire, and 'alone,' attached to the mind, is read as excluding any other instrument from the work of restraining the senses. The fragment does not extend into his wider teaching on the soul's dependence on the Lord, so no more than this close reading is offered in his name.
Madhvācārya
Kashmir Śaiva
Abhinavagupta places the whole practice at the level of intention: giving up the inner plotting named by sankalpa, done gradually and by the mind alone, explicitly without any cessation of outward activity. He records his own disagreement with a rival reading of the closing phrase as literal thoughtlessness, since that would entail a doctrine of emptiness his school does not accept; instead the aim is a steady wearing-down of longing's ache, not its violent suppression.
Ācārya Abhinavagupta
Bhakti
Sridhara reads the verse as continuous with the one before it, sankalpa naming the very source already introduced there. He stresses that the giving-up must reach the vasanas, the latent traces desire leaves behind, and that the restraining mind must specifically be one trained to see the defect in objects. His closing grammatical note, that the construction joins to the prior verse, folds the giving-up of desire and the restraining of the senses into one single, continuous act of practice.
Śrīdhara Svāmī
Modern
Read for its psychological mechanism, Madhusudana's account describes something close to a cognitive reframing practiced with real discipline: an object appears desirable only because its faults are unseen, and a deliberate, reflective attention to those faults cancels the appeal at its source, before it can generate the sense-craving that follows. The scope he gives it is total, reaching remembered and imagined objects alike, not only what is presently in view.
Madhusūdana Sarasvatī
A Seeker Asks
If I have to give up every desire without remainder, does that make me cold and lifeless, someone who no longer feels or cares about anything?
What the verse targets by name is desire born of the mind's own resolve, the manufactured wanting that decides a thing must be mine; it is not aimed at your basic capacity to feel. Ramanuja is explicit that unavoidable contact, like cold and heat, is not asked to be abolished, only the gladness and agitation the mind adds to it.
Rāmānujācārya
The remedy described is not suppression by force but a change of seeing. Madhusudana describes it as canceling a false charm laid over an object by looking honestly at what is really there; when the charm goes, the craving it fed goes with it, without any battle of will against the feeling itself.
Madhusūdana Sarasvatī
More than one reading also insists the process is gradual and never forced. Abhinavagupta names it explicitly as a step-by-step thinning of longing's ache, not its sudden extinguishing, and warns against even dwelling on the grabbing or refusing of objects, since a mind pushed too hard only rebels.
Ācārya Abhinavagupta
Contemplation
Notice, today, the moment just before a want takes hold, the small mental brushstroke that paints an ordinary thing as something you must have. Look at the object honestly, its real limits and its real cost, rather than the glow the mind has laid over it. Let that honest look, held gently and without force, be the whole of your practice; let the senses that would have run out after the glow settle back on their own.
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.