Arjuna admits he cannot find a steady footing for the yoga of evenness, because the mind will not stay still.
This is not a rejection of the teaching but an honest confession from a sincere student. Arjuna believes the equal vision is high and true; he simply cannot see how a mind that wavers in an instant could ever hold it for long.
Arjuna said: This yoga of sameness that you have taught, Madhusudana, slayer of the demon Madhu, I do not see how it can hold steady, because the mind is so restless.
The Lord has just finished describing the yoga of sameness, the equal vision that sees all alike, and here Arjuna interrupts to raise the one difficulty that will set up the whole reply on restraint and practice that follows.
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.
You are not refusing the teaching when you say it feels beyond you. Like Arjuna, you can honour the even vision as high and true, and still admit you cannot yet see solid ground beneath it.
Across Advaita, Viśiṣṭādvaita, Dvaita, Śuddhādvaita, Bhedābheda, Kashmir Śaiva, Bhakti, and the modern voicesŚaṅkara · Ānandagiri · Madhusūdana · Nīlakaṇṭha · Dhanapati · Rāmānuja · Vedānta Deśika · Madhva · Jayatīrtha · Vallabha · Puruṣottama · Bhāskara · Abhinavagupta · Śrīdhara · Viśvanātha · Baladeva · Jñāneśvar · Sivananda · Tilak · RamsukhdasIn Śaṅkara, Ānandagiri, and 18 others’ words
In this verse Arjuna interrupts and raises an honest objection. The Lord has just finished describing the yoga of evenness, called samya, which is the equal vision that sees all alike. Arjuna does not deny that this is a high teaching; he doubts that he can actually hold it. He says he cannot see for it a sthiti sthira, a firm or steady standing, a footing that lasts. Nearly all the commentators read the verse as a candidate's sincere admission of difficulty, not a rejection of the teaching: he wants the practice but cannot find solid ground under it.
The reason you name is the one the verse names: the mind by its very nature wavers and slips away, so whatever evenness you reach holds only a moment before it scatters again.
Across Advaita, Viśiṣṭādvaita, Dvaita, Śuddhādvaita, Bhedābheda, Kashmir Śaiva, Bhakti, and the modern voicesŚaṅkara · Ānandagiri · Madhusūdana · Nīlakaṇṭha · Dhanapati · Rāmānuja · Vedānta Deśika · Madhva · Jayatīrtha · Vallabha · Puruṣottama · Bhāskara · Abhinavagupta · Śrīdhara · Viśvanātha · Baladeva · Jñāneśvar · Sivananda · TilakIn Śaṅkara, Ānandagiri, and 17 others’ words
The stated reason for the doubt is chanchalatva, the restlessness of the mind. The mind by its very nature wavers, flickers, and will not stay put, and so any state of evenness it reaches does not last. Several commentators stress that the difficulty is not in understanding the goal but in fixing the mind upon it: the mind is so mobile that it slips away in an instant, holding the even vision for only a short while before it scatters again.
And this is no private failing you alone carry. Everyone who has tried this knows how restless the mind is, and it is on this openly admitted difficulty that the answer about restraint and practice now turns.
Across Advaita, Viśiṣṭādvaita, ŚuddhādvaitaŚaṅkara · Ānandagiri · Vedānta Deśika · VallabhaIn Śaṅkara, Ānandagiri, and 2 others’ words
Many commentators note that the word hi, 'for' or 'indeed', in the companion verse marks this as a well-known fact: the restlessness of the mind is not a private complaint but something everyone recognizes. The teaching's whole following answer turns on this admitted difficulty, so the verse functions as the lever, the honest doubt that sets up the Lord's reply about restraint and practice.
So in calling on the slayer of the demon Madhu, you ask quietly that the same power which once subdued a demon subdue this churning within you, for the mind is not stilled by your effort alone.
Across Advaita, ŚuddhādvaitaMadhusūdana · Dhanapati · PuruṣottamaIn Madhusūdana, Dhanapati, and 1 others’ words
The commentators dwell on Arjuna's choice of the name Madhusudana, 'slayer of the demon Madhu', as a pointed address. Just as Krishna once destroyed the demon Madhu, Arjuna is implicitly asking him to destroy the inner enemy, the restless and rajasic-tamasic forces of the mind, and so make it still. The address is read as a hint that the very Lord who can subdue demons can also subdue this churning mind.
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
The yoga in question is the yoga of even or equal vision, understood as the restraint of all mind-movement so that the mind rests in the attributeless. One source describes it as the cancelling of attachment, aversion and the rest in the mind, the very things that produce uneven vision, so that an even seeing is everywhere; the firm footing Arjuna misses is the steady abiding of this restrained mind. Another notes that Arjuna, having heard that the mind is fickle, supposes that steadiness in the attributeless is hard and so asks for the means; the objection that restraint should still accomplish it is met by 'it is well known' that the mind is restless. Another reads the equal-yoga as preceded by sannyasa, renunciation, with non-injury as its leading mark.
Viśiṣṭādvaita, in their fuller words
The equality is given a precise content: it is the seeing-alike of selves that had been experienced as utterly distinct by the differences of god, man, and the rest, and by the difference of soul and Lord. They are seen as alike because each has knowledge for its single defining form, and so they resemble one another; and they are seen as like the Lord in that, freed from action, they share his nature. This equality rests on knowledge-only-form, on faultlessness, and on connection with Brahman and the Lord's qualities while disconnected from all else. Arjuna's doubt is whether this inwardly consummated vision can stand fast in him, given the mind's restlessness, agitation, strength and stubbornness, which make it as hard to hold back as the wind.
Dvaita, in their fuller words
What Arjuna cannot see a firm standing for is the yoga itself. There is a grammatical care here: since both equality and yoga were the topic, the pronoun 'of this' is ambiguous, but it is resolved to yoga, because yoga is the principal topic while equality is subordinate (expressed by the instrumental case), and because 'because of its restlessness' has no other subject available except, by the next sentence, the mind. So the verse states plainly that the firm standing of this yoga is not seen, the mind being unsteady.
Śuddhādvaita, in their fuller words
Arjuna thinks the yoga as defined is impossible, since the very restraint, nirodha, of the citta that the evenness requires runs up against a mind whose nature is to be moved. One source reads the doubt not as mere weakness but as a genuine recognition that self-reliant restraint-discipline fails against such a mind, and that this very failure is where the door for grace opens; he cites the well-known losses of yoga in the cases of Agnidhra, Saubhari and others, and the image that holding in the wind, which shakes this way and that in the sky, into pots is hard, just as this is. Another grounds the doubt in two causes together: Arjuna is filled with the egoism of self-claim and the mind itself wavers, so he cannot see the unwavering stability of the yoga of sameness in happiness, suffering and self toward all.
Bhedābheda, in their fuller words
The reading is straightforward: the yoga declared by the Lord has no steady foundation that Arjuna can see, because of the restlessness of the mind, and the following verse is cited as the warrant, that the mind is restless, turbulent, strong and unyielding, its restraint as hard as that of the wind.
Kashmir Śaiva, in their fuller words
Attention falls on the two pronouns. 'Which' is indirect in what it denotes and 'this' is direct, and together they hint that Brahman, though made plain by the succession of means just taught and pointed out directly, yet stands very far off and so becomes a thing only indirectly reached, because of the wicked unsteadiness of the mind. The mind 'churns', powerfully able to disturb both the seen and the unseen; and 'firm' is read here as 'hard to ward off from its evil working', so the very stability in question is the mind's stubborn persistence in disturbance.
Bhakti, in their fuller words
These commentators read the yoga as the mind, free of laya (dullness) and vikshepa (distraction), standing in the single form of the atma, for which Arjuna sees no lasting standing because the mind is unsteady by nature. Two of them sharpen the difficulty with a concrete content of the sameness: it would require seeing the happiness and suffering of all beings as equal to one's own. Toward kinsmen and the indifferent such sameness might arise, but toward foes, slayers, haters and revilers it could never come; Arjuna cannot see his own, Yudhishthira's, and Duryodhana's happiness and suffering as equal. And even granting the discrimination that self, Supreme Self, vital airs, senses and bodily elements are alike in oneself and one's foes, the evenness still would not last, lasting only two or three or four days, because the powerful and restless mind cannot be restrained by that discrimination; rather the discrimination itself is swallowed up by the mind attached to sense objects. One source renders the whole as Arjuna's heartfelt cry that the mind, like a monkey or a storm, rushes out when curbed and gains vigor from every attempt to restrain it, so that steadiness, and then evenness, seldom comes.
A modern reading, in their fuller words
One modern voice voices the difficulty plainly: the mind is restless, impetuous and unsteady, so steady concentration is hard and the mind wanders in the twinkling of an eye. Another reads the 'yoga of samya' specifically as Karma-Yoga, acquired by equability of reason, and reports Arjuna's doubt that such a yoga will last permanently given the mind's inconstancy. A third sets the verse in the chapter's flow: from verse 2.38 onward the Lord taught that keeping samata, evenness, in the chitta regarding gain and loss and pleasure and pain frees one from the binding of karmas, and called this karma-phala-tyaga the perfection, samata; the verses on dhyana-yoga from the tenth to the thirty-second described how to gain it, and now, with his eye on that whole description, Arjuna brings out his own opinion and difficulty.
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
Bring this teaching down to where you actually live. The point the Lord has been making is simple: keep samata, evenness, in your inner mind regarding what you gain and what you lose, what comes as pleasure and what as pain. In ordinary life many wrongs happen around you and they do not touch you, precisely because in those things you carry no uneven feeling, only an even one. Apply that same even feeling to your own duty and work: do your given task without leaning on its fruit, and no bondage from action comes to you. You do not have to manufacture a perfect, unbroken calm before you begin; you begin with this even attitude in the work in front of you, and that itself is the renunciation and the yoga the chapter names as the real perfection.
You do not have to manufacture an unbroken calm before you begin; bring an even feeling to the next gain or loss, the next duty in front of you, and let that steadiness slowly grow as you keep returning.
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machine-assisted draft, pending review
Convergence
n this verse Arjuna interrupts and raises an honest objection. The Lord has just finished describing the yoga of evenness, called samya, which is the equal vision that sees all alike. Arjuna does not deny that this is a high teaching; he doubts that he can actually hold it. He says he cannot see for it a sthiti sthira, a firm or steady standing, a footing that lasts. Nearly all the commentators read the verse as a candidate's sincere admission of difficulty, not a rejection of the teaching: he wants the practice but cannot find solid ground under it.
Braided from 20 commentators
Śaṅkarācārya · Śrī Ānandagiri · Madhusūdana Sarasvatī · Śrī Nīlakaṇṭha · Dhanapati Sūri · Rāmānujācārya · Vedānta Deśika · Madhvācārya · Śrī Jayatīrtha · Vallabhācārya · Śrī Puruṣottama · Śrī Bhāskara · Ācārya Abhinavagupta · Śrīdhara Svāmī · Śrīla Viśvanātha · Śrīla Baladeva · Sant Jñāneśvar · Swami Sivananda · Lokmanya Tilak · Swami Ramsukhdas
The stated reason for the doubt is chanchalatva, the restlessness of the mind. The mind by its very nature wavers, flickers, and will not stay put, and so any state of evenness it reaches does not last. Several commentators stress that the difficulty is not in understanding the goal but in fixing the mind upon it: the mind is so mobile that it slips away in an instant, holding the even vision for only a short while before it scatters again.
Braided from 19 commentators
Śaṅkarācārya · Śrī Ānandagiri · Madhusūdana Sarasvatī · Śrī Nīlakaṇṭha · Dhanapati Sūri · Rāmānujācārya · Vedānta Deśika · Madhvācārya · Śrī Jayatīrtha · Vallabhācārya · Śrī Puruṣottama · Śrī Bhāskara · Ācārya Abhinavagupta · Śrīdhara Svāmī · Śrīla Viśvanātha · Śrīla Baladeva · Sant Jñāneśvar · Swami Sivananda · Lokmanya Tilak
Many commentators note that the word hi, 'for' or 'indeed', in the companion verse marks this as a well-known fact: the restlessness of the mind is not a private complaint but something everyone recognizes. The teaching's whole following answer turns on this admitted difficulty, so the verse functions as the lever, the honest doubt that sets up the Lord's reply about restraint and practice.
Śaṅkarācārya · Śrī Ānandagiri · Vedānta Deśika · Vallabhācārya
The commentators dwell on Arjuna's choice of the name Madhusudana, 'slayer of the demon Madhu', as a pointed address. Just as Krishna once destroyed the demon Madhu, Arjuna is implicitly asking him to destroy the inner enemy, the restless and rajasic-tamasic forces of the mind, and so make it still. The address is read as a hint that the very Lord who can subdue demons can also subdue this churning mind.
Madhusūdana Sarasvatī · Dhanapati Sūri · Śrī Puruṣottama
Divergence
Advaita Vedānta
The yoga in question is the yoga of even or equal vision, understood as the restraint of all mind-movement so that the mind rests in the attributeless. One source describes it as the cancelling of attachment, aversion and the rest in the mind, the very things that produce uneven vision, so that an even seeing is everywhere; the firm footing Arjuna misses is the steady abiding of this restrained mind. Another notes that Arjuna, having heard that the mind is fickle, supposes that steadiness in the attributeless is hard and so asks for the means; the objection that restraint should still accomplish it is met by 'it is well known' that the mind is restless. Another reads the equal-yoga as preceded by sannyasa, renunciation, with non-injury as its leading mark.
Śaṅkarācārya · Śrī Ānandagiri · Madhusūdana Sarasvatī · Śrī Nīlakaṇṭha · Dhanapati Sūri
Viśiṣṭādvaita
The equality is given a precise content: it is the seeing-alike of selves that had been experienced as utterly distinct by the differences of god, man, and the rest, and by the difference of soul and Lord. They are seen as alike because each has knowledge for its single defining form, and so they resemble one another; and they are seen as like the Lord in that, freed from action, they share his nature. This equality rests on knowledge-only-form, on faultlessness, and on connection with Brahman and the Lord's qualities while disconnected from all else. Arjuna's doubt is whether this inwardly consummated vision can stand fast in him, given the mind's restlessness, agitation, strength and stubbornness, which make it as hard to hold back as the wind.
Rāmānujācārya · Vedānta Deśika
Dvaita
What Arjuna cannot see a firm standing for is the yoga itself. There is a grammatical care here: since both equality and yoga were the topic, the pronoun 'of this' is ambiguous, but it is resolved to yoga, because yoga is the principal topic while equality is subordinate (expressed by the instrumental case), and because 'because of its restlessness' has no other subject available except, by the next sentence, the mind. So the verse states plainly that the firm standing of this yoga is not seen, the mind being unsteady.
Madhvācārya · Śrī Jayatīrtha
Śuddhādvaita
Arjuna thinks the yoga as defined is impossible, since the very restraint, nirodha, of the citta that the evenness requires runs up against a mind whose nature is to be moved. One source reads the doubt not as mere weakness but as a genuine recognition that self-reliant restraint-discipline fails against such a mind, and that this very failure is where the door for grace opens; he cites the well-known losses of yoga in the cases of Agnidhra, Saubhari and others, and the image that holding in the wind, which shakes this way and that in the sky, into pots is hard, just as this is. Another grounds the doubt in two causes together: Arjuna is filled with the egoism of self-claim and the mind itself wavers, so he cannot see the unwavering stability of the yoga of sameness in happiness, suffering and self toward all.
Vallabhācārya · Śrī Puruṣottama
Bhedabheda
The reading is straightforward: the yoga declared by the Lord has no steady foundation that Arjuna can see, because of the restlessness of the mind, and the following verse is cited as the warrant, that the mind is restless, turbulent, strong and unyielding, its restraint as hard as that of the wind.
Śrī Bhāskara
Kashmir Shaivism
Attention falls on the two pronouns. 'Which' is indirect in what it denotes and 'this' is direct, and together they hint that Brahman, though made plain by the succession of means just taught and pointed out directly, yet stands very far off and so becomes a thing only indirectly reached, because of the wicked unsteadiness of the mind. The mind 'churns', powerfully able to disturb both the seen and the unseen; and 'firm' is read here as 'hard to ward off from its evil working', so the very stability in question is the mind's stubborn persistence in disturbance.
Ācārya Abhinavagupta
Bhakti
These commentators read the yoga as the mind, free of laya (dullness) and vikshepa (distraction), standing in the single form of the atma, for which Arjuna sees no lasting standing because the mind is unsteady by nature. Two of them sharpen the difficulty with a concrete content of the sameness: it would require seeing the happiness and suffering of all beings as equal to one's own. Toward kinsmen and the indifferent such sameness might arise, but toward foes, slayers, haters and revilers it could never come; Arjuna cannot see his own, Yudhishthira's, and Duryodhana's happiness and suffering as equal. And even granting the discrimination that self, Supreme Self, vital airs, senses and bodily elements are alike in oneself and one's foes, the evenness still would not last, lasting only two or three or four days, because the powerful and restless mind cannot be restrained by that discrimination; rather the discrimination itself is swallowed up by the mind attached to sense objects. One source renders the whole as Arjuna's heartfelt cry that the mind, like a monkey or a storm, rushes out when curbed and gains vigor from every attempt to restrain it, so that steadiness, and then evenness, seldom comes.
Śrīdhara Svāmī · Śrīla Viśvanātha · Śrīla Baladeva · Sant Jñāneśvar
Modern
One modern voice voices the difficulty plainly: the mind is restless, impetuous and unsteady, so steady concentration is hard and the mind wanders in the twinkling of an eye. Another reads the 'yoga of samya' specifically as Karma-Yoga, acquired by equability of reason, and reports Arjuna's doubt that such a yoga will last permanently given the mind's inconstancy. A third sets the verse in the chapter's flow: from verse 2.38 onward the Lord taught that keeping samata, evenness, in the chitta regarding gain and loss and pleasure and pain frees one from the binding of karmas, and called this karma-phala-tyaga the perfection, samata; the verses on dhyana-yoga from the tenth to the thirty-second described how to gain it, and now, with his eye on that whole description, Arjuna brings out his own opinion and difficulty.
Swami Sivananda · Lokmanya Tilak · Swami Ramsukhdas
A Seeker Asks
If my mind is restless by nature and even my discernment gets swallowed up by it, is steady evenness actually attainable for me, or only for rare souls?
First, take heart that your doubt is exactly the one the verse honors. Arjuna, the model student, says the same thing to the Lord's face: he wants the yoga of evenness but cannot find a firm footing for it because the mind will not stay still. The commentators almost unanimously read this not as failure or weakness but as a sincere candidate's honest difficulty, and the whole reply that follows is built on it. So the restlessness you feel is not a disqualification; it is the recognized starting point.
Braided from 6 commentators
Śaṅkarācārya · Śrī Ānandagiri · Madhusūdana Sarasvatī · Vedānta Deśika · Vallabhācārya · Sant Jñāneśvar
Second, the verse names the obstacle precisely so it can be worked on, not so it can defeat you. The trouble is chanchalatva, the mind's natural restlessness, and it is called a well-known fact, something every practitioner meets. Naming the wind that scatters you is the first step toward holding it; the difficulty is openly admitted here only as the lever for the means the Lord gives next.
Śaṅkarācārya · Śrī Ānandagiri · Vedānta Deśika · Śrī Bhāskara
Third, notice that Arjuna addresses the Lord as Madhusudana, slayer of the demon Madhu, and the commentators read this as a quiet prayer: the same power that destroyed the demon can slay the rajas and tamas, the inner turbulence, in your mind and make it still. The honest seeker is not asked to conquer the mind by private willpower alone but to turn, with the admitted difficulty, toward that help.
Madhusūdana Sarasvatī · Dhanapati Sūri · Śrī Puruṣottama
Finally, you can practice without waiting for perfection. The even attitude is something you bring to the next gain or loss, the next pleasure or pain, the next duty in front of you, and that even feeling itself is the yoga the chapter calls the real perfection. Steadiness is not the price of admission; it is what slowly grows as you keep returning to evenness in ordinary work.
Swami Ramsukhdas
Contemplation
Bring this teaching down to where you actually live. The point the Lord has been making is simple: keep samata, evenness, in your inner mind regarding what you gain and what you lose, what comes as pleasure and what as pain. In ordinary life many wrongs happen around you and they do not touch you, precisely because in those things you carry no uneven feeling, only an even one. Apply that same even feeling to your own duty and work: do your given task without leaning on its fruit, and no bondage from action comes to you. You do not have to manufacture a perfect, unbroken calm before you begin; you begin with this even attitude in the work in front of you, and that itself is the renunciation and the yoga the chapter names as the real perfection.
Sit with this · Swami Ramsukhdas
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