When you have won yourself, the supreme Self stays steady through every pair of opposites.

Advaita Vedānta

The Advaita reading takes 'paramatma' as the one true Self, identical with the inner Self of the seeker, now realized directly. Shankara reads it as the supreme Self standing 'in the very form of the Self in direct realisation.' Madhusudana offers a notable alternative: the word 'param' (supreme) can be read separately, so that the line means it is for the conqueror of the self, and for him alone, that 'the Self alone, the bare Self, stands collected, and not for another.' On this reading the verse stresses that the bare, attributeless Self becomes the object of absorption only for the one who has won the inner battle. Nilakantha reads the very 'citta,' the mind purified into unchanging modifications, as supremely set in samadhi. Tilak, drawing this school into modern terms, argues the verse identifies paramatma with the atman itself: the atman in the body, ordinarily engrossed in pain and happiness, becomes the 'paramatman' once that turmoil is conquered. He cites Gita 13.22 and 13.31 and a Mahabharata verse to insist the Paramatman is not a substance different from the atman, and he explicitly rejects splitting the word into 'param' plus 'atma' as a doctrinally motivated stretch.

Śaṅkarācārya · Madhusūdana Sarasvatī · Lokmanya Tilak · Śrī Nīlakaṇṭha · Dhanapati Sūri

Viśiṣṭādvaita

For this school the 'paramatma' is the supreme Self that is genuinely higher than, and the inner ruler within, the individual self. Ramanuja explains that the inner self, abiding in its own form, is here called 'supreme Self' because it is the topic under discussion and because, relative to each lower state, it is supreme; the supreme Self is well concentrated in the mind of the one at peace. Vedantadeshika carries this forward and offers a devotional option within the reading: the paramatma stands composed in the heart as the self-form, or, for the bhakti-reading, as the supreme Self present as the antaryamin, the indwelling ruler, now in steady availability. This school also frames the verse functionally: it marks the candidate who is fit to begin the actual procedure of yoga.

Rāmānujācārya · Vedānta Deśika

Dvaita

Madhva reads the verse as stating the fruit for the one whose self is conquered, who becomes wholly calmed so that his mind no longer goes out to objects; then the supreme Self stands well set, present near in his heart, and he becomes a man of direct knowledge. Madhva grounds the steadiness in a fuller textual reading: the person's self is 'contented with knowledge (jnana) and discernment (vijnana), his senses conquered,' and he is 'kutastha,' changeless, like a peak that stands fixed. He distinguishes vijnana as the knowledge of particulars, the distinct seeing of Vishnu's specific traits, against general knowledge. Jayatirtha defends this traditional reading at length, including a pointed dispute over the text itself: he charges that another commentator, not finding the grammatical construction, abandoned the handed-down reading 'the Supreme Self is in equipoise' and devised a variant, 'in supreme selves the mind is equal'; Jayatirtha argues this contrivance makes other Gita phrases redundant and so should be rejected.

Madhvācārya · Śrī Jayatīrtha

Bhedabheda

The presence of an alternative textual reading attributed to Bhaskara is preserved here only through Jayatirtha's report, since Bhaskara's own text is not supplied for this verse. According to that report, Bhaskara, not seeing how the locative case construes with 'paramatma samahitah,' set aside the traditional reading and proposed instead that the line be construed as 'in supreme selves the mind is equal,' supplying the construction of the locative. This is recorded as a genuine variant reading of the verse, distinct from both the Advaita and the devotional Vedanta constructions, even though it reaches us secondhand.

Śrī Jayatīrtha

Śuddhādvaita

Here 'paramatma' is firmly the Lord as antaryamin, the inner ruler who dwells in every jiva. Vallabha explains that the Lord, the inner regulator of every individual self, is for the self-conquered no longer occluded by the dvandvas of body and circumstance; the 'cit'-portion in the person has been steadied enough that the Lord's indwelling presence comes through unbroken, standing as if in samadhi within him. Purushottama deepens the devotional coloring: he reads the pairs as including 'union and separation' from the beloved Lord, with the devotee free in union from pride in his own good fortune and free in separation from blaming the beloved, and honor and dishonor 'received from Bhagavan' alike to him. For such a one the Purushottama stands collected and ready, 'alert in the granting of service'; the Lord's bestowing presence answers to the equanimity in the devotee's own breast.

Vallabhācārya · Śrī Puruṣottama

Kashmir Shaivism

Abhinavagupta reads the verse very tersely and turns it inward to the dissolution of difference. 'Wholly at peace' is glossed as freedom from the I-sense. The mark of such a person is that 'toward others and toward oneself, and toward cold, heat and the rest, his intelligence sees no difference; there is no passion or aversion.' The equality amid the pairs is thus rooted in a non-dual seeing in which the self-other distinction itself has fallen away.

Ācārya Abhinavagupta

Bhakti

The Bhakti commentators largely hold the two readings together rather than forcing a choice. Sridhara explicitly lets both stand: the supreme Self 'alone' stands composed, fixed in the person's own self (the self-standing reading), or, taken otherwise, the Paramatman stands established in his heart (the indwelling reading); he says the two come down to the same thing, since where the lower self is subdued the higher Self is at home. Vishvanatha leans toward reading 'the self, that is the mind' as supremely composed in samadhi, framing the verse as the signs of one who has ascended to yoga. Jnaneshwari gives the most vivid devotional-nondual picture: as gold becomes pure when the alloy is burned away, the finite soul becomes the Supreme Soul once the mind drops its fanciful notions of worldly being; like the space inside a shattered pitcher merging with infinite space, the soul is already one with the Supreme. Such a one feels no cold or heat, no pleasure or pain, no honor or dishonor; whatever he meets becomes absorbed into him, as a place is flooded with light wherever the sun goes, and good and evil no more touch him than rain pierces the sea.

Śrīdhara Svāmī · Śrīla Viśvanātha · Śrīla Baladeva · Sant Jñāneśvar

Modern

The modern commentators emphasize the practical and psychological meaning. Sivananda reads the verse as describing a stable, achievable state: the self-controlled yogi, rooted in the Self, keeps poise amid the dvandvas; when the senses are subdued, the mind balanced under all conditions, and all actions renounced, 'the Highest Self really becomes his own Self,' and he stands 'as adamant in the face of the changing conditions of Nature.' Tilak (within his Advaita commitment) reads the verse as the inner sense conquered and the atman acquiring the form of paramatman. Ramsukhdas, a non-sectarian devotional Vedantin, reframes the whole verse around the friend-or-enemy contrast: the jitatma takes no relation of own-ness with body, senses, mind, intellect, or any material object, and so 'does his own hita' (welfare) and through him a great good of the world is also done.

Swami Sivananda · Lokmanya Tilak · Swami Ramsukhdas