Chapter VI (Verses 19 & 20)
Dhyana Yoga – The Yoga of Meditation
(Verses 19)
यथा दीपो निवातस्थो नेङ्गते सोपमा स्मृता ।
योगिनो यतचित्तस्य युञ्जतो योगमात्मनः ॥ ६-१९॥
” As a lamp placed in a windless place does not flicker” — is a simile used to describe the YOGI of controlled-mind, practising YOGA of the Self (or absorbed in the YOGA –of-the-Self) .
As an efficient complement to the previous verse, this stanza explains the mind of the Yogi of collected thoughts, who is absorbed in Yoga. This explanation is given through the help of a famous simile: “as a lamp in a spot sheltered from the wind does not flicker.” The example is quite appropriate inasmuch as the mind is fickle and unsteady as the tip of a flame. Thoughts appear in the mind every second, in a continuous stream, and these constant thought disturbances — each dying, yielding its place to a new one — give us the apprehension of a solid factor called the mind. Similarly, the tip of a flame also, (it can be experimentally proved) is never steady, but the flickering is so fast, that it gives us an illusion of a definite shape and solidity.
When this flame is well protected from the fickle breeze, it becomes steady in its upward flight. In the same fashion the flame of the mind, flickering at the whims and fancies of the passing sensuous desires, when arrested in meditation, becomes steadily brilliant although its thoughts are employed in the contemplation of the Self by a constant flow of Brahmakara Vritti. In short, repeated and constant thoughts of Brahman — Vast and Infinite, Eternal and Blissful, the Substratum for the entire Universe — is the “Yoga of the Self (Yogam atmanah).
HAVING THUS, THROUGH MEDITATION, BECOME SINGLE-POINTED, WHAT WOULD BE THE STAGES OF PROGRESS ACCOMPLISHED? THIS IS DESCRIBED IN THE FOLLOWING FOUR STANZAS
(Verses 20)
यत्रोपरमते चित्तं निरुद्धं योगसेवया ।
यत्र चैवात्मनात्मानं पश्यन्नात्मनि तुष्यति ॥ ६-२०॥
When the mind, restrained by the practice of YOGA, attains quietude and when seeing the Self by the self, he is satisfied in his own Self
(HYPERLINK THIS VERSE TO ‘MIND IN MEDITATION’ WHICH HAS VERSE 20 AND THE COMMENTARY)