Sanskrit
तानि सर्वाणि संयम्य युक्त आसीत मत्परः । वशे हि यस्येन्द्रियाणि तस्य प्रज्ञा प्रतिष्ठिता ॥
tāni sarvāṇi saṃyamya yukta āsīta matparaḥ vaśe hi yasyendriyāṇi tasya prajñā pratiṣṭhitā
Translation
Having restrained them all, he should sit harmonised, I his supreme goal; for, whose senses are mastered, of him the understanding is well poised.
Annie Besant · The Bhagavad-Gita, translated by Annie Besant (4th ed., 1922) — Wikisource · Public Domain
Explanation
The practical answer to verse 60’s warning: restrain the senses and fix the mind on Krishna as the supreme goal (mat-paraḥ — “Me, as the highest”). It’s a brief but notable shift in register, a first-person divine anchor point placed inside what has otherwise been an abstract, third-person portrait of the stable-minded sage. Mat-para — “having Me as the supreme” — is the first appearance of the devotional anchor the Gita will lean on more and more from chapter 7 onward. Restraint alone was shown insufficient at verse 60; restraint plus an object worthy of the mind’s whole attention is the fix.
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Word by word
- tāni sarvāṇi saṃyamyaतानि सर्वाणि संयंय
- having restrained them all (tāni + sarvāṇi + saṃyamya)
- yukta āsīta matparaḥयुक्त आसीत मत्परः
- one should sit yoked, intent on Me (yuktaḥ + āsīta + mat-paraḥ)
- vaśe hi yasyendriyāṇiवशे हि यस्येन्द्रियाणि
- for one whose senses are in control (vaśe + hi + yasya + indriyāṇi)
- tasya prajñā pratiṣṭhitāतस्य प्रज्ञा प्रतिष्ठिता
- his wisdom is well established (tasya + prajñā + pratiṣṭhitā)
Commentary
Site Commentary
Grammatically this verse is the one break in an otherwise impersonal portrait of “he who…” — Krishna inserts himself in the first person as the goal to sit fixed on. Pure restraint without something positive to move toward is harder to sustain than restraint anchored to a concrete object worth reaching for.
Original commentary written for this site · © Amit Singh — original commentary
Concepts
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Lessons
Personal
- Notice that "stop doing X" is harder to sustain than "move toward Y" — anchor a discipline you're trying to build to something specific you're actually for, not only to the thing you're trying to avoid.
Professional
- Telling a team to stop a bad practice lands weaker than giving them a concrete positive standard to aim at instead — pure restraint rarely outlasts a real target to move toward.
Family & Social
- "Stop arguing" is weaker guidance for a relationship than agreeing on one specific shared thing you're both protecting — restraint holds better when it's anchored to something you're actively for together.
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