Sanskrit
योऽयं योगस्त्वया प्रोक्तः साम्येन मधुसूदन । एतस्याहं न पश्यामि चञ्चलत्वात्स्थितिं स्थिराम् ॥
yo'yaṃ yogas tvayā proktaḥ sāmyena madhusūdana etasyāhaṃ na paśyāmi cañcalatvāt sthitiṃ sthirām
Translation
This yoga which Thou hast declared to be by equanimity, O Madhusudana, I see not a stable foundation for it, owing to restlessness;
Annie Besant · The Bhagavad-Gita, translated by Annie Besant (4th ed., 1922) — Wikisource · Public Domain
Explanation
Arjuna interrupts the teaching for the first time since chapter 2, and the shift in speaker matters: the meditation instructions just given (verses 10–32) are met not with agreement but with a direct practical objection. He doesn’t dispute the value of the state Krishna describes — he disputes its achievability, given what he already knows about his own mind. The objection is honest engineering, not resistance: Arjuna grants the goal and challenges the feasibility. Cañcalatva — “the mind’s fidgetiness” — is the specific obstacle he names, and BG 6.35 answers it directly.
Study deeper
Word by word
- yo'yaṃ yogas tvayā proktaḥयोऽयं योगस् त्वया प्रोक्तः
- this yoga which you have taught (yaḥ + ayam + yogaḥ + tvayā + proktaḥ)
- sāmyena madhusūdanaसांयेन मधुसूदन
- as equanimity, O Madhusūdana (sāmyena + madhusūdana)
- etasyāhaṃ na paśyāmiएतस्याहं न पश्यामि
- of this I do not see (etasya + aham + na + paśyāmi)
- cañcalatvāt sthitiṃ sthirāmचञ्चलत्वात् स्थितिं स्थिरां
- a stable footing, because of restlessness (cañcalatvāt + sthitim + sthirām)
Commentary
Site Commentary
Arjuna’s objection is precise in a way that’s easy to miss: he never disputes that equanimity is the right goal — he grants Krishna’s whole account of it — and objects only on the narrower ground of his own self-knowledge about the mind’s restlessness. It’s the difference between rejecting an ideal and doubting your capacity to reach it, and the text treats that second kind of doubt as worth a real answer, not a rebuke.
Original commentary written for this site · © Amit Singh — original commentary
Concepts
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Lessons
Personal
- When you doubt a goal you're pursuing, check whether you actually disagree with the goal or whether you just doubt your own capacity to reach it right now — conflating the two makes you abandon good goals over a capacity gap that's actually fixable.
Professional
- When a teammate objects to a target, listen for whether they're disputing the target itself or flagging a real capability gap in reaching it — the second kind of objection deserves a concrete answer about method, not a defense of why the target is correct.
Family & Social
- If someone close to you voices doubt about a shared plan, don't assume they've rejected the plan — they may be honestly reporting a gap in their own capacity to follow through, which calls for help with the how, not a debate about the why.
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