श्रुतिविप्रतिपन्ना ते यदा स्थास्यति निश्चला ।
समाधावचला बुद्धिस्तदा योगमवाप्स्यसि ॥ २-५३ ॥

śruti-vipratipannā te yadā sthāsyati niścalā |
samādhāv-acalā buddhis-tadā yogam-avāpsyasi || 2.53 ||

This is the state of ‘rising above delusion’. Krishna now goes on to explain what exactly is the state of Yoga itself –– what is the finale of the yogic pursuit:

When your buddhi, after being tossed repeatedly by the conflicting statements of the scriptures, finally becomes unflickering and firm, then indeed will you have attained yoga, the fruition of yoga saadhana.

Krishna’s statement is very significant. Each seeker will have his idea about yogasadhana and the progress it is meant to bring about. The ideas are often farstretched and even elusive at times. One has to become very discreet and bold in understanding the worth and essence of spiritual sadhana and how it enriches the seeker’s heart and intelligence.

The verse specifies clear guidelines to compare and correct the sadhaka’s evaluations and notions. What relevance does sadhana really have to one’s mind and intelligence? Where will the sadhana finally lead one to? What is the goal like? All these points will become amply clear if this verse is studied and absorbed well.

In the earlier verse it was told that the buddhi should get rid of delusion which alone drives it to multiple interests and involvements. When the basic delusion is shed, the buddhi will become quite indifferent to whatever it has been exposed to and whatever it is yet to come across. In other words, there will be nothing in the form of an influence to make it agitated or perplexed.

Krishna goes a step further in this verse to clarify how important it is to have a resolute intelligence in the pursuit of yoga. In fact, when the buddhi’s vacillations come to a stop and it remains unperturbed, then is yoga verily attained. This is a paramount pronouncement, and seekers must pay a lot of attention to grasp its full import.

The mind of man always survives on memory. Once an instance comes to pass, be it an external event or an internal thought or knowledge, the mind retains the experience in the form of memory. Devoid of this memory, none can live, move or interact in this world. For one to outlive his memory is neither possible nor useful. In the absence of a clear memory, a man will no more remain functional, playing any meaningful role anywhere.

Being so, what does Krishna mean by attaining indifference to whatever is heard and to be heard? Can whatever one gains in the form of knowledge and memory be so much of a hurdle in the spiritual path or yogasadhana?

Yogasadhana is meant to inculcate in the seeker more and more of viveka every day, until at last by the brilliance of this viveka he is able to realize the supreme Truth, the immortal Self that he verily is. The viveka, as it grows deeper, will have the effect of stabilizing the buddhi and mind. Such stabilization is what the scriptural study too ultimately imparts. Know enough of scriptural truths and get stabilized in your own supreme Self. Know that everything is just one in essence, and plurality is only an appearance. Prefer the Self to the entire host of variety found here as well as there. The indulgence and involvement in many is necessary only till this clarity is struck.

Mundakopanishad makes this point clear (verse 1.2.12)

Sage Angiras tells Saunaka, a great householder, when he enquired of the Sage about the knowledge of the supreme Reality: “Examine all the worlds to be attained by rituals, evaluate them properly and come to the conclusion that all of them are transitory and ultimately useless. Through rituals the supreme Brahman cannot be attained. The causeless Supreme cannot be attained by the cause and effect chain. Go  then to the Wise one, in all humility and earnestness, and seek instruction as to how to proceed.”

Is it not the same truth that Krishna wants to impart here too? Krishna says that the buddhi should remain unflickering and firm within. There should be no special motivation or persuasion, no external or internal attraction for it. Even the various accounts of Truth provided by the scriptures should not influence it unduly. Sastras are like the steps in the ladder. Get to the steps, one after another, and after climbing the last step, leave the ladder and get to the floor above.

After reading and absorbing the scriptures, be given to the pursuit of wisdom in yourself. Leave all forms of external help and means. Leave the scriptures also. Get to the stability of the mind and intelligence within yourself.

The last obstacle for the spiritual practitioner is the different accounts he finds about the goal of life and the sadhana leading to it. Even the scriptures give a plural description. The plurality of the accounts must not toss the mind and buddhi of the seeker. The buddhi must become self-supporting, self-settled.

Desire moves the buddhi. Doubt swings it. Even spiritual desire causes disturbance and distraction. Only when all this gets dissolved, stability can be gained. Krishna speaks of the unflickering note of the buddhi :

Like the steady flame of a lamp placed in a windless place, is the mind of the well-restrained yoga-sadhaka. Yogasadhana aims at  delivering such a settled and clear buddhi.

Kathopanishad’s pronouncement (2.2.10) on this subject is even clearer:

When all the five senses, together with the mind and buddhi, remain still and stable, that indeed is the supreme Abode.

So the point is unmistakable. The seeker has to grasp it without fail. Sage Ashtavakra’s words during his instruction on Self-realization to King Janaka on how to achieve Self-realization are even more unambiguous. They appear in Ashtavakra Samhita (9.5)

By hearing the conflicting versions of the Sages, Siddhas and Yogis, when the mind attains to a clear indifference to all of them, who indeed will not attain to ‘quietitude’ in full?

In all these, you can find how important and final is the poise and clarity the buddhi attains in the spiritual sadhana. There is no external goal to be achieved at all; purity alone is to be gained. With such purity and clarity, the vacillations of the buddhi will come to a stop. And in that cessation is the final goal realized.

The final effort of the Yogic seeker is to collect his mind and buddhi. He must succeed in this effort. It may not be easy at all. But he has to achieve it somehow. Persistent practice, coupled with keen discrimination alone will make him succeed. The last obstacles he will encounter are (i) doubts about his very pursuit and (ii) the disturbances which these doubts cause inevitably:

Is my mind flickering now or has it become still?

Where is the Soul I was looking for? What in me will realize the Soul? If the mind ceases to function, what further is left aside to gain the experience that will follow? Who or what will grasp the knowledge then?

Is not the body different from the Soul? How can I say that the Soul alone is? In deep sleep (sushupti), when the mind ceases to be, the body still is there. Even if I realize the Soul it will not be in exclusion of the body, but including it. How can then the jeevatma be totally negated?

Where lies the truth? Can the scriptures, which speak about heavens and Brahmaloka be wrong or deceptive? The same scriptures speak about the Self also. If their statements on the Self are correct, how can their statements about the higher worlds be incorrect?

What should be the right discrimination? Which statement replaces or overwhelms the others?.... etc.

Whether you think about scriptures and their conflicting notes, or think about the world and its multiple notes, it is your mind and buddhi which generate these notes finally. The immediate cause of these may be the scriptures or the world. But inwardly in both cases, the manovrttis and buddhivrttis belong to the mind and buddhi alone. The buddhi will have to leave all these swinging and rambling and get to a state of poise and depth.

Till that is attained, the yogic refinement has no meaning or finality. So, ultimately, when all other desires fall, it is doubt caused by the intelligence that survives as the last obstacle. To yearn for the Self or freedom is also a vrtti of the buddhi. Initially, the buddhi creates the ‘bondage vrtti’ then it brings in the ‘yearning-for-liberation vrtti’. Finally the ‘liberation vrtti’ results. All take place in the same strain, with the same note of spontaneity.

When thus the bondage falls finally, the freedom also loses its meaning and relevance. What shines is pure transcendence, all-fold sublimity, supreme oneness, if you call it so. It looks strange, intriguing, even paradoxical. But it is the full and naked fact –– the TRUTH.