BG 18.51

Endowed with pure understanding, restraining the mind with resolve, relinquishing sound and other objects of the senses, and renouncing attraction and aversion.

18.51. He, who has got a totally pure intellect by fully controlling his self (mind) with firmness, and renouncing sense-objects, sound etc., and driving out desire and hatred;

18.51 Guided always by pure reason, bravely restraining himself, renouncing the objects of sense and giving up attachment and hatred;

18.51 See Comment under 18.60

18.51 - 18.53 'Endowed with a purified understanding' means endowed with the Buddhi capable of understanding the self as it is in reality; 'subduing the mind by steadiness' means making the mind fit for meditation by turning away from external and internal objects; 'relinishing sound and other objects of senses' means keeping them far away, casting aside love and hate occasioned by them (i.e., the sense objects). 'Resorting to solitude' means living in a lonely place free from hindrances to meditation; 'eat but little' means eating neither too much nor too little; 'restraining speech, body and mind' means directing the operations of body, speech and mind to meditation; 'ever engaged in the Yoga of meditation' means being like this, i.e., constantly engaged in the Yoga of meditation day after day until death; 'taking refuge in dispassion' means developing aversion to all objects except the one entity to be meditated upon, by considering the imperfections of all objects and thus cultivating detachment to everything. Forsaking 'egoism' means abandoning the tendency to consider what is other than the self, as well as neutralising the power of forcible Vasnas (tendencies) which nourish (egoism), and the resulting pride, desire, wrath and possessiveness. 'With no feeling of mine' means free from the notion that what does not belong to oneself belongs to oneself; 'Who is tranil' means, who finds sole happiness in experiencing the self. One who has become like this and performs the Yoga of meditation becomes worthy for the state of Brahman. The meaning is that, freed from all bonds, he experiences the self as It really is.

18.51 Yuktah, being endowed; buddhya, with an intellect-which is identical with the faculty of determination; visuddhaya, pure, free from maya (delusion); and niyamya, controlling, subduing; atmanam, oneself, the aggregate of body and organs; dhrtya, with fortitude, with steadlines; tyaktva, rejecting; visayan, the objects; sabdadin, beginning from sound -from the context it follows that 'rejecting the objects' means rejecting all things which are meant for pleasure and are in excess of those meant only for the mere maintenance of the body; and vyudasya, eliminating; raga-dvesau, attachment and hatred with regard to things which come to hand for the maintenance of the body-. Therefore,

18.51 Endowed by a purified understanding, subduing the mind by steadiness, relinishing sound and other objectts of the senses and casting aside love and hate;

18.51 Being endowed with a pure intellect, and controlling oneself with fortitude, rejecting the objects-beginning from sound [Sound, touch, form and colour, taste and smell.-Tr.], and eliminating attachment and hatred;