Verse No 107

1. Mauna as Brahman

• True mauna is not muteness but abiding in Brahman, which transcends speech and thought.
• Mounam hi brahma-lakṣaṇam — silence is the very nature of Brahman.

1. Beyond linguistic categories

• Words operate by universals (jāti), qualities, or actions.
• Brahman is beyond all such grounds; hence unspeakable (avācya).

1. Knowable through identity

• Though inexpressible, Brahman is directly realized (pratyag-abhinna), because the Self and Brahman are non-different.

1. Sādhanā: “Tad Aham Asmi”

• The culmination is continuous nididhyāsana: “That Brahman I am.”
• This is not conceptual repetition but steady abidance in one’s true nature.

1. Practical insight

• A jñānī’s silence is not void but fullness: silence as unmediated awareness of Brahman.

Verse No 108 & 109

1. No “fourteenth aṅga” problem

• Someone may mistakenly think that anusandhāna (constant contemplation) of Brahman is an extra limb of sādhana, apart from the traditional set (yama, niyama, tyāga, etc.).
• The teacher clarifies: it is not a new aṅga, but precisely mauna — the silence that is the recognition of Brahman.

1. Why Brahman is vāg-atiita (“beyond speech”)

• Words operate by reference to class (jāti), quality (guṇa), or activity (kriyā).
• Brahman is nirviśeṣa (featureless), thus none of these apply.
• This repeats Śaṅkara’s insistence in the Bṛhadāraṇyaka Bhāṣya that Brahman is avācyam (inexpressible), yet self-evident.

1. Even prapañca (name-form manifold) ultimately escapes speech

• Though names and forms seem expressible, on deeper analysis they collapse into indefiniteness (neither fully real nor fully unreal).
• Thus both Brahman and the prapañca evade ultimate linguistic grasp — but in different ways:
• Brahman by being nirviśeṣa (beyond attributes),
• Prapañca by being mithyā (indefinable).

1. Mauna is not mere muteness

• It is the abidance in Brahman where speech has no role, because Brahman is realized as tad aham asmi — “That I am.”
• This turns “silence” into the highest wisdom rather than physical stillness.

Verse No 110

1. Deśa beyond spatiality

• Deśa here does not mean mere “place” in the physical sense.
• It points to the substratum where phenomena seem to arise. But Advaita stresses: origination (jan) is absent in all three times.
• Thus, Brahman is the “deśa” — the timeless locus without any event of birth, change, or destruction.

1. Self-evident Awareness

• The non-origination of the Self is not inferred from external authority but known directly in one’s own awareness (sva-pratīti).
• This echoes Gauḍapāda’s ajātivāda: “no origination ever takes place.”

1. Negation of empirical standpoints

• Worldly perception (laukika-pratīti) and even conventional scriptural descriptions (śāstrīya-pratīti) are insufficient, as they speak in dualistic terms.
• The non-origination of the Self must be grasped as immediate, experiential truth — aparokṣa-jñāna.

Verse No 111

1. Time as kalana

• Time is not an independent reality but a conceptual division (kalana = calculation).
• It arises only when consciousness, through avidyā, divides the indivisible.

1. Dependence on cosmic processes

• Time is seen in relation to cosmic functions — creation, sustenance, and dissolution.
• Thus, kāla is not absolute; it is a category of Māyā, tied to change.

1. Not ultimately real

• In Advaita, time has vyāvahārika-sattā (empirical reality) but not pāramārthika-sattā (absolute reality).
• From the standpoint of Brahman, which is timeless and changeless, time collapses.

1. Witness Consciousness vs. Kāla

• The Self, being kāla-ātīta (beyond time), is the very witness within which time appears as reckoning.
• This echoes Bhagavad Gītā (11.32): kālo’smi — time itself is nothing but Brahman’s appearance through Māyā.

Verse No 112

1. Āsana redefined

• Unlike in Yoga, where āsana is physical posture, here in Advaita it is abidance in Brahman, the seat of bliss (ānanda-svarūpa).
• “Sukhenaiva” — the ease is not bodily comfort, but the natural ease of resting in one’s own Self.

1. Beyond doership (kartavya–akartavya-vicāra)

• The anxiety of dharma–adharma, duty vs. non-duty, dissolves in Brahman-realization.
• True āsana is the effortless stillness of mind that no longer calculates.

1. Timeless Seat

• The text highlights: Brahman is ajasa (without decay), kālatrayāvasthāyī (abiding across all times).
• This timeless, changeless Brahman is the only stable “seat.” All other postures are transient.

1. Soteriological implication

• The shift is radical: instead of the Yogic pursuit of the body’s stillness, Advaita places the “seat” in the formless, timeless Self.
• Thus āsana becomes a synonym for Self-abidance (ātma-niṣṭhā).

Verse No 113

1. Reinterpretation of Yogic Siddhāsana

• Traditionally in Haṭha Yoga, siddhāsana is a bodily posture.
• Here, Śaṅkara redefines it: the only “accomplished seat” is abiding in Brahman.

1. Twofold grammatical reading

• Karmadhāraya: siddham āsanam → “that āsana which is accomplished.”
• Tatpuruṣa: siddhānām āsanam → “the āsana of the accomplished ones.”
• Both converge in meaning: Brahman is the seat, and the siddhas are those who rest in it.

1. Brahman = the True Seat

• Thus, the “siddhāsana” is not about posture but about Self-realization.
• One who abides in Brahman sits in the only truly firm, unshakable seat.

1. Advaitic turn

• This subtle play shows Śaṅkara’s genius: taking Yogic categories and turning them into Vedāntic abidance in Self (ātma-sthiti).
• What yogins strive to steady through body, Advaita steadies in pure awareness.

Verse No 114

1. Shift from Physical to Mental Discipline

• Haṭhayoga takes mūlabandha as a contraction at the base of the body.
• Advaita redefines it as anchoring the mind in Brahman — the true root (mūla) of all existence.

1. Ignorance as “false binding”

• The real bondage is not physical but mental — caused by mūlāvidyā (primordial ignorance).
• Even ignorance, however, is not independent — it depends on Brahman, being mithyā.

1. Two meanings of “bandha”

• (a) Ignorance as bondage (avidyā binds the mind).
• (b) Restraint of the mind to Brahman (positive discipline).
• Both are traced back to Brahman as their substratum.

1. Advaita–Rājayoga synthesis

• For yogins, mūlabandha = unbroken concentration (avikṣipta-cittatā).
• For Advaitins, the same steadiness = abidance in Self, culminating in aparokṣa-jñāna.

Verse No 115

1. True “equipoise” is not physical

• Unlike Haṭhayoga where deha-sāmya means literal bodily balance/posture, here Śaṅkara explains it as seeing sameness through Brahman, the substratum.

1. Superimposition (adhyāsa)

• Any perception of inequality of limbs in Brahman is mere adhyāhāra (superimposition). Brahman, the ground of all, is free from differences.

1. Metaphor of “level water”

• Just as calm water represents perfect evenness, so too the body is to be seen as equalized when the mind abides in Brahman.

1. Acknowledgment of empirical limitation

• Śaṅkara notes that the limbs, being naturally unequal, cannot literally become identical like the branches of a stiff dry tree.
• Thus, the teaching is symbolic: deha-sāmya is about vision (dṛṣṭi), not actual uniformity of limbs.

Verse No 116

1. Brahman is not an object of attainment

• Unlike ritual results (phala) that arise after action, Brahman is self-established (siddha), not something newly produced.

1. Role of vṛtti-jñāna

• Though Brahman is ever-present, ignorance (avidyā) obstructs its recognition.
• A knowledge-vṛtti (jñānamayī vṛtti) arises through Vedāntic inquiry, taking the form “I am Brahman.”

1. Akhaṇḍa-brahmākāra-vṛtti

• The final mental modification is unique: unlike other vṛttis that grasp limited objects, this vṛtti removes ignorance and reveals the indivisible, infinite Brahman.

1. Vision of the world

• The knower perceives the world not as a collection of independent objects, but as Brahman itself appearing as names and forms.

1. Sthiti as abidance

• Here, “sthiti” (abidance) means the mind’s unwavering dwelling in this Brahma-dṛṣṭi: the ever-present recognition that all is Brahman.

Verse No. 117

1. Brahman as beyond attributes

• Brahman lacks jāti, guṇa, kriyā (class, quality, action), so no ordinary sense-perception or conceptual vṛtti can grasp it.
• Therefore, the objection arises: how can Brahman be “seen”?

1. Tripuṭī-nivṛtti (cessation of the triad)

• Advaita resolves: “vision” here does not mean perception but the dissolution of the triad of subject-object-instrument in Brahman.

1. Dṛṣṭi as inner abidance

• The real dṛṣṭi is an inner vṛtti aligning with Brahman-consciousness, not a yogic exercise like gazing at the nose-tip.

1. Svarūpa-anubhava (direct realization)

• This interpretation harmonizes with the Advaita doctrine that Brahman is not objectified but realized as the very Self when the triads collapse.

Verse No 118

1. Primacy of Mind over Prāṇa

• In Advaita, prāṇa is considered subordinate (manodhīna).
• Mind is subtler and closer to Consciousness; prāṇa follows its lead.

1. Reversal of Pātañjala Order

• Patañjali holds that restraining prāṇa helps restrain mind (prāṇāyāma → manonirodha).
• Śaṅkara reverses: restraining the mind (through viveka, vairāgya, nididhyāsana) brings about prāṇa’s control effortlessly.

1. Why This Matters in Advaita

• Liberation is through jñāna (knowledge), not yogic prāṇāyāma.
• Breath-control may aid concentration, but true nirodha (stilling) of the mind comes only by knowledge of Brahman, not mechanical restraint of breath.

1. Vedāntic Re-definition of Prāṇāyāma

• In this context, prāṇāyāma is not the yogic technique of inhalation–retention–exhalation, but the natural quietude of prāṇa that follows the stillness of mind in Brahman-abidance.

Verse No 119

1. Re-interpretation of Yogic Terms

• In Yoga, recaka, pūraka, and kumbhaka are physical breath-controls.
• In Advaita, they are symbolic:
• Recaka (exhalation): Negating the non-Self (neti neti), casting out body-mind identification.
• Pūraka (inhalation): Absorbing the truth of the Self as Brahman.
• Kumbhaka (retention): Abidance in the Self, where no movement of prāṇa/mind remains.

1. Nishedha (Negation)

• The key note here is niṣedhanam — prāṇāyāma is not about vital-breath manipulation, but about negating the superimpositions (body, senses, world) and allowing mind to dissolve into Brahman.

1. Clarity of Advaitic Shift

• While Pātañjala yoga treats prāṇāyāma as physiological control, Vedānta internalizes it into a contemplative practice of Self-knowledge.

Verse No 120

1. Redefinition of Prāṇāyāma

• Not breath control, but inner discipline:
• Recaka = rejection of the non-Self (neti neti).
• Pūraka = assimilation of Self-knowledge.
• Kumbhaka = steady abidance in Brahman.

1. Scriptural Validity

• Though not physically detailed in the Upaniṣads, this reinterpretation is said to be “in line with the Vedas” (veda-traya-yuktaḥ), supported by Vedāntic insight.

1. Adhikārī-bheda (Hierarchy of Students)

• Prabuddhas (enlightened): No need for such symbolic prāṇāyāma.
• Ajñānins (ignorant seekers): For them, this method is prescribed to discipline the mind and turn it towards Self-inquiry.

1. Vedāntic Pedagogy

• The text shows how Vedānta absorbs yogic practices into jñāna-mārga by giving them a reinterpretive meaning aligned with non-dualism.