ENDOWED WITH PURE UNDERSTANDING — An intellect that has grown to remain without vaasanaas. An intellect that has thus purified itself of all its tendencies of joy-hunting is indicated here as pure (Vishuddha) understanding.

CONTROLLING THE MIND AND THE SENSE WITH FORTITUDE — These two sabotage the harmony and balance in a meditator when he is at his seat of meditation. At that moment the sense-organs receive a rush of stimuli with which they can disturb the music of meditation in the mind; or, often the mind can topple down from its steady concentration, by itself remembering its own experiences of the past. By controlling both these, which were earlier described as Shama and Dama, the seeker comes to tune himself up properly. He becomes invulnerable to all such attacks.

The idea of controlling the mind and sense-organs described in the earlier epithet is clearly elucidated in the second line of the stanza. RENOUNCING SENSE-OBJECTS — controlling the sense-organs means allowing none of the stimuli such as sound, form, touch, taste or smell to infiltrate through their respective gateways of ears, eyes, skin, tongue and the nose. When thus a complete wall-of-understanding has been built around the mind, protecting it from any onslaught from the outer world, the mind can, of its own accord, either dance in some REMEMBERED joy, or sob in grief at some EXPECTED sorrow — because of its likes and dislikes, loves and hates. Therefore, these instinctive impulses of the mind are also to be controlled.

To summarise, a meditator is one who has: (1) an intellect purified of all its extrovert desires; (2) a mind, together with the sense-organs, brought well under the control of this intellect, so purified; (3) the sense-organs no more contacting the sense-objects; and (4) a mind that has given up its ideas of likes and dislikes. It is this individual who becomes a successful meditator.

AGAIN:

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,/p>p>18.52 Vivikta-sevi, one who resorts to solitude, is habituated to repairing into such solitary places as a forest, bank of a river, mountain caves, etc.; laghuasi, eats sparingly, is habituated to eating a little-repairing to solitary places and eating sparingly are nentioned here since they are the causes of tranquillity of mind through the elimination of defects like sleep etc.-; the person steadfast in Knowledge, yata-vak-kaya-manasah, who has speech, body and mind under control. Having all his organs withdrawn thus, dhyana-yoga-parah nityam, one to whom meditation and concentration are ever the highest (duty)-meditation is thinking of the real nature of the Self, and concentration is making the mind one-pointed with regard to the Self itself; one to whom these meditation and concentration are the highest (duty) is dhyana-yoga-parah-. Nityam, (ever) is used to indicate the absence of other duties like repetition of mantra [A formula of prayer sacred to any deity.-V.S.A.] etc. Samupasritah, one who is fully possessed, i.e. ever possessed; of vairagyam, dispassion, absence of longing for objects seen or unseen-. Further,/p>p>18.53 (That person) vimucya, having discarded; ahan-karam, egotism, thinking of the body, organs, etc. as the ego; balam, force-which is associated with desire and attachment; not the other kind of strength consisting in the fitness of the body etc., becuase being natural it cannot be descarded-; darpam, pride, which follows elation and leads to transgresson of righteousness-for the Smrti says, ‘An elated person becomes proud; a proud man transgresses righteousness’ (Ap. Dh. Su. 1.13.4); kamam, desire; krodham, anger, aversion; parigraham, superfluous possessions-even after removing the defects in the organs and the mind, there arises the possibility of acceptance of gifts either for the maintenance of the body or for righteous duties; discarding them as well, i.e. becoming a mendicant of the param-hamsa class; nirmamah, free from the idea of possession, becoming devoid of the idea of ‘me’ and ‘mine’ even with regard to so much as one’s body and life; and for the very same reason, santah, serene, withdrawn; the monk who is effortless and steadfast in Knowledge, kalpate, becomes fit; brahma-bhuyaya, for becoming Brahman.