यथा दीपो निवातस्थो नेङ्गते सोपमा स्मृता।योगिनो यतचित्तस्य युञ्जतो योगमात्मनः॥
yathā dīpo nivāta-stho neṅgate sopamā smṛtāyogino yata-cittasya yuñjato yogam ātmanaḥ
शब्दार्थ
व्याख्या अभी अंग्रेज़ी में उपलब्ध है। हिन्दी व्याख्या एक-एक अध्याय करके जोड़ी जा रही है।
श्लोक कहता है
As a lamp standing where there is no wind does not flicker — that is the likeness remembered for the practitioner of restrained mind, joining himself to the practice of the self.
सरल शब्दों में
The image everyone remembers from this chapter.
A flame in still air. It does not stop burning; it stops moving.
The lamp was never the problem. The room was.
आपने इसे कहाँ महसूस किया है
A candle in a still room burns straight up and you can read by it. Open the door two inches and the page becomes unreadable. Nothing has changed about the flame.
और गहराई में
What makes this image good is that it locates the problem somewhere other than the mind.
A flame flickers because air moves. The flame is not failing, and telling it to burn straighter would be no use at all. You would go and shut the door.
So the instruction hidden in the simile is not try harder to concentrate. It is: find out what is moving the air. Most of the chapter's practical verses — the seat, the place, the measured food, the measured sleep — are doors being shut.
And there is something reassuring in it for anyone who has sat down and found their mind unusable. That is not a verdict on you. A candle in a draught is behaving exactly as a candle should.
The second half of the image matters too. A steady flame is not a flame that has gone out. Everything the mind does is still available. It has simply stopped being dragged around.