A lamp in windless place doth not flicker. So burns the Yogin’s quiet soul, enclosed in Yoga
The lamp-in-windless-place simile (dipo nivatastho) is the Gita's most celebrated image for the concentrated mind. Arnold renders 'dipa' as 'lamp,' Swarupananda also says 'lamp,' but Wilkins gives 'taper'--an 18th-century English word for a thin candle, evoking a domestic devotional scene rather than an oil lamp. The definition of yoga itself diverges dramatically here: Arnold gives 'this divorcement from the fellowship of pain,' a strikingly modern psychological framing. Swarupananda defines it as 'a state of severance from the contact of pain'--clinical and Advaitic. Telang says 'devotion in which there is a severance of all connexion with pain'--again using 'devotion' for yoga. Wilkins gives the most physical: 'this severance from the conjunction of pain is called Yog'--the word 'conjunction' suggesting an almost astronomical alignment of suffering.
Krishna describes the practice of meditation: sitting still, controlling the senses, focusing the mind on the Self. When the mind is perfectly still — like a lamp in a place where no wind blows — the yogin beholds the Self within and finds supreme joy beyond the senses.
One of the Gita’s most beautiful similes — the undisturbed mind compared to a flame that does not waver.
