Chapter 6 Dhyana Yoga Verse 27

Tapaswibhyo’dhiko yogee jnaanibhyo’pi mato’dhikah;
Karmibhyashchaadhiko yogee tasmaad yogee bhavaarjuna.

The Yogi is thought to be superior to the ascetics and even superior to men of knowledge;
he is also superior to men of action; therefore, be thou a Yogi, O Arjuna!

In this sloka Lord Krishna talks about the characteristics of a person who performs the Dhyana yoga or the meditation. He says that a person who performs meditation is superior to an ascetics. Ascetic is a person who has a lot of self discipline and spends his time in prayers and worshipping. Lord Krishna also says that a yogi is someone who is superior to the men who has a lot of knowledge. A Yogi according to Lord Krishna is superior to the man of action, that is a man who does his duties regularly. Finally Lord Krishna is advising Arjuna to be a Yogi and being anyone else mentioned above.

Extending Interpretation to Mankind’s Life!

We have previously discussed about the different ways of attaining salvation and now we are back to the topic again. Here Yogi is compared with a man who worships and prays to God, to a man who has a lot of knowledge and also to a man who does his actions perfectly. Lord Krishna says that Yogi is the one who is superior to all of them. Is it not contrary to what the previous slokas said that salvation can be achieved in various ways which include praying, doing one’s dharma or duties and having knowledge? If you look at it with some depth you will get an answer to this.

Every path takes you to salvation but every path is compared to the other path that we take. A yogic way of doing things is considered to be more appropriate and superior compared to all the other paths of attaining salvation. Because a Yogi is a unifier, he unifies everything in this universe. Unification is nothing but finding similarities in different things and linking them. So, when a yogi unifies, he unifies prayers and worship with knowledge and unifies prayer, worship and knowledge with the duties that one has to do. Just compare an individual doing only one of it, and the yogi who is doing all of them. Who is superior? Undoubtedly its the Yogi. Thus the yogic way of living takes you onto salvation quicker than other ways.