Buddhi-yoga (बुद्धियोग)
Buddhi is the faculty of discernment — the part of the mind that decides. Chapter 2 pivots on it: BG 2.39 — “this understanding (buddhi) has been declared to you in Sāṅkhya; now hear it as it applies in yoga, joined with which you will cast off the bondage of action.” What follows is the karma-yoga teaching proper. So “buddhi-yoga” names the move from knowing that the self is untouched to operating from a settled intellect.
A single-pointed resolve
BG 2.41 contrasts the “resolute buddhi, single-pointed” with the “many-branched, endless” thoughts of the irresolute. BG 2.44 says buddhi is not established in samādhi for those whose minds are carried off by talk of pleasure and power. And BG 2.49–BG 2.50 make buddhi the seat of the whole discipline: “take refuge in the buddhi … one yoked by it sheds both good and bad deeds here.” Chapter 18 folds it back in — BG 18.57, “resorting to buddhi-yoga, be constantly mindful of Me.”
Related
- Yoga (योग) — buddhi-yoga is one name for the same chapter-2 discipline that BG 2.48 calls samatva and “skill in action”
- Sthitaprajna (स्थितप्रज्ञ) — the person “of steady buddhi” (sthita-buddhi) is the portrait chapter 2 closes on; buddhi-yoga is the road there
- Senses, mind, intellect (इन्द्रिय-मनस्-बुद्धि) — the buddhi sits above the mind and senses in the Gita’s faculty hierarchy, which is why steadying it steadies the rest