Bhagavad Gita Sthitaprajna lakshna - Verses 56 to 58, Swami Dayananda Saraswati's Commentary from Gita Homestudy Program.

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Bhagavad Gita Sthitaprajna lakshna - Verses 56 to 58, Swami Dayananda

Saraswati's Commentary from Gita Homestudy Program.

 

duhkhesvanudvignamanah sukhesu vigatasprhah

vitaragabhayakrodhah sthitadhirmunirucyate Verse 56

 

duhkhesu - in adversities; anudvignamanah - not affected; sukhesu - in

pleasures; vigatasprhah - one who is without yearning;

vita-raga-bhaya-krodhah -one who is free from longing, fear, and anger;

munih - the wise person; sthitadhih -one whose knowledge remains;

ucyate - is said

 

The one who is not, affected by adversities, who is without yearning for

pleasures, and is free from longing, fear, and anger is said to be a wise

person whose knowledge remains. Arjuna's question, as we have seen, was

answered completely in the previous verse. Being awake to yourself and in

yourself alone, you discover your joy, your fulfillment. And you discover it

by yourself, meaning through knowledge. Without self-knowledge, you cannot

discover happiness in yourself. How can you discover happiness in yourself by

yourself when the self is unhappy? Generally, you are happy if your desire is

fulfilled, but here you are happy with yourself without fulfilling any desire.

The nature of the atma is free from any sense of limitation and the person who

is awake to this particular fact, the sthitaprajna is free from unhappiness.

As desires arise in his or her mind, the person is not affected by them

because of being happy with himself or herself. This, then, was how Krsna

described the characteristics of a person of wisdom when Arjuna wanted to know

how a wise person responds to the world. Even though one's response to the

world does not necessarily reveal how much wisdom one has, still Arjuna

thought that the spontaneous expressions of a wise person interacting in the

world would reflect those values to be cultivated assiduously by a seeker and

would, therefore, serve as a handy reference. Knowing how a wise person

expresses himself or herself in the world is not for judging whether a person

is wise or otherwise. It is not that we have a matrix of norms indicating the

exact behaviour of a wise person, against which everyone is measured. It is

only to know what I should follow in order to be wise. What was it that the

wise person followed before becoming wise that made him or her wise and that

continues as the spontaneous expression of the person? This is what Arjuna

really wanted to know, because the characteristics of a sthitaprajna become

the very means, the sadhanas, to be followed by a mumuksu. Krsna understood

this to be the spirit of Arjuna's question and answered it accordingly.

 

THE THREE-FOLD SOURCE OF SORROW

Sorrow or pain, duhkha has three sources - adhyatmika, adhibhautika, and

adhidaivika. Ëdhyatmika is pain for which the source is your own body, mind,

and senses, from a stomach-ache onwards. The second source of sorrow,

adhibhautika, are the situations around you, including the people and bugs

that irritate you. Finally, adhidaivika is the pain or sorrow caused by such

things as earthquakes and lightning. This kind of pain is not created by your

brother-in-law or anyone else, but is from a source that is absolutely divine,

natural phenomena over which you have no control whatsoever. You may try to

control mosquitoes with certain sprays that will destroy them, but there is

nothing you can do to prevent an earthquake. Thus, while the source of sorrow

is three-fold, there are not different types of sorrow. Sorrow may express

itself in a hundred different ways - weeping, howling, kicking, moaning, and

so on. But the sorrow itself is one and the same. The word 'duhkhesu' in the

verse is in the plural because the source of sorrow is three-fold, as

explained by Sankara in his commentary on this verse. And those whose minds

are not affected or shaken by the sorrow arising from these three sources of

pain are said to be wise. Because the sources of pain are always active, pain

is possible for a wise person, but he or she is not affected by it. What,

then, is the response of a wise man when his head aches? 'Will his head ache?'

is the first question. Or, let us start from the very beginning, 'Does he even

have a head?' Yes, and because the wise man continues to have a head, it may

ache. Now, when his head aches, does he know it or not? After all, he is

sat-cit-ananda. Being sat-cit-ananda, what happens when there is a headache?

Does he recognise it? The verse indicates that he does by saying, when such

pain occurs, the wise man is not affected. When anyone recognises duhkha,

there is duhkha for him. But what happens afterwards? The person is shaken by

pain or sorrow and then he becomes disturbed, udvigna-mana--h. Any disturbance

from the three sources described above can make it a reality. The headache is

there, you recognise it and then you worry about it until your whole head and

everything else aches! You may even become a pain to everyone around you! You

were the only one with a neck pain, but you talk so much about it and make

such a fuss that your pain also becomes everyone else's pain in the neck.

 

A WISE PERSON'S RESPONSE TO SUKHA

What about pleasure, sukha, then? There are people who can remain quiet when

duhkha comes, but jump around like a football when something pleasant happens.

The word sukhesu here refers to any happy, pleasant situation, regardless of

its source, which can also be described in the same three-fold manner. Sukha

can come from your own sensory pleasure, from some external event, or yearning

for such pleasures - sukhesu sprha. But does a wise person not laugh when

something funny is happening? Yes, but there is no 'Encore! Once more!' from

the person, no longing. Recognising both pain and pleasure, he or she is not

carried away by either of them - sukhesu-vigata-sprhah duhkhesu

anudvigna-manah. This characteristic, then, becomes a sadhana for a mumuksu.

Sankara in his commentary to this verse gives the example of fire. If you feed

the fire with more wood, it will grow even more, anuvivardhate. In keeping

with the fuel that has been offered, it grows to become a big conflagration.

When you first light a fire, it always starts as a flame, but set one match to

a tank of gasoline and you have an instant conflagration. Thus, the more the

fuel, the more the fire! Unlike the fire, Sankara said, the wise person's

sukha resolves in himself or herself, in his or her fullness. The idea here

is, since there is no yearning for sukha, the person's desires do not get out

of hand. Krsna also said in this verse that one who is not swept away by

either sukha or duhkha is free of likes, fear, and anger - he is

vita-raga-bhaya-krodhah. Freedom from raga implies freedom from dvesa also.

They are a pair. When one is mentioned, the other one is automatically

understood to be included; in other words, they go together. The happiness of

those who are not in the hands of raga-dvesas is not determined by their

raga-dvesas. Their raga-dvesas do not affect their being happy with

themselves; the raga-dvesas no longer have any teeth! They may be baby

raga-dvesas or old raga-dvesas, but either way, they do not bite because they

cannot bite. They can only be enjoyed. This is why the raga-dvesas of the wise

are referred to as non-binding. They are toothless.

 

THE ABSENCE OF FEAR

Once raga is gone, fear also goes. Fear exists only when desire is there and

desire is there only when raga-dvesa is there. Kama indicates duality. It is

due to the notion, 'I am this much alone. Everything else is other than me and

I have to get it.' Thus there is duality, meaning that there is a difference

between jiva, the individual, and Ìsvara, the Lord - jivesvara-bhedha.

Naturally, then, there will be fear because, a difference between the

individual and the Lord implies duality between the individual and the world.

And duality between the individual and the world means duality between

individual and individual. Once you accept a duality between the individual

and Ìsvara, you will find difference, bheda, everywhere. If you think that you

are different from Ìsvara, you will think that you are different from the

world and from everyone else in the world. And in this world of duality, you

are an insecure person; therefore, the fear of danger from another source will

always be there because the 'other' will always be there. Fear comes from

duality only. Any fear means that duality is there because you recognise the

source of fear as something other than yourself. You can even be afraid of

yourself if you have created a split in yourself. There is an 'ideal I' and an

'actual I' and the 'actual I' is always frightening to the 'ideal I.' This is

also the reason why you are afraid of an insane person - provided you are

sane, of course! Similarly, you may find that you are afraid of a person who

is sad. There can be no fear if there is only one thing, vastu. A second thing

is necessary for fear to occur. Therefore, the one who has no duality is not

only free from raga-dvesa, but is also free from fear.

 

ANGER ALSO GOES

Lastly, a wise person is free from anger, which is nothing. but another form

of raga. The desire itself is transformed into anger. First, the desire is in

a very benign form and then it is transformed into another form, an ugly form

called anger. We will be seeing this later in the chapter - kamat krodha-h

abhijayate. When what I want is not accomplished due to some obstruction, that

very kama turns into anger whose target is the obstruction. Whatever is

obstructing my desire, becomes the object of my anger. Many murders take place

because the object of a person's love becomes the object of his or her anger.

A man does not kill the loving woman; he kills only the obstinate, unwilling

woman. And then he will cry for the loving one! Thus, when a person becomes an

obstruction to your desire, that same person becomes the object of your anger.

Anger is always a mutilated, transformed, deflected form of kama. Therefore,

if you are free of kama, desire, you will be free of krodha, anger.

 

DUALITY AND FEAR

The word bhaya, fear, was put between the words raga and krodha because of its

special significance, which is dealt with very well in the sastra. The only

way to be free of fear is by swallowing duality and you cannot swallow duality

unless there is no duality. And because there is no duality, it can be

swallowed - but only through knowledge. This is the only way of getting rid of

fear. Wherever there is duality, there is fear - fear of mortality, fear of

being put down, fear of being small, fear of not making it, and so on. Fear

can exist only as long as there is a seeker-sought relationship, the very

relationship implying duality between the seeker and the sought and, in the

final analysis, duality between oneself and the Lord. Any small division

whatsoever is enough to cause fear. Even to say, 'Ìsvara is everything and I

am a part of him' is enough! In fact, upon analysis, you will find that this

concept is the very point from which everything becomes different. This

difference is born out of a natural lack of inquiry, avicara, or non-thinking.

And if, after inquiry, duality is still there, it is a tragedy. Because the

Upanisads expect this kind of thinking or non-thinking, they address the topic

thoroughly, pointing out that as long as there is any division whatsoever,

fear cannot be avoided. A muni is a thinking person, a person of inquiry, and

the knowledge, dhi, of the muni stays sthita; that is it does not swing and

sway. The muni does not think duality, dvaita, one day and non-duality,

advaita the next, just because someone has put forth a cogent argument. In

fact, dvaita is not knowledge; it is a belief. Regardless of the number of

objections raised, advaita is something you know. You may not be able to

communicate it to someone else, but you know because it is yourself. It is not

something you have to believe. It is a freedom from all notions; advaita is

all that is there. We have seen that the person whose knowledge stays is

called a sthitaprajna, a wise person. Sannyasi is also a word to point out

jnananisha, one whose knowledge is firm and abiding. This word was brought in

by Sankara here because he did not think that one could be a jnani without

being a sannyasi. As we proceed, we shall see that Sankara's sannyasa is

always jnana, nothing less.

 

Further, Krsna said:

yah sarvatranabhisnehastattatprapya subhasubham

nabhinandati na dvesi tasya prajna pratishita Verse 57

 

yah - the one who; sarvatra - in all situations; anabhisnehah - without

attachment; tat tat - whatever; subhasubham - the pleasant and unpleasant;

prapya - gaining; na abhinandati - does not rejoice; na dvesi - does not

hate; tasya - his; prajna - knowledge; pratishita - is well established

 

For the one who is unattached in all situations, who does neither rejoices on

gaining the pleasant and nor hates the unpleasant, his knowledge is

well-established. The muni discussed in the last verse is the person referred

to here. A muni is a jnani, one who has the capacity for vicara and,

therefore, knowledge. Such a person is said to be unattached to anything -

sarvatra anabhisneha. Sneha means affection or love. The literal meaning of

this word in Sanskrit is anything viscous, like oil or glue. If you touch it,

it sticks to you. Thus, anything sticky is called sneha. Affection is

considered to be sneha because the person for whom you have affection sticks

to you. Even if the person is away from you, he or she is always with you in

your thoughts. Because there is sharing involved, the other person's joys and

sorrows become your joys and sorrows. You are deeply affected by the person

and, therefore, there is sneha, affection, between the two of you.

 

Affection need not be a problem. However, attachment, abhisneha, is definitely

a nuisance. When a mother has affection for her child, there is no problem

because the child needs the affection in order to grow well. To be fondled,

talked to, listened to, and cared for - all of which is sneha - is very

important for the child's growth. But what usually happens is that affection

becomes attachment and attachment means there is a strangulation of some kind.

Instead of being an object of your affection, the person becomes an object to

be possessed and controlled. The need to control is a common problem

everywhere. It is also a very old problem, which is why Krsna addressed it in

this verse. Attachment is not there for a wise person. His or her heart is

never caught anywhere. It is always free and in its own place. In fact, most

of us have empty hearts because that which is our heart has been distributed

in little bits to various places - a little bit in the furniture, another bit

in the carpet, and still other bits in your bank balance and a variety of

other things. All that is left is a ticking heart! Everything else has been

liberally distributed around and about. In this way, we lose our hearts in

quite a few places, and even say so, 'I lost my heart.'

 

YOUR MIND IS ALWAYS WHERE YOUR HEART IS

And where will your mind be? Where the heart is - because that is where you

are. Wherever the emotional attachment is, the mind will run right to it.

Thus, the heart being in a hundred different places, the mind, attempting to

keep pace with it, necessarily goes to the same hundred places and, in fact,

finds it quite difficult to cope with all the travel! A person who has a wound

involving pain and a little swelling will look at the wound every few minutes

and stroke it ever so gently. Because there is pain and a lot of healing

activity going on, the wound receives all of the person's love and attention.

The mind goes there because the heart is there. The whole system naturally

wants to fight it out and will certainly not allow the mind to dwell upon the

meaning of sat-cit-ananda at this time! Thus, our attachment is towards many

things and many places, including heaven, none of which attracts the wise. Any

description of heaven that you can think of, no matter how seemingly perfect,

will not interest a wise person. He or she is one who is not caught up

anywhere, whose heart is with him or her and never gets lost. Such a person

may have love, friendship, affection, and care, but nothing more. This is why

the prefix abhi is added to the word sneha. That the wise person may have

affection, but no attachment, is evidenced throughout the Upanisads and the

Gita. Krsna definitely had affection for Arjuna when he said, 'Oh!, my friend,

I am teaching you because you are my devotee and I am your friend.' He talked

to him very fondly. We find many expressions in the Upanisads meaning, 'somya,

Oh! pleasing one' etc., referring affectionately to a student. The point is

that, while there is affection, there is no attachment. Attachment helps no

one, definitely not the mumuksu.

 

The verse also tells us that the wise person does not dance for joy over

desirable situations or hate undesirable situations - subhasubham tat tat

prapya na abhinandati na dvesi. The word subha means that which is good,

auspicious, pleasant, and desirable and asubha means that which is unpleasant

like death, disease, and so on. To hate an undesirable situation is nothing

but refusal to accept a fact. A wise person does not hate a given situation,

meaning that he or she accepts it as it is, and therefore does not subject

himself or herself to sorrow. In the face of both the pleasant and unpleasant,

the auspicious and inauspicious, the wise person is the same, samah. For a

yogi, it is a matter of attitude, born of a certain understanding, whereas for

a jnani, it is a natural, spontaneous expression. This is the only difference.

In his commentary on this verse, Sankara confirms that the one who remains the

same in the face of both pleasant and unpleasant situations is well

established in knowledge. This is because the person is free from the swings

of joy and sorrow, elation and depression. There are no stock-market highs and

lows because the person's knowledge is born of atma-anatma-viveka,

discrimination between the real and the unreal. Krsna described the same

person further in the next verse:

 

 

yada samharate cayam k£rmo'nganiva sarvasah

indriyanindriyarthebhyastasya prajna pratishita Verse 58

 

yada - when; ca - and; ayam - this person; k£rmah - turtle; angani - limbs;

iva - like; indriyarthebhyah - from sense objects; indriyani - sense organs;

sarvasah - completely; samharate - is able to withdraw; tasya - his;

prajna - knowledge; pratishita - is steady

 

And when, like the turtle that withdraws its limbs, this person is able to

completely withdraw the sense organs from their objects, his knowledge is

steady. This verse was also in response to Arjuna's question about how a

sthitaprajna interacts with the world, the word 'ca' connecting it to the

previous verse. The wise person's capacity to manage his or her mind and

senses is what is now being discussed. A person may have jnana, but for that

knowledge to be steady, he or she must be able to withdraw the sense organs

from the sense pursuits at will. Although the senses themselves are not

harmful, they are referred to as the villains by the sastra and by ourselves.

For example, we make such statements as: 'I am okay, but my sense organs take

me for a ride.' 'My eyes alone take me to New York's 42nd Street.' 'My ears

also take me places.' 'My sense organs are turbulent.' 'They are the ones

doing all the mischief. I am in their hands, the victim of my sense organs.'

 

 

THE SENSE ORGANS ARE NOT TO BLAME

In fact, the sense organs are not to blame at all. They are purely reporters.

They do not ask you to do anything. Otherwise, you could not go into a

shopping mall and come out without everything sticking to you. The senses

themselves are not turbulent; they only report and they keep reporting because

it is their nature to report. Reporting is their job. The eyes tell you what

is there. If it is a sentence, they help you read it. If it is a colour, the

eyes help you see it. It is not the sense of smell that tells you that this is

sweet and so on. It only reports the smell. You are the one who decides

whether it is sweet or not. Otherwise, who would like blue cheese? If the

senses had sweetness, they would never develop a liking for a strong smelling

cheese called blue cheese. It is you who develop a liking for it, not the

senses. They only report the smell. And when they report the smell of blue

cheese to some people, those people run! The senses are not responsible for

your going for the blue cheese. Your mind is the cause. Thus, the senses

themselves are not to blame.

 

Please, remove the blame from the senses. They are given to you simply for

reporting; they do no harm. The reason they are presented as villains is

because they report there are problems. If they did not report, there would be

no desire, no pursuit, and therefore no problem. But, because they report,

there are fancies and you go along with the fancies. These fancies are many

and the reports of the senses are constant. They keep coming all the time -

reports of new objects, changing objects, new scenes and changing scenes.

Because the senses are a means of knowledge, a pramana, it is their job to

report what is happening. For example, if there is a sound, your sense of

hearing immediately tells you that it is a sound. Because of the various sense

data, you get yourself started and, before long, find yourself caught up in

fancies. Because the reports of the senses lead to fancies, the senses seem to

be a problem, but they are not. Even the fancies that happen in your mind are

not in themselves a problem, as we will see later. But, because you go along

with the fancies, the senses are considered to be turbulent and are thought of

as the villains.

 

The senses are not villains. If they report something and there is a fancy for

it, you go along with the fancy until you find that you have no time for

anything else. And because there are so many fancies, you are totally lost.

The verse under discussion here refers to the person who is able to withdraw

the senses at his or her will in order to gain steadiness in the knowledge of

the self. When a person is able to gain or command the capacity to dismiss

fancies at will, then his or her knowledge is steady because there is nothing

for the person to regret. A sthitaprajna goes only by what he or she wants,

meaning what is considered to be right, and is not dictated by fancies. To go

by what you want means that you decide. The decision itself may be right or

wrong, but you go by it and not by your fancies. The one who does not go by

fancies, who is able at will to withdraw one's sense organs, is not in the

hands of the senses. Sense pursuits do not happen for such a person without

his or her signature and sanction. This person will then be able to gain

jnana-nisha, steadiness in the knowledge of the self.

 

ANYONE CAN WITHDRAW THE SENSES

We must remember, here, that the person under discussion is a sthitaprajna,

one whose knowledge is firm and remains. Otherwise, anyone who is together

could be taken as jnani, which is not true. The person we are discussing is

either a sthitaprajna or one who is committed to sthitaprajnatva, one who

wants to be a sthitaprajna. For both, the capacity to withdraw one's senses

from anything, at will, is important. This capacity has already been

accomplished by a sthitaprajna, whereas for the one who wants to be a

sthitaprajna, it is yet to be gained. Krsna used the example of a turtle,

k£rma, with reference to withdrawing the sense organs. A turtle is able to

withdraw its limbs at will and then send them out again. Because the turtle

cannot move quickly, it is given a certain protection. It has the

extraordinary capacity to withdraw its neck, legs, and tail in under its thick

shell whenever it apprehends danger. The thickness of the shell prevents the

detection of any scent of a living being underneath. This is Bhagavan's gift

to the turtle and is also an indication of Bhagavan's sense of humour and

justice. If he had given every living being four good legs, it would have

meant that he had run out of imagination. Instead, Bhagavan is showing you

that there is yet another way - without big legs or fast movements the turtle

too can also survive by withdrawing its limbs into itself into its shell.

Similar to the turtle, a human being is not helpless in the hands of the

senses because the person also has a thick shell into which he or she can

withdraw. In fact, for some people their shell is so thick that nothing

enters! If the mind is taken away by fancies, what can the senses do? But you

can see a hundred different things without wanting any of them. You simply see

them in the same way as you see nature's autumn colours. What do you want out

of them? Nothing. You just enjoy them from a distance, appreciating them as

they are. In the same way, the senses need not create a problem. If there is

fancy, it comes as a fancy and goes as a fancy. It is only when you want

something that problems arise. By means of the turtle example, Krsna is

describing the capacity to withdraw the senses at will, from their objects and

into oneself. And for the one who has knowledge, this capacity will enable

that knowledge to become steady, to gain nisha. For the person who has

prepared himself or herself for the knowledge by developing the capacity to

make the mind and senses behave in this way, the knowledge is not going to be

far away. And if the person is not so prepared, let him or her try to make the

mind and senses behave by the practice of withdrawing them from the sense

objects. It is as simple as that. The information in this verse is not

provided in order to judge anyone, but so that you may understand how the mind

and senses are meant to function.