Gita Acharan

W e tend to perceive a situation, a person or an outcome of a deed as good or bad. There is a third option of remaining neutral. Krishna refers to this third state and says that a wise person is one who isn’t filled with joy when coming across good nor does he hate bad and is always without attachment (2.57). This extends Krishna’s teaching that one endowed with intellect sheds both good and bad deeds (2.50). The indication is that the sthita-prajna (one with coherent intellect) drops labelling and takes facts as facts without any extrapolation, as labelling is the birthplace for polarities of pain and pleasure. This verse is tough to understand as it runs contrary to our tendency of instantly labelling situations as good or bad. Aversion and hatred automatically follow when one encounters a situation or a person labelled as bad. On the other hand, the sthita-prajna doesn’t label it and hence the question of hating doesn’t arise for them. Similarly, when coming across goo...

A rjuna wanted to know about s thita-prajna (one with coherent intellect or stoic) who has attained samadhi (established in self) and how a s thita-prajna speaks, sits and walks (2.54). Krishna replies that the sthita-prajna casts off all desires of the mind and is content in the atma (self) by atma (2.55). When we are content with ourselves, desires as well as motives automatically disappear. As desires drop, all our actions (doing) become nishkaam-karma (unmotivated actions). Krishna sets standards and benchmarks to guide our comparison-seeking mind, which naturally looks for reference points against which to measure our progress on the spiritual journey. Our basic desire is to be different from what we are, as we get bored too quickly. This is captured in economics as “satisfied desire (need) no more motivates us”. Basically, everyone uses it as a tactic on everyone else, making it difficult to attain sthita-prajna . For example, consumer product companies intro...