II: 56

[Krishna Jaya]

greetings from bali...

 

Chapter 2, Verse 56

 

Not shaken by adversity,

Not hankering after pleasure,

Free from fear,

Free from anger,

And free from the tentacles of unskillful desire,

They are the sages whose minds do not waver.”

 

Sri Eknath Easwaran:

 

“This second verse in the inspiring picture Krishna is painting of free souls has important implications for daily life, because the very texture of this life is comprised of dualities: pain and pleasure, success and defeat, birth and death, to name three.  In my earlier days, like most of us, I also held on to the hope that I would be able to isolate pleasure, take it home, keep it present, and throw out the pain.  No one has ever succeeded in this quest. 

 

Honesty demands that those who go after pleasure cannot complain when they encounter pain.  If you do not want pain, do not pursue pleasure.  When we do not chase after pleasure, we do not have to be on intimate terms with pain.  We then go beyond the duality of pleasure and pain into a state of tranquility, serenity, and abiding joy.  Though we may understand this intellectually, it takes longer to overcome the emotional conditioning to which we have been subjected by the culture, especially in the West.”

 

Mahatma Gandhi:

 

“To find comfort for oneself from the Atman means to look to the spirit within for spiritual comfort.  Spiritual comfort is be distinguished from pleasure. The pleasure I may derive from the possession of wealth, for instance, is delusive; real spiritual comfort can be attained if I rise superior to every temptation even though troubled by the pangs of poverty and hunger.”

 

Sri Aurobindo:

 

“Krishna, appealing to the warrior nature of Arjuna, calls on him to turn on the great enemy, unskillful desire, and slay it.  This first description of equality is that of the Stoic philosopher.  The Gita accepts this Stoic discipline, this heroic philosophy, on the same condition that is accepts the Tamasic recoil.  Above them both is the Sattwic vision of knowledge, at the root of which is the aim at Self-realization and in its steps the ascent to the divine nature.

 

A Stoic discipline which crushes the common affections of our human nature, although less dangerous than a Tamasic weariness with life, an unfruitful pessimism and sterile inertia because it at least increases the power and self-mastery of the soul, is still a mixed blessing, since it often leads to insensibility and an inhuman isolation without affording the true spiritual release.  Stoic equality, therefore, is justified as a preliminary element in the discipline of the Gita because it can initially be an aid to the realization of the free, immutable Self in the mobile human being.”

 

Srila Prabhupada:

 

“One who has surpassed the stage of mental speculations and has come to the conclusion that Lord Krishna is everything is called a Muni of fixed mind.  All miseries are accepted as the mercy of the Lord.  When happy, credit is given to the Lord whose grace is responsible for the comfortable condition.  Success or no success, a Krishna conscious person is always steady in devotion.”

 

[My path to salvation in an unraveling world.]