5.20 na prahṛṣyet priyaṁ prāpya (Original)

SrI:  SrImathE SatakOpAya nama:  SrImathE rAmAnujAya nama:  SrImath varavaramunayE nama:

Chapter 5

<< Chapter 5 verse 19

Simple

na prahṛṣyet priyaṁ prāpya
nodvijet prāpya cāpriyam
sthira-buddhir asammūḍho
brahma-vid brahmaṇi sthitaḥ

‘He shall not exult, attaining the ‘agreeable,’ nor grieve, encountering the ‘disagreeable’. The steady-willed, undeluded, brahma-knower, remains in brahma itself.’

‘Agreeable’ and ‘disagreeable’ things happen according to the body in which one may dwell, and according to the past karma-instincts. (These are accidents of embodied existence).

He who would scale the heights of wisdom, shall not evince joy or sorrow, when the ‘agreeables (priyam) or the ‘disagreeables’ (apriyam) may happen, (respectively).

How is this possible? It is, if he is: sthira-buddhiḥ= steady-willed, or he who plants his will in the stable (sthira) ātma. If he is: a-sammūdhah. I.e, moha is the delusion or the confounding the stable ātma with the unstable body. Asammūdhaḥ is he who is free from such delusion. How is he to be this? If he is brahma-learned (brahma-vit) and brahma-stationed (brahmaṇi sthitaḥ). That is, by learning or knowing what brahma (ātma) is, from instruction, and to remain steadily practising in brahma (i.e., constant spiritual culture).

The tenor of the verse is this:—

From instruction received from truth-seers (i.e., spiritual preceptors), one shall learn the exact nature of ātma (brahma-vit). He shall then practise the same. He shall then abjure the ātma-love which he places in the body, and employ himself in blissful contemplation of the would-be eternal ātma-intercourse. And then he shall neither rejoice over ‘agreeables’ nor tremble against ‘disagreeables’.

>> Chapter 5 verse 21

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