SrI: SrImathE SatakOpAya nama: SrImathE rAmAnujAya nama: SrImath varavaramunayE nama:
SlOkam – Original
yadhruchchAlAbhasanthushtO dhvandhvAthIthO vimathsara: |
sama: sidhdhAvasidhdhau cha kruthvApi na nibadhyathE ||
word-by-word meaning
yadhruchchA lAbha santhushta: – being satisfied with whatever comes his way (to sustain his body)
dhvanthvAthItha: – tolerating the pairs (of joy-sorrow, heat-cold etc)
vimathsara: – being free from envy (towards others)
sidhdhau – in success (such as victory in battle)
asidhdhau – and in failures (in them)
sama: – being equanimous
kruthvA api – engaging in karma (actions, even without gyAna yOga)
na nibadhyathE – will not be bound (in this bondage of samsAram)
Simple Translation
If one is being satisfied with whatever comes his way (to sustain his body), tolerating the pairs (of joy-sorrow, heat-cold etc), being free from envy (towards others), being equanimous in success and failures, though engaged in karma (actions, even without gyAna yOga), such person will not be bound (in this bondage of samsAram).
Rendering based on ALkoNdavilli gOvindhAchArya swAmy’s English translation of gIthA bhAshyam
‘Content with whatever gain may, by chance, befal, above ‘pairs’[3. Pairs of opposites’ = ‘cold-heat`s’. The sense-contacts with external phenomena is sensations which are the sense-with-mind-contacts, ‘cold-heat’, etc., and then follow the reactions, pleasures and pains.], exempt from malice, equal in success or failure, —though one may act, he is not bound.’
One who is content with whatever may spontaneously come to him for the support of existence.[4. Cp. ‘Santosham yena kena chit’. Bhāgavata, XI-3-29.], Dvandv-ātitaḥ is one who has crossed beyond the ‘pairs’. This means that he patiently endures the experiences of ‘cold-heat’[5. The sense-contacts with external phenomena is sensations which are the sense-with-mind-contacts, ‘cold-heat’, etc., and then follow the reactions, pleasures and pains.]-like opposites, which inevitably happen till he reaches the end of the Means (i. e., the Means or the Method he has employed to gain ātmā-intuition).
Vimatsaraḥ: to be exempt from malice is one who by imputing to himself the authorship of all evil, that may accidentally happen, is free from malice consisting in the thinking that the evil (to him) is due to others.
Siddhāv-asiddhau samaḥ: is one who preserves the balance of his mind whether success or failure may attend his efforts, such as war etc.
Despite such a man doing work, he shall, though he pursue not a (pure) jñāna-course, not be fettered. It means that he shall never be hurled into samsāra[6. Lit: that which ‘runs or courses’; means the circuit or circle of wordly existence, mundane life, material existence, matter-tied or matter-consorting existence, conditioned secular career, or matter-soul existence, coursing through a transmigratory revolution of births and deaths alternating. In Indian terms, Purusha consorting with Prakriti (or spirit-matter combination).](material life).
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