By narrating thus the inner and outer life of the ‘man-of-Self-realisation,’ Geeta helps us to detect for ourselves, the right type of Masters from the charlatans who, though wolves, wear a goat-skin and enter the fold of the faithful. Apart from this, these passages have a direct appeal to all sincere Sadhakas inasmuch as this section gives them an easy thumb-rule as to what types of values and mental attitudes they should develop, during their practice, in order to realise the ever-effulgent Divinity in them — the Pure Awareness.

This very opening stanza in this section, is a brilliant summary of all that we should know of the mental condition of the Perfect. The words used in this stanza can be understood fully, only when we remember the significant fragrance of these words as they stand dancing among the hosts of other blossoms in the Garden of the Upanishads. He is considered a Man-of-Wisdom who has completely cast away ALL DESIRES from his mind. Reading this stanza in conjunction with what Krishna has so far said, we can truly come to enjoy the Upanishadic fragrance in these inspired words of Vyasa.

An intellect, contaminated by ignorance becomes the breeding-ground of desires, and he who has relieved himself of this ‘Ignorance’through ‘Right-Knowledge’ gained in Perception, naturally, becomes ‘desireless.’ By explaining here the absence of the EFFECT, the Lord is negating the existence of the CAUSE: where desires are not, there “ignorance” has ended, and “Knowledge” has already come to shine forth.

If this alone were the distinguishing factor of the Man-of-Steady-Wisdom, then any modern man would condemn the Hindu Man-of-Wisdom as a rank lunatic; a Hindu wise-man would then become one who had not even the initiative to desire. Desire means a capacity of the mind to see ahead of itself, a scheme or a pasttern, in which he who desires will probably be more happy. “The wise-man seems to lose even this capacity, as he goes beyond his intellect and experiences the Self,” — this is a criticism that is generally heard from the materialists.

This stanza cannot thus be condemned since it adds in its second line that the Perfect-One is “blissful” in his own experience of the Self. A Perfect man is defined here, therefore, not only as one who has no desires, but also as one who has positively come to enjoy the Bliss of the Self!

When one is an infant, one has one’s own playmates, and as one grows from childhood to boyhood, one leaves one’s toys and runs after a new set of things; again, as the boy grows to youthfulness, he loses his desires for the fancy-things of his boyhood and craves for yet a newer set of things; again, in old age, the same entity casts away all objects that were till then great joys to him and comes to demand a totally different set of objects. This is an observed phenomenon. As we grow, our demands also grow. With reference to the new scheme of things demanded, the old sets of ideas come to be cast away.

In one’s ignorance, when one conceives oneself as the ego, one has a burning desire for sense-objects, a binding attachment with emotions, and a jealous preference for one’s pet ideas. But when the ego is transcended, when the ignorance, like a mist, has lifted itself, and when the finite ego stands face to face with the Divine Reality in him, it melts away to become one with the Infinite. In the Self, the Man-of-Steady-Wisdom, ‘SELF-SATISFIED IN THE SELF,’ can no more entertain any desire, or have any appetite, for the paltry objects of the body, or of the mind, or of the intellect. He becomes the very Source of all Bliss.

Such a one is defined here by Vyasa as the ‘Man-of-Steady-Wisdom’ (Sthita-Prajna), and as the words come out from the mouth of Krishna they gather the divine ring of an incontrovertible Truth.

MOREOVER:

In the verses beginning from, ‘When one fully renounces…’, and ending with the completion the Chapter, instruction about the characteristics of the man of steady wisdom and the disciplines (he had to pass through) is being given both for the one who has, indeed, applied himself to steadfastness in the Yoga of Knowledge after having renounced rites and duties from the very beginning [Even while he is in the stage of celibacy.], and for the one who has (applied himself to this after having passed) through the path of Karma-yoga. For in all the scriptures without exception, dealing, with spirituality, whatever are the characteristics of the man of realization are themselves presented as the disciplines for an aspirant, because these (characteristics) are the result of effort. And those that are the disciplines requiring effort, they become the characteristics (of the man of realization). [There are two kinds of sannyasa — vidvat (renunciation that naturally follows Realization), and vividisa, formal renunciation for undertaking the disciplines which lead to that Realization. According to A.G. the characteristics presented in this and the following verses describe not only the vidvat-sannyasin, but are also meant as disciplines for the vividisa-sannyasin.-Tr.] O Partha, yada, when, at the time when; prajahati, one fully renounces; sarvan, all; the kaman, desires, varieties of desires; manogatan, that have entered the mind, entered into the heart –. If all desires are renounced while the need for maintaining the body persists, then, in the absence of anything to bring satisfaction, there may arise the possibility of one’s behaving like lunatics or drunkards. [A lunatic is one who has lost his power of discrimination, and a drunkard is one who has that power but ignores it.] Hence it is said: Tustah, remains satisfied; atmani eva, in the Self alone, in the very nature of the inmost Self; atmana, by the Self which is his own — indifferent to external gains, and satiated with everything else on account of having attained the nector of realization of the supreme Goal; tada, then; ucyate, he is called; sthita-prajnah, a man of steady wisdom, a man of realization, one whose wisdom, arising from the discrimination between the Self and the not-Self, is stable. The idea is that the man of steady wisdom is a monk, who has renounced the desire for progeny, wealth and the worlds, and who delights in the Self and disports in the Self.