When a seeker has come in his inner life to the state explained as Yogarudhah, and when in that State of equipoise, the mind is held steadfast in contemplation over the Supreme, the self-controlled one, in all serenity, is capable of maintaining his consistency of meditation in all circumstances, favourable and adverse, at all levels of his personality. In the second line of the stanza it is clearly indicated that no excuse in the world is sufficiently strong to justify a seeker’s inability to continue keeping the awareness of his Eternal Nature in himself.

Three pairs-of-opposites are indicated here as: (i) heat and cold; (ii) joy and sorrow; (iii) honour and dishonour. In enumerations of these three pairs of conditions, Krishna is exhausting, through the mention of the types, all possible threats to his equipoise and tranquillity that an individual may get from the outer world.

HEAT AND COLD — These are stimuli that are felt and experienced by the body, at the body level. Whether in heat or in cold, thoughts, we know, do not expand or shrink, and the ideas cannot shiver or perspire. All these reactions can be only in the body, and therefore, Krishna is indicating by this pair all the vicissitudes that may visit the body, such as health and disease, youth and old-age, etc.

By the second pair-of-opposites indicated here as PLEASURE AND PAIN, the Lord is symbolically indicating all the destinies suffered in the mental zone. Pleasure and pain are experienced not by the body but always by the mind. It includes all the tyrannies of our different emotions which might threaten the mental arena, at one time or another in a man’s life. Hatred and love, affection and jealousy, kindness and cruelty… a thousand varieties of emotions may storm the ‘within’; but none of them is an excuse, according to Krishna, for the diligent and the sincere to lose hold of himself from the steadfastness in his contemplation.

Similarly also, the last pair-of-opposites indicated as HONOUR AND DISHONOUR shows how no threat of any storm in the intellectual zone is a sufficient plea to sympathise with an individual who has fallen away from the State of Perfection. Honour and dishonour are evaluated and reacted to only by the intellect.

Thus, by these three representative pairs-of-opposites from the three worlds of the body, the mind, and the intellect, Krishna is trying to exhaust all possibilities of obstacles in man’s life, and then he adds that in all such conditions, the Supreme Self is to be the object of constant realisation for one who is perfectly self-controlled and serene. He ever remains unruffled in all circumstances — favourable or unfavourable; in all environments — good or bad; in all companies — wise or foolish.

WHAT IS THE GLORY OF SUCH AN INDIVIDUAL? WHAT DOES HE BECOME BY SUCH A PROCESS? WHY SHOULD HE GO THROUGH SUCH A LABORIOUS INWARD TRAINING AND SELF-DISCIPLINE?

Parama-atma, the supreme Self; jita-atmanah, of one who has control over the aggregate of his body and organs; prasantasya, who is tranquil, who is a monk with his internal organ placid; samahitah, becomes manifest, i.e. becomes directly manifest as his own Self. Moreover, (he should be equipoised) sita-usna-sukha-duhkhesu, in the midst of cold and heat, happiness and sorrow; tatha, as also; mana-apamanayoh in honour and dishonour, adoration and despise.