Such an individual, self-controlled and serene, who has constantly come to contemplate upon the Nature of the Self as understood from the Shastras, through all his circumstances in life, soon becomes, says Krishna, filled with a divine satisfaction and becomes an unshakable Yogin. Here, the satisfaction is not merely the joy that an intelligent man comes to enjoy when he carefully studies and masters Vedanta, but, according to Krishna, the satisfied contentment which a true Yogin comes to experience and which is much superior to the thrilled joys experienced in all intense studies.
The knowledge gained through study is indicated here by the term Jnana, and the first-hand experience gained by the seeker of the Self in himself is called the Knowledge of direct perception, which is termed here, in the Geeta-vocabulary, as Vijnana.
UNCHANGING, IMMUTABLE (Kootasthah) — This is the term used for the Eternal Self. Its expressiveness becomes apparent when we understand that the term “koota” in Sanskrit, means the “anvil.” The anvil is that upon which the blacksmith places his red-hot-iron-bits and hammers them into the required shapes. In spite of the hammerings, nothing happens to the anvil as the anvil resists all modifications and change, but allows all other things to get changed upon it. Thus, the term “kootasthah” means that which “remains anvil-like” and though itself suffers no change, it makes others change.
He is a saint and has the full-blown fragrance of perfection, who has sought and discovered a perfect contentment which arises out of this subjective experience of what the Shastra says, and has come in contact with the Self that changes not. And such a saint becomes tranquil and a master of equal-vision in all conditions of life. To him, a clod of mud, a precious stone and costly gold are all the same. This equanimity of mind in profit and loss, at the acquisition of precious things or at the presentation of mere filth, is the very test to show that the individual has spiritually evolved and that to him no gain can bring any extra joy, nor any loss — any sorrow!!
In my dream I earned a lot of wealth, but ere I enjoyed it fully, I woke up to my waking-state, poverty. In my destitution, when I am suffering the pangs of hunger, I will not feel, in any sense of the term, consoled by the thought that I was rich in my dream and that in my dream-bank I had my dream-riches in its dream-vaults! Similarly, to a master who has gained perfection and transcended the world of the mind and intellect, and achieved the true awakening of the Soul, thereafter, a lump of earth, a piece of gold or a precious stone of this world are all equally futile things. They cannot add even a jot of extra joy or pain unto him. He has become the sole proprietor of Bliss Absolute. To Kubera, the treasurer of the heavens, a kingdom on the globe is no profit and has no power to make him dance in ecstasy!!
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