Bhagavad Gita 5.20

na prahṛṣyet priyaṁ prāpya

nodvijet prāpya cāpriyam

sthirabuddhir asammūḍho

brahma-vid brahmaṇi sthitaḥ

 

“Getting the desirable, one who is not elated,

Nor by getting the undesirable, dejected.

Firm in wisdom, free from illusion,

Knows the Divine, infused with realization.”

 

I get so captivated, my Lord, by the dualities of this world—thinking that the next good thing will make my life wonderful and the next bad thing will unmake my life, making it unbearably dreadful. My Lord, help me  see that such situations are not what they are hyped to be; they come and they go.

The more I get fixated on them—whether craving the positive or dreading the negative—the more I become  distracted from what ultimately matters: connecting with you. Help me, O Lord, to gain the realization of how enriching absorption in you truly is. 

Becoming absorbed in you is like receiving an immense treasure—akin to 50 billion dollars. Let me not lose the chance to attain that treasure by getting caught up in the trivial—whether in the hope of gaining a mere fifty dollars or in the fear of losing a mere fifty dollars, which is what life’s ups and downs amount to in the long run. Let this realization of the comparative value of the material and the spiritual take deep root in my heart. 

Please, O Lord, make my intelligence steady and strong so that whenever my emotional reactions go wrong, I can reorient myself before too long and remember that it is for you that I actually long.

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05.20 A person who neither rejoices upon achieving something pleasant nor laments upon obtaining something unpleasant, who is self-intelligent, who is unbewildered, and who knows the science of God is already situated in transcendence.