Gita 02.57 – Stay unaffected by the material by being focussed on the spiritual

Internally Krishna is answering Arjuna's question and is telling about how does self-realized person speak that is answered here one does not praise and one does not criticize, resent Sarvatra, everywhere whatever happens Sneha is affection, attachment Anabhisneha means without attachment Shubha means auspicious without affection to whatever one gets be it auspicious or inauspicious and what does that no affection mean one doesn't praise it nor does one resent it envy it, criticize it such a person is situated in firm knowledge now this might seem to be very emotionless that whatever happens just have no response to it verbal or emotional, what kind of life that would be actually it will be a purposeful life, supremely purposeful life the point here is not to just be emotionless but the point is to actually let the emotions not dominate or misdirect us to have a higher purpose in life and to subordinate emotions to that higher purpose so that is what is being talked about over here in this verse the point is that whatever happens in the material world what will happen is not in our control though we may try our best to make things happen in a particular way there is no guarantee that we will succeed and quite often things may well go wrong seriously wrong so the solution is not just to keep doing to have a higher purpose and to not let passing events distract one from that higher purpose so for example if a person is going to work well we are going by vehicle to office for work if there is a crowded traffic jam and people are cutting each other and whole travel is a mess now our mood may get spoiled by that, we may get irritated but if we let that irritation get into us then by the time we reach office we will be so disturbed, so annoyed that that annoyance will interfere with our performance so it's important that small things, one does not take them too seriously certainly it's a inconvenience and there is a natural human response that is there of annoyance when something inconvenient or irritating happens but that natural human response should not be our only human response our only response because then our emotions will mislead us so essentially the principle here is to subordinate emotion to purpose, so for the self realized purpose self realized person the higher purpose is the purpose of realizing the absolute truth and living in the absolute truth so living in the reality I am the Atma and living the life of the soul so one who is living the life of the soul does not get unduly affected by what happens at the bodily level because such a person understands that whatever happens at the bodily level is ultimately temporary it is not going to last and therefore I don't need to get too worked up about it and now at this stage in the Bhagavad Gita Krishna has not yet introduced Bhakti and in Bhakti when a devotee gets something favorable for Krishna the devotee does become happy and when something unfavorable to Krishna happens the devotee does become unhappy so for example if some outreach program went very nicely a large number of books are distributed or a huge number of people came for a program Prabhupada would be definitely happy and say if something went wrong, some project faced some severe problems or say some devotee left Krishna consciousness Prabhupada would naturally be unhappy even very sad he would be sometimes but either way the emotion was Krishna centered and his purpose was not weakened he continued serving Krishna and by the purpose of serving Krishna he subordinated the emotion within that later on Krishna will talk about Bhakti and spiritual emotions in connection with Krishna are desirable because they make the soul more alive the soul is dormant right now the soul is spiritually dormant but emotions in relation to Krishna actually awaken the soul so at our stage it will be difficult for us to know which emotions are material and which emotions are spiritual so the best thing to do is rather than worrying about that we focus on how best we can serve Krishna and if certain emotions help us in our service to Krishna then we accept those emotions and the emotions which are unfavorable for our service to Krishna we check those emotions but in general there are different levels at which one can be equipoised one is that one understands whatever happens at the material level is ultimately inconsequential I am a soul and what happens at the material level is not really important for me it is temporary so the temporality and ultimate inconsequentiality of material things can be one meditation by which one can stay equipoised neither praising nor resenting whatever happens at a higher level you can see that whatever happens I am still a servant of Krishna and I am going to keep serving Krishna and certain situations may make it easier for me to serve Krishna certain situations may make it difficult but still it is a service to Krishna that is important and that I can always do in some way or the other so we focus not so much on that what has happened is inconsequential but we focus on what is actually consequential that is the service of Krishna and that way the concentration is not just on staying unaffected but it is on staying focused and the more focused we are the more easily we can stay unaffected so by positively meditating on serving Krishna and remembering how that principle is unchanging no matter what happens and the fulfillment that comes from serving Krishna is also available no matter what happens in the external world whether I get auspicious or inauspicious things shubha or shubha so by that a person can stay sthita pragya can stay fixed unaffected by things so atma jnan is one level by which one understands that material things are inconsequential but bhagwat jnan is another level where one knows positively what is consequential and one absorbs oneself in the positive in service to Krishna and therefore there is not so much affected by whatever happens at the outer material level and in this way such a person can stay without resenting or praising but always focusing on how to serve Krishna in this way one can stay focused in the path of transcendence.