Sanskrit
यं लब्ध्वा चापरं लाभं मन्यते नाधिकं ततः । यस्मिन्स्थितो न दुःखेन गुरुणाऽपि विचाल्यते ॥
yaṃ labdhvā cāparaṃ lābhaṃ manyate nādhikaṃ tataḥ yasmin sthito na duḥkhena guruṇāpi vicālyate
Translation
Which, having obtained, he thinketh there is no greater gain beyond it; wherein, established, he is not shaken even by heavy sorrow;
Annie Besant · The Bhagavad-Gita, translated by Annie Besant (4th ed., 1922) — Wikisource · Public Domain
Explanation
The chain continues: this gain is self-terminating — nothing beyond it registers as more desirable — and it’s tested against its opposite, heavy sorrow, which fails to dislodge someone established there. This is the same stability-under-adversity test as verse 7’s dvandva list, now applied to the meditative state itself rather than to external circumstance. Na duḥkhena guruṇā api vicālyate — “not shaken even by heavy grief” — is the pressure test: the state is verified by what cannot move it, the same criterion as the sthitaprajña of BG 2.56.
Study deeper
Word by word
- yaṃ labdhvā cāparaṃ lābhaṃयं लब्ध्वा चापरं लाभं
- having gained which, no other gain (yam + labdhvā + ca + aparam + lābham)
- manyate nādhikaṃ tataḥमन्यते नाधिकं ततः
- is thought greater than that (manyate + na + adhikam + tataḥ)
- yasmin sthito na duḥkhenaयस्मिन् स्थितो न दुःखेन
- established in which, by sorrow (yasmin + sthitaḥ + na + duḥkhena)
- guruṇāpi vicālyateगुरुणापि विचाल्यते
- even heavy, one is not shaken (guruṇā + api + vicālyate)
Commentary
Site Commentary
The test in this verse is unusually strict: not merely that the gain feels good, but that nothing beyond it registers as more desirable, and that heavy sorrow specifically fails to dislodge it. Verse 7 ran this same test — stability under adversity — against external circumstance; here it’s run against the meditative attainment itself, which is a much higher bar than simply enjoying the state while things are going well.
Original commentary written for this site · © Amit Singh — original commentary
Concepts
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Lessons
Personal
- Don't trust a sense of contentment that only holds up when life is going well — test it against a real setback. If a piece of hard news can knock you completely off the peace you thought you'd found, you hadn't found it yet, you'd found a mood.
Professional
- Don't trust your confidence in a strategy just because it's working during calm quarters — the real test is whether conviction in it survives a bad quarter or a public failure. If it doesn't, it wasn't conviction, it was momentum.
Family & Social
- Don't measure your sense of security in a relationship only during its easy stretches — test it against how it holds up through a real disagreement or hardship. Security that only survives good times isn't security yet.
Ask yourself
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