Sanskrit
आत्मौपम्येन सर्वत्र समं पश्यति योऽर्जुन । सुखं वा यदि वा दुःखं स योगी परमो मतः ॥
ātmaupamyena sarvatra samaṃ paśyati yo'rjuna sukhaṃ vā yadi vā duḥkhaṃ sa yogī paramo mataḥ
Translation
He who, through the likeness of the Self, O Arjuna, seeth equality in everything, whether pleasant or painful, he is considered a perfect Yogi.
Annie Besant · The Bhagavad-Gita, translated by Annie Besant (4th ed., 1922) — Wikisource · Public Domain
Explanation
The chapter’s summary definition of the “highest” yogi, closing the arc that began with verse 9’s impartiality toward all people — now grounded explicitly in seeing others by analogy to one’s own self, the same move later ethical texts formalize as the golden-rule basis of compassion. Arjuna’s objection in the very next verse is aimed directly at this ideal. Ātma-aupamya — “taking oneself as the measure” — makes the equal vision an act of imagination applied to others’ pleasure and pain: the nearest the Gita comes to stating a golden rule.
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Word by word
- ātmaupamyena sarvatra samaṃआत्मौपंयेन सर्वत्र समं
- by the likeness of oneself, everywhere the same (ātma-aupamyena + sarvatra + samam)
- paśyati yo'rjunaपश्यति योऽर्जुन
- who sees, O Arjuna (paśyati + yaḥ + arjuna)
- sukhaṃ vā yadi vā duḥkhaṃसुखं वा यदि वा दुःखं
- whether pleasure or pain (sukham + vā + yadi + vā + duḥkham)
- sa yogī paramo mataḥस योगी परमो मतः
- that yogi is deemed the highest (saḥ + yogī + paramaḥ + mataḥ)
Commentary
Site Commentary
The standard named here isn’t an external rule to be memorized and applied — it’s your own felt experience of pleasure and pain, used as the measuring instrument for everyone else’s. Instead of asking Arjuna to consult a moral code, the verse asks him to consult something he already has unmediated access to: what pain and pleasure feel like from the inside, then extend that same weight to others.
Original commentary written for this site · © Amit Singh — original commentary
Concepts
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Lessons
Personal
- When deciding how to treat someone, use your own felt experience of pain and pleasure as the actual measuring instrument rather than reaching for an abstract rule — you already know exactly how much something like that hurts or helps, because you've felt it yourself.
Professional
- Before setting a policy or making a call that affects a teammate, run it through your own experience of pleasant and unpleasant treatment at work — an abstract fairness principle is less reliable than checking 'would I accept this if it were done to me.'
Family & Social
- When you're unsure how much weight to give someone else's hurt or need, use your own remembered experience of that exact feeling as the calibration — you don't need an external rule to know how much something like that actually costs a person.
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