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Verse 69 starts with, "That which is night for all living entities, in that the controlled is awake." A living relationship with God is "night" for the vast majority of people on the earth. They have no idea of it, no knowledge of it, no information of it either. They may be religious and may pay the appropriate lip-service to whatever they pay lip-service to, but they know nothing of what a living relationship with God means. Questions like "What is life? What is death? What happens after death? Is there a God? If so, where is he? What is he like? Why has he created us? Who are we? Why are we here? Why are we unhappy? Why are we angry? What is the end result of all that we are doing? Why are we doing what we are doing?" never enter their minds. Even if they do, they soon get buried under the pile of rubbish that has clogged their lives. The busy-ness of their lives and the tyranny of the urgent ensures that they are left with no time or energy or inclination to pursue the answers to such questions.

On the other hand, the yogi, the sthitapragnya is alive to such questions. He knows that living life without knowing the answers to these questions is as stupid as playing a game without knowing its rules. He sees that living a life that consists only of eating, drinking, sleeping, and having sex is nothing more than what the animals do. He sees that all worldly achievements yield only temporary results, destined to pass away with time. So he devotes himself to that which is eternal, i.e. that which is sat. He devotes himself to growing in yoga i.e. in developing his relationship with God. He is called "the controlled" because he has learnt to control his sense organs and his wandering mind, since he knows that the wandering nature of the sense organs is a big obstacle to the development of his relationship with God.

Verse 69 goes on to say that "That in which the living are awake is night for the quiet person who sees." What are the people of the world awake to? A perfect description of such people, and what they are awake to, is given in chapter 16, verses 10 to 15: "Taking shelter of insatiable lust, possessed by pride and false honor, under the temptation of grasping temporary things, flourish those who are avowed to the unclean. Their anxieties are immeasurable till their end time, having taken shelter of the belief that the experience of sense gratification is the supreme - this is definite. Being bound by the frustration of hundreds of hopes, moving towards sense gratification, they desire the experience of sense gratification and for its purpose, accumulate wealth by a variety of means. 'All this now has been gained by me, this I shall gain according to my desires, all this there is, all this I, in the future again will gain wealth. That enemy has been killed by me, I shall kill others also. I am god, I am the experiencer, I am perfect, powerful, and happy. With the wealthy and great people I am, who else is there in sight of me? I shall sacrifice, I shall give, I shall rejoice' - thus the ignorant are under the spell." They develop expertise in sense gratification, accumulation of wealth, and all kinds of worldly activities. For them, "progress" means increase in material goods. For them, "progress" means increase in GDP! They heap praise on worldly achievements, genuinely considering them as "great."

On the other hand, the yogi, the sthitapragnya is dead to such things. Such things mean nothing to him. He knows that living such life is a waste of time. What ultimate benefit can such things bring? How long can such things satisfy man? Which of these things will he take with him? Much better that he invest his time in developing his relationship with God, in growing in yoga.

Why is this so? Because "he sees" as verse 69 ends with. He sees things the others don’t. The worldly man sees and knows only the world, the yogi sees and knows both, the world and God. And he sees that the two are quite opposed to each other. And so he naturally and automatically chooses the better of the two, giving up the inferior one. Being brought up in the Hindu religion, he may not have heard of 1 John 2:15, but he lives it – "Do not love the world or anything in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him." He knows that "friendship with the world is hatred toward God" (James 4:4).

Next, the sthitapragnya, the yogi, the person who knows God, is privy to information and knowledge the normal man does not have. He is the "insider," the person who has the "inside information." He understands life, he knows what life is all about. Consequently, he doesn’t struggle, he doesn’t strive. He doesn’t fret, he doesn’t fume, he doesn’t get upset when things go wrong. He doesn’t get anxious, he doesn’t worry about anything. He is calm, peaceful. Even though he may own nothing, he still lacks nothing. He plays the game of life like a master, not like a novice or a person who doesn’t even know the rules of the game. Even in the world, people who are "insiders", who have inside information, live and act quite differently than the "outsiders." They are not baffled, no matter what happens. They know exactly what to do. They generally act contrary to the way the world acts. In the stock market, the "insider" buys when everybody is selling (and vice versa) because he knows something that everybody else doesn’t. He is "awake to that which everyone else asleep to." It’s the same for the "insider" with God, the person who knows God. He also generally acts contrary to the way the world acts. He doesn’t plunge himself into the revelries of the world. The ups and downs, joys and sorrows of the world don’t affect him the way they do the worldly people. He has the inside view; the big picture. He knows that the things that others think are so important are not at all important. "That which is night for all living entities, in that he is awake." He knows that there are other things that are important, that the worldly person is either unaware of because of his blindness, or is uncaring about because of his stupidity in lack of priorities. Moral character for example. The worldy person is not interested in developing his moral character, it is "night" for him. The yogi (the person united with God) knows that moral character is supremely important. He knows that he will not be able to sustain his yoga (relationship with God) if he gets loose about his moral character. He is awake to that which the worldly person is asleep. Naturally, he acts differently in the world.

And since God trusts him, God reveals things to him that He doesn’t reveal to the outsiders. "Shall I hide from Abraham what I am about to do?" God said to himself in Genesis 18:17. "No I won’t, he is my close friend; how will I hide things from him?" said God, and revealed things to him that He would not reveal to others. The yogi (the person united with God) is God’s friend and God reveals things to him that He doesn’t reveal to others. Speaking of the knowledge of the secrets of the kingdom of heaven, Jesus said in Matthew 13:12, "Whoever has will be given more, and he will have an abundance. Whoever does not have, even what he has will be taken from him." God does not suffer fools, and he is no communist. Contrary to the "nice" ideas about God, he ruthlessly takes away from those who possess little knowledge of Him. He does that because they have failed to value what they had been given by God, and consequently lost their right to it. He gives more knowledge about himself to those who value what He has already given them, and put it to good use. Just as in the world we give more information and more authority to those who have proved themselves trustworthy, so also God gives more information and more authority to those who have proved themselves trustworthy to Him.

Verse 70 says, "As the ever-full ocean is steady and established even though waters enter it, so also is the person in whom all sense gratification desires enter without affecting him. He makes peace his own, not a person who desires sense gratification." We have covered this in detail before in verses 15, 38 and 56. To re-cap, once you are filled up with the bliss of knowing the self, you will become like an ocean, which undergoes no difference even though many rivers enter it. Then, even though many good things may happen to you, you will not be disturbed. And even though many bad things may happen to you, the decrease in your happiness level will hardly be noticeable. Just as the decrease in the water level of the ocean is hardly noticeable when a bucket of water is taken out from it.

As verse 71 says, such a person has given up all desires, moves about untouched, without possesiveness or egoism. Such a person attains peace. As says the Avadhuta Upanishad (verse 10), "As the ocean into which all waters flow maintains its own nature despite the water pouring in, so also, he alone attains peace into whom all desires flow in like manner; not he who seeks the objects of pleasure." The person who is full of desires is tossed about one way or the other, according as his desires get fulfilled or not. When his desires get fulfilled, he becomes happy. When they don’t, he becomes sad. At all times he feels their pressure. At all times he lives in the future. "When my desires get fulfilled, I will be happy." Such a person is always looking for that some day in the future when all his desires will get fulfilled. And such a day never comes. If some of his desires do get fulfilled, he becomes happy for a moment. But then new desires take over, and he remains in the same relative position. The sthitapragnya has taken the smart way out. He has given up the desires themselves! There is nothing left to make him feel unhappy. He has learnt to draw his happiness from the self, the Atman. This happiness is bliss, which is not only of a far superior quality, but also comes from an unending source!

And he "moves about untouched." No matter how many temptations the world throws at him, he remains unaffected. We have already seen this in detail under verse 64 which says, "He who is freed from attachment and aversion, and moves amongst the objects of the sense organs without the self coming under their control, in such regulated freedom of the self, he attains grace." The sthitapragyna moves about untouched because he is free from both, attachment and aversion, likes and dislikes. He lives and moves in reality, in "what is" and not "what should be" or what "appears to be." His consciousness "doesn’t get captured." If he is moving around in the shopping mall with its hundreds of tempting goodies, he moves around untouched. If he is moving around on the topless section of a beach, he still "moves amongst the objects of the sense organs without the self coming under their control!" Consciousness has got a natural fascination for the objects of the world to which it easily gets attached. The sthitapragnya has overcome this tendency. As says the Mandukya Upanishad in IV:79-80, "Owing to fascination for non-existing objects, Consciousness engages Itself in things that are equally non-existing. On realization of the non-existence of objects, Consciousness, becoming free from attachment, abstains from them. Then, there follows a state of stillness, when the Consciousness has become free from attachment and does not engage Itself in non-existing things. That is the object of vision to the wise. That is the state on non-distinction, and that is birthless and non-dual." And as says the Maitrayani Upanishad in Part III: "The self is like a drop of water in the lotus leaf. This is overwhelmed by Prakriti. Being overcome he is in a state of delusion and does not see the Lord in himself making him act. Content with the mass of constituents and confused, unsteady, in eager pursuit, smitten by desire, yearning, conceited, thinking ‘I am that, this is mine’ he binds himself by himself as in a net, he roams about." And further in Part IV, "Like a prisoner, one in the clutches of Death is not free; dwells in the midst of many fears. He who is maddened by worldly pleasures is like one intoxicated. He is in the grip of sin and roams, like one bitten by a snake is he in the jaws of danger, as in darkness one is blinded by passion. As caught in a magic show one is in the midst of Maya. He sees every thing wrongly as in a dream, without essence like the pith of plantain – like an actor dressed up for a moment – falsely attractive like a painted wall. It has been stated ‘sense-objects’ like sound are there, sources of trouble. Attached to them, the self forgets the supreme place." The sthitapragyna moves about untouched because he is free from all this, he is free from attachment and aversion, likes and dislikes. But no way is this suggested to be easy. Says the Mandukya Upanishad in IV:82, "Owing to the Lord’s fondness for any object whatsoever, he becomes ever veiled effortlessly, and is unveiled every time with strenuous effort."

And the sthitapragyna is "without possessiveness." The word "nirmamah" means "without a feeling of mine" and will occur again in 3:30, 12:13, 18:53. Unfortunately it has picked up a negative connotation over the years with a meaning of "heartless." But "nirmamah" does not mean that, it means "without a feeling of mine." The sthitapragnya is "nirmamah"; he does not consider the things he owns as his "possessions," but things that belong to God and which God has given him for temporary use. He is "nirmamah" even with his near and dear ones. He does not consider his wife or children as his possessions. For him, they are God’s possessions, they belong to God. God owns them, not he. God has only given them to him to love and care for, for a few years while on earth. But ultimately, they belong to God. The Biblical passage that expresses the sense of "nirmamah" is found in 1 Corinthians 7:29-31: "What I mean, brothers, is that the time is short. From now on those who have wives should live as if they had none; those who mourn, as if they did not; those who are happy, as if they were not; those who buy something, as if it were not theirs to keep; those who use the things of the world, as if not engrossed in them. For this world in its present form is passing away."

And the sthitapranya is without egoism. "Egoism" is many a times, misunderstood to mean "pride." It is said of a proud, arrogant person that "he has a big ego." But that is not what "egoism" means, and we are not talking about big or small egos here. We are talking about the ego itself, the feeling of "I-ness," the ahamkara. A meek and humble person also has ahamkara, if he thinks that he is the doer of his activities. "Aham" means "I" and "kara" means "do" or "action." The self-realized person moves about in pure consciousness, not in ahamkara, not in the spirit of "I am the doer." We will look at this in depth when we look at chapter 3, verses 27 to 29 which say, "Actions are done by the properties of nature in every way. He whose self is deluded by egoism considers himself to be the doer. But he who knows the truth that actions are done by the properties of nature according to their divisions, mighty-armed one, he does not become attached. Those fooled by the properties of nature become attached to the actions of the properties." For now, we note that the sthitapragnya is "nir-ahankarah" i.e. without egoism, without the feeling of "I-ness," without the feeling that he is the doer. The feeling of "I-ness" is gone. The feeling of "I am Atman, pure consciousness" has replaced it.

If you really see, it is the ego, the feeling of "I-ness", the feeling that one is a separate entity from the others that is the root-root-cause of all problems, even the problem of desire itself. What is desire? Desire is nothing but the feeling "I want something…", but if there is no "I" left, then where will desire come from? It all depends on what we identify ourselves with. Even in the day-to-day world, we see that the more people identify themselves with the little "I" in them, the more their own problems are. When people’s identification is larger – when people identify themselves with a larger cause, or principle, or nation, their own problems dwindle to almost nothingness. Extending the understanding, we can see that the person identifying himself with the universal self will have the least number of problems in life.

Egoism is the real disease. As we have seen before under verse 56, lust, greed, fear, anger etc. all spring from desire. And now we see here that desire itself springs from the ego, the feeling of "I-ness" or separateness. All other problems – desire, lust, greed, fear, anger, etc. are thus the mere symptoms of the real disease – egoism! The sthitapragnya has already seen that there is no point in treating these symptoms while keeping the real disease untreated. If only the symptoms are treated, they may lie dormant for some time, but will soon re-appear, maybe in another form, because the real disease still remains. This has been the real problem of all psychological treatment today – it turns out to be ineffective because it treats only the symptoms and not the real disease.

There is no need to be afraid of "the destruction of the ego!" That is not a dull, meaningless, state of emptiness. It’s the exact opposite. When the ego is gone, only God remains (if you are a Dvaitist), or only the Self remains (if you are an Advaitist). And that is a most wonderful state! With the ego, go all your own desires, and with your own desires, go all anger, greed, lust, envy, jealousy, vain imaginations. The nonsense of the mind is stopped. And the spirit of God flows freely through you.

The order of the four in verse 71 is from the comparatively easy to the most difficult, from the gross to the subtle. The four items in verse 71 are

1. giving up desires
2. move about untouched
3. without possesiveness
4. without egoism

The first, the "giving up of desires" is the grossest, and most easily understood by everybody. If you have a desire for a car you know that you cannot afford (and you know you don’t need), you are better off giving up the desire for it. When you do that, you move to the second stage: when you pass by the showroom in which it is displayed, nothing happens to you now! You are totally untouched, unaffected by it. But you still consider your existing car "your own". In the third stage you will no longer consider it your own. You will consider it as belonging to God who has given it to you for temporary use. You will then start evaluating its value from another criterion: not by how much comfort it is bringing you, but by how much it is being used for the purpose that God wants it to be used for. In the final stage, there is no "you" (no ego) left anyway!

Such a person attains to peace, ends verse 71. In fact the peace you experience gradually increases as you move up the four stages. When you are full of the desire for the car you cannot afford, you have the least peace. When you give up that desire you have more peace. When you pass by the showroom without being touched by it, you have still more peace. When you no longer consider the car you have as your own, you have still more peace. But the maximum peace you have when there is no "you" left at all!

The idea that a person who gives up all desires is totally in opposition to the modern belief and behavior of the materialistic world. The materialistic behavior is to fan up all kinds of desires and satisfy as many of them as possible. The belief is that by doing this, one will get peace and joy. TV commercials bombard you everyday with newer products that you don’t need anyway, and try to make you believe that by buying them and using them, you will be happy and satisfied. "Need creation" is the first step of today’s marketing plans. And why has the need to be created? Because it’s not there in the first place! No one really needs those products. But "need creation" has succeeded so much that the average man has a million times more desires than his forefathers had a century ago. And yet he is not satisfied! The people of old lived far more contented and happier lives than the man of today.

Not so the sthitapragnya. He lives a happy and contented life. He doesn’t allow the objects of the senses flashing on the fusillade of commercials on TV to capture his consciousness. He has understood one basic equation of life –

In the case of the normal man trapped in the world, the desires fulfilled are always lesser than the desires held, so much so that the pressure created by the difference is enough to drown the innate joy, so that the innate joy is not even experienced. The sthitapragnya has understood that there are two ways to increase the level of peace and joy experienced in life – either increase the desires fulfilled or decrease the desires held. He has also understood that the smart thing to do is to decrease the desires held and bring them down to zero. Then the spirit is freed and the innate joy starts shining through. That’s the smart way he chooses to live, rather than fall for the marketers’ tricks.

This then, is the description of the sthitapragnya, and would-be disciples can use them to judge a guru’s genuineness. Does the person who claims to be a guru show this kind of character? There are plenty of wretched counterfeits masquerading as gurus from whom one has to be careful. This description provides a set of criteria by which to judge a guru. Plus this description provides easy rules-of-thumb as to what values they themselves should seek to develop, with or without a guru.

From the Dvaitic statements in verses 55 to 71, verse 72 suddenly comes back to the Advaitic subject of Brahman: "This is the state of Brahman, Partha. One is not bewildered on achieving this. Being situated in this, even at the time of death, he attains liberation in divine consciousness." "Without egoism" is what verse 71 end with. "This is the state of Brahman" is what verse 72 start with. The two states are the same: the state of egolessness (nir-ahamkarah) is the same as the state of pure-consciousness (Brahman).

The preceding three verses (69-71) resemble the verses 55-59, which started off Krishna’s description of a sthitapragnya. Verses 60-68 described how a person becomes a sthitapragnya. Verse 72 caps it all by saying that this is the endpoint, the purpose of life: to become a person like this, a person who has become the state of Brahman, the all-pervading Atman, the universal consciousness. There is no limiting ego left. The person now sees himself as one with the universe. According to the Upanishads, he has "become Brahman" as the following quotes show:

The sthitapragnya, the yogi (person who is united with God) has "become the state of Brahman." Verse 72 continues, "One is not bewildered on achieving this." It is such a person who is not confused, bewildered, stupefied by the events of this world. No matter how good the man of the world is, sooner or later he comes across a situation by which he is bewildered. Putting it in Dvaitic terms, the sthitapragnya, who has achieved unity with God, is no longer bewildered by anything he sees. He has the inside view, big picture, the eternal perspective. The larger your perspective, the less likely you are to be bewildered by anything. The sthitapragnya has an eternal, universal perspective. He knows that no matter what happens in this world, everything is okay for him since he is right with God. What is the worst that can happen to him under any circumstance? He will die, or he will lose his most near and dear ones. That’s the worst that can happen. And those two things are bound to happen anyway, sooner or later, one way or the other. So what if he doesn’t understand the events of the world? God understands and he is in control. What matters is that he be right with God and that he anyway is.

Putting it in Advaitic terms, the sthitapragnya has come to see that he himself is the one indestructible Atman, the universal consciousness. Since this Atman, this consciousness cannot be destroyed, what does it matter if his body is destroyed? His body is going to be destroyed anyway, sooner or later, one way or the other. So what matters it if it is destroyed today and not tomorrow, this way and not that? No, that doesn’t matter. What matters is that his soul, his Atman, his consciousness be right. That’s not going to be destroyed, and since he has concentrated on getting that right, it’s all okay with him.

And finally verse 72 says, "Being situated in this, even at the time of death, he attains liberation in divine consciousness." Moksha. The ultimate purpose of life according to Hinduism. It is the sthitapragnya, the yogi, the person who is united with God, who is right with God, who has realized the truth about Brahman, who is freed from the negative effects of his karma i.e. his actions, and who attains to moksha. Not some person who takes a dip in a particular river at some particular place on some particular day at some particular time. The Maitreya Upanishad in fact, in chapter II, verse 22, calls a person who believes in the efficacy of holy places as belonging to the lowest category. It says there, "The wisest take to contemplation on the reality; the middling ones contemplate on the scripture; low people think of the mantras; the lowest are deluded by the efficacy of holy places." The following quotes from the Upanishads say the same thing, that it is the person who has realized the truth, who knows Brahman, is the one who attains moksha:

From the Adhyatma Upanishad verses 48-58:

From the Trisikhi Brahmana Upanishad (160-161):

From the Amritabindu Upanishad:

From the Nada-Bindu Upanishad (vs 22-26)

From the Kaivalya Upanishad:

So it is the sthitapragnya, the yogi, the person who is united with God, who is right with God, who has realized the truth about Brahman, who has given up all desires, who attains to moksha. Not some person who takes a dip in a particular river at some particular place on some particular day at some particular time. God is not a fool.