📿 Shloka Collection

Yam Labdhva Chaparam

Gita 6.22 Bhagavad Gita
📖 Bhagavad Gita, Chapter 6 — Atma Samyama Yoga
यं लब्ध्वा चापरं लाभं मन्यते नाधिकं ततः ।
यस्मिन्स्थितो न दुःखेन गुरुणापि विचाल्यते ॥
Yam labdhvaa chaaparam laabham manyate naadhikam tatah
Yasminsthito na duhkhena gurunaapi vichaalyate
Yam labdhvaa cha
having attained which
Aparam laabham
any other gain
Na manyate adhikam tatah
does not consider greater than that
Yasmin sthitah
established in which
Duhkhena gurunaa api
even by the heaviest sorrow
Na vichaalyate
is not shaken

Two signs mark the person who has arrived at yoga's highest attainment. First: nothing else in the world seems like a greater gain. Not wealth, not fame, not any pleasure. The yogi has touched something that makes every other acquisition look like small change.

Second: even the heaviest sorrow cannot dislodge this person. Life does not stop throwing difficulties at a yogi — illness, loss, betrayal can still arrive. But the one who is anchored in this state absorbs the blow without being displaced. The foundation is too deep to crack.

These two signs are two sides of one coin. On one side, fullness — nothing more is needed. On the other side, unshakability — nothing can take it away. Together they describe a person who has moved beyond the push and pull that governs ordinary experience.

Verses 6.20, 6.21, and 6.22 together paint the complete picture of yoga's highest state. First came Self-seeing (6.20), then infinite joy (6.21), and now the twin marks of supreme attainment: total fulfillment and immovability.

In Chapter 2, the sthitaprajna was described as one who is neither elated by pleasure nor crushed by pain. Verse 6.22 is the culmination of that portrait — the sthitaprajna fully realized through the practice of meditation.

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