STITHA PRAJNA

This is the expected quality of a person. In Bhagawath Gita Lord Krishna tells Arjuna to attain “Stitha prajna.”

What is the meaning of this term?

It simply means spirited intelligence. It is a stable state of existence. Every human, when asked where he or she want to go after death, will say I want to go to heaven or reach God. Therefore the ultimate aim for every human being is to reach God. We keep searching means and methods to reach God. We read spiritual books, we do pooja, take up ‘vratham” do annadhanam, serve the poor, undertake philanthropic activities, go to temples and so on.

We do things as told to us by our family members and friends. When happy we may postpone and think God can understand. True God does understand but how much do we understand God’s words?

Happiness and sadness springs from our desires. If we get our dream job or dream salary we are happy….Why? It is because we have derived our desires. If our kith and kin shower us with love and affection we are happy; because that is our desire.

In the same 2 examples if we did not achieve our desires we immediately go into the state of “unhappiness”. Hence for the same reason, we experience two opposite states of mind. This state we experience from our own desires. It is this desire that keeps us happy or sad. Where does the desire come from?

It springs from our mind and the brain put forth the methodology to achieve it. When the desire springs we become focused on the achievement of this short term desire and our brain is working constantly to find ways to achieve this. Here we forget our Superior Goal—attaining God. We get entangled in the desired web. Our brain helps us to create a beautiful web to attain desires which later also becomes the cause for our frustration. Breaking off from the web and distancing our self is a very tough task. We may or may not achieve it. But in the meanwhile, we will suffer tremendous pain. This pain is manifested into anger, irritation, fear, stress, frustration and finally leads to severe health issues.

Thus a desire becomes the root cause for every pain.

Yuthistra the eldest of the Pandavas is an ideal example of being desirous. Playing the Chaturanga is his weakness and he is considered to be a good player in that game. When invited he is tempted and is desirous of proving to the world that he can play excellently.

His desire slowly gets into the stage of obsession and he is deaf to the warning of all his elders. He pledges with pride in the beginning but later pledges everything in distress with the hope of redeeming all that he lost in the previous games. His wife is also not spared. He was an emperor but was not content. He wanted to try his luck in the game of chance. He was also engulfed with an inflated ego as the game progressed. Having lost the first day and receiving everything back from the king of Hastinapur, he again succumbs to temptation and had to pay a heavy price for that. The Pandavas were exiled for 12 years. On many occasions, he was advised to withdraw and accept defeat, but he failed to heed to this advice and continued. The fire of desires cannot accept defeat.

Working hard to earn more and obtain as much as necessities/luxuries is also an obsessive desire. Enough is a relative term, having desires and being content is contradictory to each other.

If we get caught in this web of desires then it becomes a labyrinth or a Chakravuha. Desires are spontaneous; nobody teaches us how to come out of this labyrinth. Abhimanyu’s desire to prove his valor was later engulfed in the Chakravuya. He was so focused on winning the war for his father and failed to think that he did not know the way out. Desire makes us blind and deaf to reason. This parable is a message to understand that when in desire we are blindfolded and get caught in the labyrinth. Ravana’s desire is the bottom line of the story of Ramayana. Kamsa’s desire for power was one of the reasons for Lord Krishna’s avatar. Each of the Avatars of Maha Vishnu shows the consequences of having desires.

When a child is born he or she desires for mothers milk, later bottle milk, then to beverages. The child desires for toys, then books, then education, then the job, marriage, children, children’s growth, marriage and so on. The desire is endless and he or she never reaches the state of contentment.

A senior person who is aged 90 and had seen 3 generations in his lifetime said to me that he has achieved all his desires and has nothing more. On afterthought, he said, “I have no desire anymore but want to die without any illness in my sleep!” Can we call him a contented person or a person of desire?

In Bhagawath Gita Lord explains that desires can be conquered by becoming a “sthitaprajyna.” The Lord explains the meaning of this term as:

• A desire originates from the mind. Acquire Atma Gnana to control the mind.
• Do not mourn the loss or celebrate success.
• Conquer anger and fear.
• And finally, control your senses.

The Gita has answers for everything. Om Namo Vasudevaya Namah!