The Gita in daily life
When it goes well, and people say so
Things are going well and I am being praised for it. How do I keep my head?
Things are going well and I am being praised for it. How do I keep my head?
The Gita gives success and failure the same sentence. 2.38 tells Arjuna to hold gain and loss alike, victory and defeat alike. 12.18 and 12.19 describe the person Krishna calls dear to him: the same in honour and disgrace, with blame and praise weighing the same. 14.24 says it once more — steady, taking praise of himself and blame of himself alike. Nothing here asks you to refuse the success or to make less of what you did. What is being guarded against is praise quietly becoming the thing you are now working for.
Hansi Gita Bhawan Trust · from the Bhagavad Gita
Notice first that the Gita does not have a separate teaching for good times. The verse a person reaches for after a loss, 2.38, is the same verse that applies when the order comes through and the family is pleased. Equanimity in this text is one disposition with two faces, and it is far easier to build on the day of good news than on the day of bad. A person who has never practised evenness while being congratulated will not find it available later.
The sharpest thing the Gita says about success is not an instruction at all. It is a piece of reported speech. At 16.13 to 16.15 Krishna quotes a successful man talking to himself: the running total of what has come in and what is still to come, the claim to be master and enjoyer, the flat statement of being strong and happy, and then the question of who could possibly be his equal. It is not a caricature. It is the ordinary interior monologue of a good year, written down and left there for the reader to recognise.
18.26 gives the working portrait of the other kind of doer: free of attachment, not given to speaking about himself, steady and keen, and unaltered whether the thing succeeds or fails. The phrase that does the most work is the one about not speaking of himself. Praise is information about other people, and the way it takes hold is through repetition, mostly one’s own. 12.19 adds the same point from the far side: blame and praise weigh the same with the person Krishna calls dear, which means the praise is being held at the same distance the blame would be.
In the Gita’s own words
Where this comes from.
Bhagavad Gita 2.38Shri Bhagavan
सुखदुःखे समे कृत्वा लाभालाभौ जयाजयौ ।
ततो युद्धाय युज्यस्व नैवं पापमवाप्स्यसि ॥Treat pleasure and pain alike, gain and loss alike, victory and defeat alike, and then prepare for the fight. That way you take on no wrong.
Victory and defeat held alike. The same verse serves the good week and the bad one, which is the whole shape of the Gita’s answer here.
Bhagavad Gita 12.18Shri Bhagavan
समः शत्रौ च मित्रे च तथा मानापमानयोः ।
शीतोष्णसुखदुःखेषु समः सङ्गविवर्जितः ॥He is the same towards an enemy and a friend, the same in honour and disgrace, the same in cold and heat and in pleasure and pain, and he is free of attachment.
The person dear to Krishna is the same in honour and disgrace, and free of attachment. Honour is listed in the same breath as cold, heat and pain, which settles how much weight it is meant to carry.
Bhagavad Gita 12.19Shri Bhagavan
तुल्यनिन्दास्तुतिर्मौनी सन्तुष्टो येन केनचित् ।
अनिकेतः स्थिरमतिर्भक्तिमान्मे प्रियो नरः ॥Blame and praise weigh the same with him; he keeps quiet, is content with whatever comes, is tied to no fixed home, and his mind is steady. Such a devoted person is dear to me.
Praise is put on the same scale as blame, which is the practical instruction hidden in the verse: hold it at the distance you would naturally hold an insult.
Bhagavad Gita 14.24Shri Bhagavan
समदुःखसुखः स्वस्थः समलोष्टाश्मकाञ्चनः ।
तुल्यप्रियाप्रियो धीरस्तुल्यनिन्दात्मसंस्तुतिः ॥Pain and pleasure are the same to him, and he rests in himself. Clay, stone and gold are alike to him. Steady, he takes the pleasant and the unpleasant alike, and blame and praise of himself alike.
Steady, he takes praise of himself and blame of himself alike, and clay, stone and gold are alike to him. The list is deliberately unromantic.
Bhagavad Gita 16.14Shri Bhagavan
असौ मया हतः शत्रुर्हनिष्ये चापरानपि ।
ईश्वरोऽहमहं भोगी सिद्धोऽहं बलवान्सुखी ॥That enemy has been killed by me, and I shall kill the others too. I am the master, I am the one who enjoys, I have succeeded, I am strong and happy.
Cited for its form as much as its content. The Gita quotes a successful man’s inner speech rather than arguing with it, and leaves the reader to recognise the voice.
Bhagavad Gita 18.26Shri Bhagavan
मुक्तसङ्गोऽनहंवादी धृत्युत्साहसमन्वितः ।
सिद्ध्यसिद्ध्योर्निर्विकारः कर्ता सात्त्विक उच्यते ॥Free of attachment, not speaking of himself, endowed with steadiness and zeal, unaltered in success and failure — such a doer is called one of goodness.
The doer the Gita calls sattvic: unattached, not given to speaking of himself, steady and keen, unaltered in success and failure.
What to actually do
Small, and today.
- When you are praised, say who else did the work where that is true, and then go back to the work. 18.26 marks out the doer who is not given to talking about himself.
- Learn to hear the sentences of 16.13 to 16.15 in your own head as sentences, not as facts. They are usually accurate about the year and wrong about the person.
- Keep one duty that brings you no credit at all and do not give it up while things are going well.
- Hold the same short review at the end of a good week as at the end of a bad one. 2.38 asks for one practice, not two.
What the Gita does not say
Two wrong turns are common. The first is to read these verses as suspicion of success, as though the Gita would prefer you had not done well. It says nothing of the kind: 2.38 sets victory beside defeat and then tells Arjuna to prepare for the fight. The second is to perform modesty, which is only the same self-talk of 16.13 to 16.15 turned inside out. 14.24 asks for praise and blame to weigh the same, and a man busy arranging how humble he sounds is still weighing the praise.
The words behind this
Common questions
About this.
Does the Gita disapprove of ambition?
It does not treat achievement as wrong. Arjuna is told to fight and win. What 16.12 to 16.16 describes is a person whose whole horizon is acquiring — bound by hundreds of cords of hope, gathering by unfair means, never arriving anywhere. The object of the warning is the endlessness and the means, not the wish to do something well.
Should I refuse credit for my own work?
Nothing in these verses asks for that. 18.26 describes a doer who is not in the habit of talking about himself, which is different from denying what he did. Where the credit is accurate, let it be accurate. The instruction is about what you do with it afterwards, not about correcting the record downwards.
Why does the Gita treat praise as a danger?
Because of what it does to motive. 12.19 places blame and praise at the same weight, and 14.24 does the same, which only makes sense if praise is understood to pull. Once praise becomes the reward being worked for, the work is being done for a fruit, and 2.47 has already said what happens then.
Is it wrong to feel happy about it?
No. 12.18 and 14.24 describe a person who is steady through honour and dishonour, not a person who feels nothing when either arrives. The Gita asks that the mood not run the decisions. Enjoying a good month and then setting next month by that mood are two different acts.