Measuring every being by himself, the highest yogi finds no one whose joy or pain outweighs his own.
The test for the supreme yogi is almost embarrassingly simple: read every other creature's inner life off your own. What you want and dread, they want and dread too. Equal vision like this does not numb feeling; it only stops the ranking that once put your own joy first.
The yogi who takes his own self as the measure, and so sees the same joy and pain everywhere in every being that he feels in himself, is held to be the highest.
The reading read whole, as one unhurried piece
Where it stands
Krishna has spent this chapter teaching the steadiness of meditation, the evenness of a mind no longer thrown by pleasure or pain. Now he names what that steadiness finally looks like when it meets other people: the highest yogi, measured by one simple, almost obvious test.
The teaching
There is one plain test for the supreme yogi. He takes his own self as the measuring-rod for everyone else. Just as happiness is wished for and welcome to you, so it is welcome to every living being. Just as pain is unwished for and hateful to you, so it is hateful to every living being. This is not first a claim about the metaphysics of selfhood; it begins as a felt recognition, that what you want and dread is exactly what every other creature wants and dreads. Because he reads others by himself, he sees joy and pain as the same everywhere. Same does not mean he stops feeling the difference between them. It means he no longer ranks his own joy above another's, or his own pain below another's; the welcome and the unwelcome carry equal weight in him no matter whose life they touch. This even vision does not stay a private attainment. It discharges directly into how he acts: he harms no one. Knowing another's pain to be as real and as hateful as his own, he cannot bring himself to inflict it; knowing another's happiness to be as real and as welcome as his own, he wishes it for all. Equal vision within becomes an equal stance without. Such a one, Krishna says, is held to be the highest of all yogis, sa yogi paramo matah, his own verdict. It is not a state to admire from a distance; it is won only by real, sustained effort, and this chapter will soon rank this yogi above the ascetic and the mere scholar.
The doubt that rises
If a yogi truly sees everyone's joy and pain as equal to his own, does that not flatten his particular loves, leaving a cold, evenly-distributed regard for everyone and no one in especial?
Where the paths divide
Read as seeing the one non-dual Self truly present in all beings.
The even vision rests on the actual oneness of the Self. Because the same non-dual reality underlies every being, seeing all joy and pain as equal is simply seeing what is true, not manufacturing a feeling by effort. Madhusudana sharpens this by separating a lesser yogin, who has knowledge but has not destroyed the mind or worn away its impressions and so still tastes visible sorrow, from the highest yogin, who has joined knowledge with the destruction of mind and the wearing-away of marks, and only of him is this even vision fully said.
Read as the likeness, not the identity, of distinct selves.
Ramanuja reads the likeness as similarity: every self shares the same essential form of unconstricted knowledge, and none is truly bound to the body's changing fortunes. So the yogi sees another's gain or loss exactly as he sees his own son's birth or death. This is the consummation of the discipline, not a stage toward it, because the ground of the likeness does not shift even when the sharpest joys and griefs of life arrive.
Read with care, from a fragment, guarding real distinctions.
Madhva's own surviving comment here is a single line, noting that Krishna is re-explaining, by another route, the sameness already spoken of at an earlier verse. His tradition, through Jayatirtha, reads that sameness cautiously so that it never collapses the real distinctions among souls, or between any soul and the Lord. Extended carefully from this thin fragment, one would expect the likeness to remain a moral and perceptual discipline rather than a metaphysical merger.
Read as description of an already-recognized nature, not a command.
Abhinavagupta's surviving comment is brief: he glosses the likeness as seeing everyone's pleasure and pain on a par with one's own, and adds that this restates the yogi's own inherent nature rather than laying down a fresh injunction. Extended beyond that fragment, one might say that since awareness is a single self-luminous reality appearing as every apparent other, equal seeing is simply a wave recognizing the ocean it was never separate from; but this extension goes past what the surviving words themselves state.
Read as devotion's compassion and equal vision named as one seeing.
Sridhara ties this verse to the one just before it, where the compassionate yogi is named foremost among those who worship the Lord: because happiness is dear to oneself and suffering is not, and this is exactly as true for every other being, the yogi wishes happiness alone for all and harm for none. Once the one self of all has truly been seen, harming even a single being becomes the unthinkable thing.
Read as a concrete, teachable discipline for wearing away uneven seeing.
Madhusudana supplies a specific method, read forward here in a modern-facing key: cultivate friendliness toward the happy, compassion toward the sorrowful, gladness toward the meritorious, and evenness toward the wrongdoer. Practiced steadily, these wear away the very asymmetry, liking one's own gain, dreading one's own loss, that keeps the mind from seeing another's stake as equal to its own.
Every reading agrees that the yogi's likeness to others grounds harmlessness and a real widening of care. They part on what makes the likeness true. For Advaita it is the actual oneness of the one Self. For Vishishtadvaita it is the similarity of distinct selves, alike in form but never merged. For Dvaita, read cautiously from a thin fragment, it is a discipline that must never flatten real distinctions. For Kashmir Shaivism it is a description of a nature already recognized, not a command. For Bhakti it is devotion's own compassion, seen from another side. For the modern reading it is a concrete, practicable method. This page does not crown one of these; the fork stays open.
A question to carry
When someone else's loss lands on you exactly as heavily as your own would, do you lose the people you love most, or do you finally, for the first time, truly meet them?
Where this teaching travels
Verses that sit near this one, each going its own way; follow whichever calls you.
There is a way to grow this. Toward the happy, turn friendly: these happy ones are as dear as my own. Toward the sorrowing, turn tender: let their sorrow weigh on me as my own would. Kept up, the mind clears like water after rain, and the equal sight stops being an effort. It becomes simply how you see.
Each school is voiced from the commentators named above. Their full words, every translation, and where the schools agree and differ wait in the reading desk just below. Open the commentary desk.
Krishna has spent this chapter building toward steadiness and even seeing; here he names the summit of that work, the yogi he himself holds highest.
Where they agreethe convergence
Across schools and centuries the commentators come to the same ground. These are the points they share, and the voices that hold each one.
Take your own self as the measuring-rod: what is welcome to you is welcome to every being, and what is unwelcome to you is unwelcome to every being.
Across Advaita, Viśiṣṭādvaita, BhaktiŚaṅkara · Rāmānuja · Śrīdhara · MadhusūdanaIn Śaṅkara, Rāmānuja, and 2 others’ words
The verse names the highest yogi by one simple test: he takes his own self as the measuring-rod for every other being. Just as happiness is wished for and welcome to me, so it is welcome to every living being; just as pain is unwished for and hateful to me, so it is hateful to every living being. This is not an abstract metaphysical claim first. It begins as a felt recognition, that what I want and dread is exactly what every other creature wants and dreads.
Seeing the same does not mean you stop feeling joy and sorrow; it means neither one weighs more in you when it lands on another than when it lands on you.
Across Advaita, BhaktiŚaṅkara · Madhusūdana · ŚrīdharaIn Śaṅkara, Madhusūdana, and 1 others’ words
Reading others by himself, this yogi sees happiness and pain as the same everywhere. Same does not mean he stops feeling the difference between joy and sorrow; it means he no longer ranks his own joy above another's, or his own pain below another's. The welcome and the unwelcome carry the same weight in him whether they land on himself or on someone else.
This even seeing discharges straight into conduct: knowing another's pain as real as your own, you act against none and wish good to all.
Across Advaita, Viśiṣṭādvaita, BhaktiŚaṅkara · Rāmānuja · Śrīdhara · MadhusūdanaIn Śaṅkara, Rāmānuja, and 2 others’ words
This even vision does not stay inward. It discharges directly into conduct: the yogi harms no one. Knowing another's pain to be as real and as hateful as his own, he never inflicts it; knowing another's happiness to be as real and as welcome as his own, he wishes good to all and harm to none.
Such a one Krishna calls the highest of all yogis, his own verdict, and no state to be merely admired; it is one to be won by real, steady effort.
Across Advaita, Viśiṣṭādvaita, BhaktiŚaṅkara · Rāmānuja · ŚrīdharaIn Śaṅkara, Rāmānuja, and 1 others’ words
Krishna gives his own verdict here: such a one is held to be the highest of all yogis, the foremost, sa yogi paramo matah, my own view. This is not a state to be admired from a distance but one to be won by real effort, and the chapter will shortly rank this yogi above the ascetic and the mere scholar.
The likeness runs deep enough to hold under real joy and real grief, not only in calm and easy hours.
Across Advaita, Viśiṣṭādvaita, Dvaita, Kashmir Śaiva, BhaktiŚaṅkara · Rāmānuja · Madhva · Abhinavagupta · Śrīdhara · MadhusūdanaIn Śaṅkara, Rāmānuja, and 4 others’ words
Every reading agrees that the likeness in question grounds an ethic and not merely a metaphysic: whatever the self ultimately is, the practical upshot of seeing it rightly is that another's stake in joy and sorrow becomes as binding on you as your own. Where the schools part is only on what makes that likeness true.
This is the shared ground; it can be carried as it is. Below is where they differ.
Where they differthe divergence
Viśiṣṭādvaita, in their fuller words
Ramanuja reads the likeness as similarity, not identity: every self shares the same essential form of unconstricted knowledge and none is truly bound to the body's fortunes, so the yogi sees another's gain or loss exactly as he sees his own son's birth or death. This is the consummation of yoga, not merely a stage toward it, since the ground of the likeness, the shared nature of selves, does not shift even when strong joys and griefs arrive.
Dvaita, in their fuller words
Madhva's own extant word on this verse is a single line noting that Krishna is re-explaining, by another route, the sameness already named at 5.29; his tradition, through Jayatirtha, reads that sameness cautiously so it does not flatten the real distinctions between souls or between any soul and the Lord. On a Dvaita reading extended from these commitments, one would expect the likeness to be a moral and perceptual discipline that stops short of any metaphysical merger.
Bhakti, in their fuller words
Sridhara reads this verse as the reasoning behind the verse just before it, that the compassionate yogi is foremost among those who worship the Lord: because happiness is dear to oneself and suffering is not, and this is exactly as true for every other being, the yogi wishes happiness alone for all and harm for none. On his reading, devotion's compassion and the yogi's equal vision are the same seeing named from two sides, so harming any being becomes unthinkable once the one self of all has truly been seen.
A modern reading, in their fuller words
Read forward from Madhusudana's own careful staging, a modern-facing gloss stresses the concrete discipline he supplies for reaching equal vision: cultivating friendliness toward the happy, compassion toward the sorrowful, gladness toward the meritorious, and evenness toward the wrongdoer, so that the asymmetries of liking and aversion that make one's own joy weigh more than another's wear away by steady, describable practice rather than by sudden metaphysical insight alone.
A few questions to carry
These ask for understanding, not recall; each answer is settled by the commentary itself.
For a second sitting
Carry this with youwhat stays
There is a concrete way to grow this even vision, and it works on the very attachments that keep our seeing uneven. Toward someone happy, hold: this happiness is as real and as welcome as my own. Toward someone in pain, hold: this pain is as real and as hateful as my own would be. Do not stop at feeling this; let it govern what your hands do next.
Today, when someone else's joy or grief comes near you, let it weigh exactly as your own would, and let that single, simple measure quietly govern what you do next.
Read deeper
Everything a full study holds, folded below.
Word by word
All the commentary, woven together
The commentary, woven together
machine-assisted draft, pending review
Convergence
he verse names the highest yogi by one simple test: he takes his own self as the measuring-rod for every other being. Just as happiness is wished for and welcome to me, so it is welcome to every living being; just as pain is unwished for and hateful to me, so it is hateful to every living being. This is not an abstract metaphysical claim first. It begins as a felt recognition, that what I want and dread is exactly what every other creature wants and dreads.
Śaṅkarācārya · Rāmānujācārya · Śrīdhara Svāmī · Madhusūdana Sarasvatī
Reading others by himself, this yogi sees happiness and pain as the same everywhere. Same does not mean he stops feeling the difference between joy and sorrow; it means he no longer ranks his own joy above another's, or his own pain below another's. The welcome and the unwelcome carry the same weight in him whether they land on himself or on someone else.
Śaṅkarācārya · Madhusūdana Sarasvatī · Śrīdhara Svāmī
This even vision does not stay inward. It discharges directly into conduct: the yogi harms no one. Knowing another's pain to be as real and as hateful as his own, he never inflicts it; knowing another's happiness to be as real and as welcome as his own, he wishes good to all and harm to none.
Śaṅkarācārya · Rāmānujācārya · Śrīdhara Svāmī · Madhusūdana Sarasvatī
Krishna gives his own verdict here: such a one is held to be the highest of all yogis, the foremost, sa yogi paramo matah, my own view. This is not a state to be admired from a distance but one to be won by real effort, and the chapter will shortly rank this yogi above the ascetic and the mere scholar.
Śaṅkarācārya · Rāmānujācārya · Śrīdhara Svāmī
Every reading agrees that the likeness in question grounds an ethic and not merely a metaphysic: whatever the self ultimately is, the practical upshot of seeing it rightly is that another's stake in joy and sorrow becomes as binding on you as your own. Where the schools part is only on what makes that likeness true.
Braided from 6 commentators
Śaṅkarācārya · Rāmānujācārya · Madhvācārya · Ācārya Abhinavagupta · Śrīdhara Svāmī · Madhusūdana Sarasvatī
Divergence
Advaita Vedānta
The even vision rests on the actual oneness of the Self: because the same non-dual reality underlies every being, seeing all joy and pain as equal is simply seeing truly, and the yogi is harmless because he is established in correct seeing. Madhusudana sharpens this by distinguishing a lesser yogin, who has knowledge but has not destroyed the mind or worn away its impressions and so still tastes visible sorrow, from the highest yogin, who has joined knowledge with the destruction of mind and the wearing-away of marks and so tastes liberation while living.
Śaṅkarācārya · Madhusūdana Sarasvatī
Viśiṣṭādvaita
Ramanuja reads the likeness as similarity, not identity: every self shares the same essential form of unconstricted knowledge and none is truly bound to the body's fortunes, so the yogi sees another's gain or loss exactly as he sees his own son's birth or death. This is the consummation of yoga, not merely a stage toward it, since the ground of the likeness, the shared nature of selves, does not shift even when strong joys and griefs arrive.
Rāmānujācārya
Dvaita
Madhva's own extant word on this verse is a single line noting that Krishna is re-explaining, by another route, the sameness already named at 5.29; his tradition, through Jayatirtha, reads that sameness cautiously so it does not flatten the real distinctions between souls or between any soul and the Lord. On a Dvaita reading extended from these commitments, one would expect the likeness to be a moral and perceptual discipline that stops short of any metaphysical merger.
Madhvācārya
Kashmir Śaiva
Abhinavagupta's surviving comment is brief: he glosses the likeness as seeing everyone's pleasure and pain on a par with one's own, and adds that this restates the yogi's own inherent nature rather than laying down a new injunction. On a Kashmir Shaiva reading extended from this, one would say that since the self is a single self-luminous awareness appearing as every apparent other, equal seeing is a wave recognizing the ocean it was never separate from, though this extension goes beyond what the fragment itself states.
Ācārya Abhinavagupta
Bhakti
Sridhara reads this verse as the reasoning behind the verse just before it, that the compassionate yogi is foremost among those who worship the Lord: because happiness is dear to oneself and suffering is not, and this is exactly as true for every other being, the yogi wishes happiness alone for all and harm for none. On his reading, devotion's compassion and the yogi's equal vision are the same seeing named from two sides, so harming any being becomes unthinkable once the one self of all has truly been seen.
Śrīdhara Svāmī
Modern
Read forward from Madhusudana's own careful staging, a modern-facing gloss stresses the concrete discipline he supplies for reaching equal vision: cultivating friendliness toward the happy, compassion toward the sorrowful, gladness toward the meritorious, and evenness toward the wrongdoer, so that the asymmetries of liking and aversion that make one's own joy weigh more than another's wear away by steady, describable practice rather than by sudden metaphysical insight alone.
Madhusūdana Sarasvatī
A Seeker Asks
If I truly see everyone's joy and pain as equal to my own, doesn't that erase my ability to feel my own life and prefer my own people, leaving only a cold, flattened indifference?
The verse does not ask you to stop feeling joy and pain; it asks you to stop ranking your own above everyone else's. Sameness here means equal weight, not no weight. You still know that happiness is welcome and pain is hateful; you come to know this is just as true for every other being as it is for you.
Śaṅkarācārya · Madhusūdana Sarasvatī
Far from making the yogi cold, this even vision makes him warmer. Because another's pain is as real to him as his own, he cannot bear to inflict it; because another's happiness is as real as his own, he actively wishes good to all. Compassionate, soft-hearted, harmless: these are the words the tradition reaches for, and they are the opposite of indifference.
Śrīdhara Svāmī · Madhusūdana Sarasvatī
Nor does it cancel particular love. Ramanuja pictures the yogi seeing another's son exactly as he sees his own son, which widens love rather than deleting it. What changes is not how much you feel, but where the wall between mine and another's used to stand; the wall thins, and care flows out in every direction it used not to reach.
Rāmānujācārya
Contemplation
There is a concrete way to grow this even vision, and it works on the very attachments that keep our seeing uneven. Toward someone happy, hold: this happiness is as real and as welcome as my own. Toward someone in pain, hold: this pain is as real and as hateful as my own would be. Do not stop at feeling this; let it govern what your hands do next.
Sit with this · sonnet-5-authored
All the translations and commentary
Pull up a chair.
You have come to sit with this verse. When you are ready to hear the translators and the commentators in full, open a tradition in the doorways below, or add a voice by name above.
Also hear this verse, tradition by tradition.