What does it mean to be a Sthitaprajna?

Enlightenment, Moksha, Nirvana and Liberation are some of the commonly used terms used to define the goal of the spiritual process. Although these terms are very popular and often serve as an inspiration for people to take up spiritual practices seriously, they have some very serious limitations. Most importantly, usage of these terms often creates a negative attitude towards the material/physical world. Serious seekers of Moksha often look down upon the physical world as impure and wish to spend long hours in seeking the pure consciousness. These terms also creates unnecessary friction between the so called spiritual seekers and the so called materialists. The former often consider the latter to be ignorant and selfish, while the latter consider the former to be lazy bums who do not wish to contribute to society. This artificial divide between spiritual seekers and materialists seems to be a latter development in Indian history since Ramayana and Mahabharata do not provide any evidence for it. In both Ramayana and Mahabharata, the main protagonists, Rama and Krishna, are both spiritually enlightened as well as ruling Kings. In fact, in verse 2.55 of the Bhagwad Gita, Krishna provides a precise term to describe people who have struck the perfect balance between the world of spirit and the world of matter, and strongly urges Arjuna to seek this state of being:

प्रजहाति यदा कामान्सर्वान्पार्थ मनोगतान् । 

आत्मन्येवात्मना तुष्टः स्थितप्रज्ञस्तदोच्यते ||

O Pārtha, when a man gives up all varieties of desire for sense gratification, which arise from mental modifications, and when his mind finds satisfaction in the self alone, then he is said to be of steady intellect (Sthitaprajna).

What does it mean to be a Sthitaprajna and is it different from enlightenment, moksha or liberation? The most important difference is that a Sthitaprajna is still very much a part of the physical world and has no  desire whatsoever for getting rid of it. A Sthitaprajna neither looks down upon physicality, nor is entangled in its every changing forms. A Sthitaprajna is a perfect Karma Yogi who goes on doing his/her duty without getting attached to its results. Since as the verse above says, a Sthitaprajna is established in steady intellect, s/he is also a perfect Jnani. But then the question arises, is this state really achievable or is it a mere fantasy? Was Krishna just fooling Arjuna by showing him imaginary fantasies, or was Krishna leading Arjuna towards a practical and achievable goal which would actually resolve his miseries? Interestingly, it is not just Krishna, but Patanjali too who talks of such a goal. The difference is only in terminology, while the essence remains the same. Patanjali calls this the state of Yoga, and defines it in verse I.2 of his Yoga Sutras:

योगश्चित्तवृत्तिनिरोधः ||

The state of Yoga is achieved when there is cessation of modifications of the mind.

What exactly are these modifications of the mind? In verse I.6 of Yoga Sutras, Patanjali states that there are five kinds of modifications of the mind  and these are right knowledge, error, imagination, sleep and memory. The first question that may arise on reading about these modifications is that these seem quite natural to any human being and it is perhaps impossible for a human to function without them! We may consider giving up on error or may be even imagination to some extent, but how can we give up on right knowledge, sleep and memory?? Hold on please, the idea is not as crazy as it may seem at first sight.

Do you remember the first time you learnt to ride a bicycle? If thats too long back and your memory  of that experience has faded, you could also try to remember the first time you learnt to ride a two wheeler or a car? Initially, it must have required a lot of effort with lots of conscious learning and errors being made. Then over time, as you repeated the process, it became an integral part of your system and almost effortless. And as time went on, you could listen to music, chat with friends, and even enjoy the scenery outside while still driving your vehicle. How did that happen? Without getting into too much details, essentially, your mind figured out some abstract laws of driving the vehicle and keeps using it to automatically do the job without you needing to put in too much conscious effort. Till the mind is able to figure out these abstract laws, lot of effort is required. 

A similar process happens with other things in life too. When a person first starts trading on the stock market or learning to write a computer program, initially its very effortful with every small detail being paid too much conscious attention to. But as the person keeps doing this again and again, the mind figures out the abstract laws of the process and is then able to do a large part of the job automatically. So essentially, the role that right knowledge, error, imagination, memory and even sleep to some extent play is to help us in figuring out the abstract rules and laws required to do our job at hand. Areas of life where we are able to figure out these abstract laws become effortless, and other areas where we are not able to figure out these abstract laws lead to stress since events in these areas do not happen as per our expectations. The state of Sthitaprajna is essentially one completely free of stress and completely effortless in all domains of life (not to be confused with laziness). And according to the above argument, it's clear that one can achieve this state only when one has figured out all the abstract laws by which this universe operates. Makes sense? So now, of course, the next question is, how is it even possible to figure out all the abstract laws of the universe?

It is important to understand that a good driver who has figured out the abstract laws of driving is not really aware of the mathematical equations and concepts of mechanics which play a role in movement of the vehicle through a terrain. These laws which have been figured out by the human mind are too abstract to be understood in current scientific terms. Leave alone human mind, nowadays we do not even understand the abstract laws figured out by Machine Learning algorithms (eg. Deep Learning). 

The process of figuring out abstract laws of any process requires practice and time. Hence, it obviously follows that figuring out all the abstract laws of the universe in all domains in our life would require infinite time simply because life's possibilities are infinite. And this implies that achieving the state of being a Sthitaprajna in a finite lifetime is clearly impossible! However, what if , at a fundamental level, there is only one single abstract law or a small finite set of laws which governs the universe? Then our problem is solved, since it is surely possible to learn a finite set of laws in a finite amount of time! The good news is that the Bhagwad Gita clearly talks of such a finite set of abstract laws at the fundamental level, and if we can do the required practice, we can also achieve the state of being a Sthitaprajna in a finite lifetime. What are these laws?

Actually, there is only one such fundamental law relevant to this problem, and Krishna states it in verse 2.14 of the Bhagwad Gita:

मात्रास्पर्शास्तु कौन्तेय शीतोष्णसुखदु: खदा: | 

आगमापायिनोऽनित्यास्तांस्तितिक्षस्व भारत ||

O son of Kunti, the contact between the senses and the sense objects gives rise to perceptions of pleasure and pain. These are temporary, appearing and disappearing, and so one must learn to tolerate them without being disturbed.

The word Sthitaprajna can be loosely translated in English to mean equanimous. And we loose equanimity because our mind is too easily affected by the joys of pleasure and the sorrows of pain. What Krishna says is that both these are perceptions of the mind and created when our senses come in contact with various sensory objects. The important point is that these perceptions are temporary and last for a short time. Hence, it is important for the mind to not be disturbed by them. Pleasure will always be followed by pain, and pain by pleasure. Its not that a Sthitaprajna has defective sensory organs and so cannot experience these vagaries of the mind. In fact, a Sthitaprajna is expected to have lot more sensitive and better functioning sensory organs as compared to ordinary human beings! As long as the Sthitaprajna lives in mortal flesh, s/he is surely subject to these experiences, but his/her mind is no longer disturbed by it. For example, when we are kids, we perhaps get disturbed by few marks we loose and get overjoyed by few marks we gain in the exams, but when we grow up, we realise how childish that behaviour was! Similarly, life's experiences will always bring pleasure and pain at different points of time. What matters is whether we get carried away by these experiences or go through them in a matured and wise way. A Sthitaprajna is not a boring or an insensitive person. On the contrary, a Sthitaprajna is the one who experiences life to its fullest extent without getting caught up in life's vagaries. Sounds attractive, right? So now, how do we reach this state? The goal is Yoga and the path is also Yoga. Lot of people give lot of advice, but finally, we all have to figure out our own personal Yoga cocktail!