Chapter 5Verse 24 of 29

Bhagavad Gita 5.24

योऽन्तःसुखोऽन्तरारामस्तथान्तर्ज्योतिरेव यः । स योगी ब्रह्मनिर्वाणं ब्रह्मभूतोऽधिगच्छति ॥

yo 'ntaḥ-sukho 'ntar-ārāmas tathāntar-jyotir eva yaḥ | sa yogī brahma-nirvāṇaṃ brahma-bhūto 'dhigacchati ||

Translation

He whose happiness is within, whose delight is within, whose light, too, is within, that yogi, becoming the Brahman, attains the brahmanirvana.

Three locatives in antar, inside. Antaḥ-sukha, happy inside. Antar-ārāma, delighted inside. Antar-jyotir, lit inside. The verse names the geometry: all three sources moved from outside to inside. Brahma-bhūtaḥ, having become Brahman. Brahma-nirvāṇam, the extinction-in-Brahman, the chapter's preferred term for the destination. Shankara reads brahma-nirvāṇa with care: it is not annihilation, it is the extinction of the small flame in the bigger one, the way a candle is not destroyed by being held to a fire.

Reflection

Which of the three (happiness, delight, light) is still arriving for you from outside, that the teaching would move in?

Read this verse in its chapter: Chapter Five

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