Chapter 18 · Verse 35·Spoken by Krishna
यया स्वप्नं भयं शोकं विषादं मदमेव च।न विमुञ्चति दुर्मेधा धृतिः सा पार्थ तामसी
yayā svapnaṁ bhayaṁ śhokaṁ viṣhādaṁ madam eva cha na vimuñchati durmedhā dhṛitiḥ sā pārtha tāmasī
The firmness by which a dull mind will not let go of sleep, fear, grief, despair, and conceit, that firmness, Arjuna, is of darkness.
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Sanskrit recitation by Swami Brahmānanda
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Convergence
his verse completes Krishna's triple analysis of dhriti (firmness, steadiness, the holding-power of the mind that keeps a resolve in place) by describing its lowest, tamasic form. Tamasic means belonging to tamas, the quality of darkness and inertia. The holder here is called durmedha: dull-witted, poor in intelligence, unfit for discrimination. His firmness is real firmness, the same faculty that in its pure form holds a person to dharma, but it has been bent to the wrong objects, so that he grips and will not let go of five inner states the verse names: sleep, fear, grief, despondency, and intoxication.
Braided from 12 commentators
Śaṅkarācārya · Śrī Ānandagiri · Madhusūdana Sarasvatī · Dhanapati Sūri · Rāmānujācārya · Vedānta Deśika · Vallabhācārya · Śrīdhara Svāmī · Śrīla Baladeva · Lokmanya Tilak · Swami Ramsukhdas · Śrī Puruṣottama
The five things gripped are read in close detail. Svapna here is taken as sleep, drowsiness, or stupor, not literal dreaming. Bhaya is fear or alarm, often traced to attachment to the body or to ignorance. Shoka is grief, brooding over what is gone or lost. Vishada is despondency, dejection, the sinking or un-energized state of the faculties before what is at hand. Mada is intoxication, the puffed-up pride born of enjoying sense objects, or self-conceit. Several commentators extend mada and the rest to cover indulgence in objects forbidden by scripture, even eating flesh and similar acts.
Braided from 9 commentators
Śaṅkarācārya · Madhusūdana Sarasvatī · Śrī Nīlakaṇṭha · Śrī Puruṣottama · Śrīdhara Svāmī · Śrīla Baladeva · Swami Sivananda · Lokmanya Tilak · Swami Ramsukhdas
What makes this firmness tamasic is not the bare presence of these states but the refusal to let them go, the holding on, the returning to them again and again. The dull-witted man does not even recognize these states as faults; he keeps them always in mind as if they were things to be done, esteeming them as proper, calling each by a name that justifies clinging to it. So a defect is treated as a duty, and the firmness that should have lifted him out of these conditions instead nails him to the very level on which they thrive.
Braided from 8 commentators
Śaṅkarācārya · Śrī Ānandagiri · Madhusūdana Sarasvatī · Śrī Puruṣottama · Śrīdhara Svāmī · Vallabhācārya · Swami Sivananda · Swami Ramsukhdas
Several commentators read the held objects more technically as the very workings of mind, breath (prana), and the senses that are bent toward sleep, intoxication, and the rest. On this reading the tamasic firmness is the steadiness with which a person sustains the inner machinery aimed at these low states. By contrast, the sattvic firmness described earlier holds the activities of mind, breath, and senses to a worthy course; the same faculty here keeps the same machinery turned toward stupor and self-indulgence.
Rāmānujācārya · Vallabhācārya · Śrīla Baladeva · Lokmanya Tilak
Divergence
Modern
This voice stresses that tamasic firmness is fundamentally a misuse of the faculty of dhriti itself. Dhriti is meant for holding to dharma; the dull-witted one turns the very same holding-power onto the five low states instead. The practical upshot is hopeful: the remedy is not to break or weaken firmness, but to redirect it. Through satsanga (holy company) and viveka (discrimination) the seeker turns the same holding-capacity onto duty (kartavya) and remembrance of God (bhagavat-smarana). The seeker should not despair over any of the five, but simply notice the gripping and gently turn it toward a worthy object.
Swami Ramsukhdas
Śuddhādvaita
This reading colors each of the five states with the relation to the Lord. Fear arises from not knowing the Lord's will; grief is brooding over what the Lord has already settled, out of one's own want of right knowledge; mada is the pride of self-ignorance. The firmness is called fruitless precisely because the man does not even see these states as faulty and so keeps on doing them. A companion voice in the same school adds that this is firmness in the very things that ought to be set down: the dull-minded one clings to states from which he should have risen, and the clinging keeps him at the level on which they thrive.
Śrī Puruṣottama
A Seeker Asks
If firmness is supposed to be a virtue, how can the same quality that holds a saint to his vows also chain a person to sloth and self-indulgence?
Because firmness, dhriti, is morally neutral in itself. It is simply the mind's power to hold a resolve in place and keep returning to it. The commentators are clear that the tamasic man is genuinely firm; his fault is not weakness but that his holding-power has been bent to the wrong objects, gripping sleep, fear, grief, despondency, and intoxication instead of dharma.
Śaṅkarācārya · Rāmānujācārya · Lokmanya Tilak · Swami Ramsukhdas
What turns this firmness dark is the failure of discrimination. The durmedha, the dull-witted one, does not even see these states as faults; he keeps them in mind as if they were things to be done, esteeming them as proper, and so clings instead of rising. The same steadiness that should carry him out of these conditions instead pins him to the level where they thrive.
Braided from 6 commentators
Śaṅkarācārya · Śrī Ānandagiri · Madhusūdana Sarasvatī · Śrī Puruṣottama · Vallabhācārya · Śrīdhara Svāmī
This is why the answer is hopeful rather than condemning. Since the faculty itself is sound, the work is not to destroy your firmness but to redirect it. Through holy company and discrimination, the same grip can be turned onto duty and the remembrance of God; the seeker need not despair over the five states, only notice the holding and gently aim it at a worthy object.
Swami Ramsukhdas
Contemplation
Notice that the problem is never that you have too much firmness. The problem is where the firmness is aimed. The same grip that keeps a person glued to drowsiness, fear, grief, dejection, and self-conceit is the very grip that, redirected, can hold you to your duty and to the remembrance of God. So do not try to crush your holding-power, and do not despair when you catch yourself clinging to one of these five states. Simply mark the holding. Then, with the help of good company and clear discrimination, gently turn that same holding-capacity onto something worthy: the task in front of you, and the steady remembrance of the Lord. The faculty was never the enemy. Only its object needed to change.
Sit with this · Swami Ramsukhdas
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