Bg. 2.71

BG 2.71

Devanagari

विहाय कामान्यः सर्वान्पुमांश्चरति निःस्पृहः । निर्ममो निरहङ्कार स शान्तिमधिगच्छति ॥ ७१ ॥

Verse text

vihāya kāmān yaḥ sarvān pumāṁś carati niḥspṛhaḥ nirmamo nirahaṅkāraḥ sa śāntim adhigacchati

Synonyms

vihāya giving up ; kāmān material desires for sense gratification ; yaḥ who ; sarvān all ; pumān a person ; carati lives ; niḥspṛhaḥ desireless ; nirmamaḥ without a sense of proprietorship ; nirahaṅkāraḥ without false ego ; saḥ he ; śāntim perfect peace ; adhigacchati attains.

Translation

A person who has given up all desires for sense gratification, who lives free from desires, who has given up all sense of proprietorship and is devoid of false ego – he alone can attain real peace.

Translation (Visvanatha Cakravarti Thakura)

71. He who gives up all objects of enjoyment but carries out action without desires for them, being devoid of possessiveness and ego, attains peace (jṣāna).

Translation (Baladeva Vidyabhusana)

71. He who, having given up all objects of enjoyment, being devoid of possessiveness and false identity, acts only to maintain his body, attains peace.

Purport

To become desireless means not to desire anything for sense gratification. In other words, desire for becoming Kṛṣṇa conscious is actually desirelessness. To understand one’s actual position as the eternal servitor of Kṛṣṇa, without falsely claiming this material body to be oneself and without falsely claiming proprietorship over anything in the world, is the perfect stage of Kṛṣṇa consciousness. One who is situated in this perfect stage knows that because Kṛṣṇa is the proprietor of everything, everything must be used for the satisfaction of Kṛṣṇa. Arjuna did not want to fight for his own sense satisfaction, but when he became fully Kṛṣṇa conscious he fought because Kṛṣṇa wanted him to fight. For himself there was no desire to fight, but for Kṛṣṇa the same Arjuna fought to his best ability. Real desirelessness is desire for the satisfaction of Kṛṣṇa, not an artificial attempt to abolish desires. The living entity cannot be desireless or senseless, but he does have to change the quality of the desires. A materially desireless person certainly knows that everything belongs to Kṛṣṇa ( īśāvāsyam idaṁ sarvam ), and therefore he does not falsely claim proprietorship over anything. This transcendental knowledge is based on self-realization – namely, knowing perfectly well that every living entity is an eternal part and parcel of Kṛṣṇa in spiritual identity, and that the eternal position of the living entity is therefore never on the level of Kṛṣṇa or greater than Him. This understanding of Kṛṣṇa consciousness is the basic principle of real peace.

Purport (Visvanatha Cakravarti Thakura)

This verse describes the person who, , does not enjoy the semse objects at all because he has no faith in them. He is devoid of possessiveness and ego regarding his body and objects related to the body (nirmamaḥ nirahaṅkāraḥ).

Purport (Baladeva Vidyabhusana)

That person who eats only to survive (carati niḥspṛhaḥ), after having renounced all sense objects which come to him, except for bodily maintenance, being devoid of possessiveness (nirmamaḥ) and being devoid of thinking of his body as his self (nirahaṁkāraḥ)—that person attains peace. Another meaning is as follows. That person who, wherever he goes, having renounced all sense objects, remains devoid of possessiveness and false identity, attains peace. This verse answers the question “How does the sthita prajṣa move about (vrajeta kim)?”

Surrender Unto Me

The idea is that one should be internally renounced and activelly externally. All these symptoms that were just explained were all internal. How should one act? He should act in such a way that he is internally renounced. This is the point. The activiti one fixed in transcendence may superficially be exactly the same as the activities of one who is a complete materialist, but internally the difference is that they are like the "night" and "day". Here is the art to become internally materially renounced and internally materially attached to Krsna ‑ that is Krsna consciousness.