Verse 18.26

Verse 18.26: “Relinquishing attachment, averse to egotistic talk, endowed with tenacity and enthusiasm, unmoved either in success or in no-success; such an agent is said to be Sattva-dominated. (631)

Commentary called Jnaneshwari by Jnaneshwar:

By dropping all desires for fruit, the branches of the sandal trees growing on “Malayagiri” mountain go on growing straight and long, or the betel plant (nāgavela) even though without fruit, has the object of its plantation fully secured; in that way, he (Sattvic agent) performs all day to day and occasional actions. But the absence of the fruit does not render the actions.“of no avail.” How could a fruit yield a fruit? Besides he performs plenty of (good) actions with sincere regards like the assemblage of clouds at the time of rainy season, and yet feels no conceit as their agent.

While turning out actions in plenty, actions fit to be dedicated to the Supreme, he takes due care to keep to (proper) time, to select a suitable place, and when there arises any doubt as regards the fitness or otherwise of an action he decides the issue in the light of Scriptures; he brings harmony between his natural inclinations and senses, not allowing the mind to turn to the (action) fruit, observes the restrictions in regard to selfcontrol, and secures fortitude, quick, watchful and sufficient to bear the strain of observing all these rigid checks. He never looks to his own physical comfort, while doing actions out of love for gaining his ‘Self. He rids himself of laziness and never feels the pangs of hunger and keeps comforts away from his body. And in such a state, he feels even greater enthusiasm for actions in the way gold attains greater fineness as the alloy in it is burnst out, even though losing in weight. If there be real love (for anything e.g. motive-free actions), one holds as a straw his very life, in the way a Sati’s body is observed to be full of horripilation (which springs from the emotion of intense love) as she leaps into the funeral pyre of her husband. Would one, O Dhananjaya, literally selling himself to the beloved—his own ‘Self (soul) feel unhappy (merely) because his body languishes?

Therefore, as the desires for enjoyment of sense-objects get diminished, and the more one gets rid of the conceit about his body, the greater pleasure he feels in performing actions. While doing actions in this manner, should by chance any action remain incomplete, he feels no uneasiness about it, in the way a cart crashing down a precipice does not feel unhappy in any way. On the other hand, should the action reach its successful completion, he makes no parade of his success. One, Oh Son of Pandu, found doing actions endowed with such signs, should, in substance, be called a Sattvic agent. Now the signs of knowing a Rajasic doer, Oh Dhananjaya, are that he is the very abode of worldly-desires.