The modern age is obsessed with metrics. We quantify success, track performance, and judge our worth by the outcome narratives we create—or, more often, that are assigned to us. This focus transforms every endeavor, from a major career change to simply trying a new recipe, into a high-stakes performance review. Our minds, therefore, are rarely focused on the task at hand; they are perpetually oscillating between the anticipation of praise and the fear of failure.
This tension is the same psychic battlefield that paralyzed Arjuna on the edge of Kurukshetra. His doubt was not just about the fighting; it was about the crushing weight of inevitable consequence. How could he act when the results—victory or defeat—both promised immense sorrow?
Krishna’s instruction cuts through this paralysis with profound clarity in the Second Chapter of the Bhagavad Gita (2.48):
‘Yogasthaḥ kuru karmāṇi saṅgaṁ tyaktvā dhanañjaya | siddhy-asiddhyoḥ samo bhūtvā samatvaṁ yoga ucyate ||’
‘Perform your actions, dwelling in union with the Divine, renouncing attachment, and remaining impartial to success and failure. This impartiality is called Yoga.’
The pivotal word here is Samatvam, often translated as Equanimity. This is not passive indifference; it is radical energy management. When we attach our inner peace to a specific outcome—the promotion, the flawless presentation, the acceptance of our work—we have effectively outsourced our spiritual freedom to external, uncontrollable variables. The attachment to ‘success’ is precisely as binding as the fear of ‘failure.’ Both drain vital energy that should be dedicated to the action itself.
The unique insight of this verse is that the true yogic state is achieved in the middle of the effort. Samatvam is the geometrical perfect center where the joy of a win and the pain of a loss cannot shift the mind’s equilibrium.
To practice this in daily life is to focus solely on the quality of the current action—the rigor of the preparation, the clarity of the intention—and releasing the demand that the universe confirm our expectations. By detaching from the final metric, we reclaim the sacred power of presence, making the process itself the reward.
True freedom is found when the quality of your effort is the only metric that matters.