We often live as architects of glass houses, desperately trying to trap the sunlight of a permanent noon. We treat our sadness as a system failure and our joy as a fragile treasure we must guard with trembling hands. But what if our internal weather was never meant to be controlled, only witnessed?
In the second chapter, verse 14, Krishna offers a profound observation: mātrā-sparśās tu kaunteya śītoṣṇa-sukha-duḥkha-dāḥ. He explains that the contact between the senses and their objects creates the perceptions of heat and cold, happiness and distress. They are as transient as the arrival and departure of winter and summer.
Q: Why does my inner peace feel so fragile in the face of modern chaos?
We have been conditioned to believe that stability means ‘sameness’—a flat line of constant productivity and curated happiness. Krishna suggests that stability is not the absence of the storm, but the recognition of its ‘thermal’ nature. Just as we do not take the winter personally, we should not take the coldness of a difficult season as a reflection of our worth.
Q: How can I stop being overwhelmed by the shifting tides of my daily emotions?
The insight lies in the word sparśās, meaning ‘contact’ or ‘touch.’ Your emotions are not your essence; they are merely a surface tension where your soul meets the world. When you feel the ‘frost’ of a setback or the ‘heat’ of an insult, remind yourself that you are the mountain, not the weather. The mountain does not argue with the snow; it simply holds its space until the thaw.
Q: If joy is as fleeting as summer, what is the point of seeking it?
The Gita does not ask us to be numb, but to be ‘enduring.’ By understanding that every high and low has a biological and spiritual expiration date, we stop white-knuckling our experiences. We learn to harvest the wisdom of the winter and bask in the grace of the summer without the frantic fear that the sun will eventually set.
True mastery is found in the quietude between the breaths of the seasons.
Peace is not the end of the winter, but the strength to walk through the snow without losing your warmth.