Beyond Dualities
One who is the same to friend and foe, in honor and dishonor, heat and cold, happiness and distress, is dear to Me.
The devotee transcends dualities that enslave ordinary consciousness. Where most people are tossed between opposites—success and failure, praise and blame, pleasure and pain—the devotee remains centered in divine love. This is not indifference but transcendence. Having tasted infinite sweetness, the devotee is no longer captured by the finite pleasures and pains that tyrannize the unrealized mind.
One who is equal to friends and enemies, who is equipoised in honor and dishonor, heat and cold, happiness and distress, fame and infamy, is very dear to Me.
Stoic philosophers taught similar equanimity—Marcus Aurelius' Meditations echo these teachings on transcending the pairs of opposites.
Bhagavad Gita
Written about in
- What the Bhagavad Gita says about letting go of results
The steady person is the same towards friend and enemy, in honour and dishonour, in heat and cold. The Gita calls this dear to Krishna; it does not call it comfortable.
- What the Bhagavad Gita says about conflict with people close to you
The demand goes further, to being equal toward friend and enemy, honour and dishonour, fame and infamy. This is the hardest claim on the list and the Gita does not soften it: the category "my side" is exactly what it asks you to put down.