Verse 15

In plain words

What comes to the one who bears cold, heat, and all the rest? Listen —

The person for whom pleasure and pain are the same — who, when pleasure or pain arrives, stays free of both elation and despair, steady, wise — that person isn't shaken or disturbed by cold, heat, or any of these dualities, because he sees the eternal Self. Grounded in that vision of the Self's real, unchanging nature, able to bear every pair of opposites — that is the one who becomes fit for immortality, for deathlessness, for liberation.

Close to the Sanskrit

Of one enduring cold, heat, and the rest — what would be? — thus hear:

For that man for whom pleasure and pain are equal — whom, in the coming of pleasure and pain, free of joy and despair, steadfast, wise — these aforesaid [dualities], cold, heat, and so on, do not afflict, do not shake, because he perceives the eternal Self — he, established in the vision of the real nature of the eternal Self, tolerant of the pairs of opposites — for immortality, for the state of deathlessness, [that is] for liberation — such is the meaning — is fit, becomes capable.

In plain words

Then the Lord said: “Kaunteya! In the ocean of saṃsāra the waves of pleasure and pain come crashing in without pause. The one who is not moved by them in the least, who does not lose the evenness of his citta, and who stands firm in his resolve (that is, stands firm in niṣṭhā), becomes a ‘dhīra’. Only the one who has the strength and the capacity to reject the pairs of opposites that objects bring is a man of Buddhi. Only one who has such Buddhi do they call a ‘dhīra’.”

“‘Dhī’ means Buddhi, does it not! Only one who has such Buddhi is a man. A man is not someone who has merely grown a moustache and put on a shirt. Only one who has the Buddhi that rejects the pairs of opposites is a man. For such a man, conquering the enemies within is a far better path than conquering the enemies outside. To conquer pleasure and pain: that is the work this dhīra must do, and that is the true fruit.”

“Brother-in-law! And you will doubt this too, I suppose! You are nothing but an anthill of doubts! You may ask once more: when all this has been conquered, what is the fruit? Its goal is ‘the path of amṛta’. The fruit won by conquering pleasure and pain is amṛta, which depends on nothing. Brother-in-law! You are the best of men; so, taking up the charge against you, that you grieve thinking neither the conquest of these impermanent, unreal, worldly pleasures and pains nor this attainment of amṛta is necessary, I have taught you the Viveka of Ātma and non-Ātma.”