In plain words
‘Samatvaṃ yogamucyate’
When they had gone some distance, the god Agni appeared. “Dharmaja! While you were leading your life in the world, I had to give Arjuna the Gāṇḍīva, Śiva's bow, as a boon. Now you are going, having renounced every attachment. So give back that Gāṇḍīva and then go,” he said. At his elder brother's command, Arjuna took that Gāṇḍīva and threw it into the Gaṅgā. What use are such weapons to those who have renounced every attachment? He gave it up. A little further on, Draupadī, who could walk no more, grew weary and fell to the ground. Bhīma shouted aloud. ‘Brother! Brother! Pāñcālī has fallen!’ he said. Then Dharmaja: ‘Draupadī is a woman who has never once let Dharma decline. But, Bhīma! Because there is one fault in Draupadī, she had no right to follow me, and she fell right here,’ he said. What was that flaw? To Pāñcālī, Dharmaja, Bhīma, Arjuna, Nakula and Sahadeva, these five, were equal husbands. Not understanding this well, students keep commenting on it in many ways: ‘What is this, five husbands?’ Draupadī, the great and faithful wife of that age, did not have five husbands. The five vital breaths were her husbands. Draupadī, who should have looked on these five equally, showed somewhat more love. That itself was the fault in her. That is, ‘The want of equal-mindedness is the root cause of such a state,’ said Dharmaja. ‘Samatvaṃ yogamucyate.’ That itself is true yoga. What is this equal-mindedness? ‘Sukhaduḥkhe samekṛtvā lābhālābhau jayāpajayau’, teaches the Bhagavad Gītā. Happiness and sorrow, heat and cold, darkness and light, pain and pleasure: what does it mean to look on all these equally?
‘Dharmo rakṣati rakṣitaḥ’
At one time, sorrow came. That is natural! At another time, joy came. This is its reaction. Only when we go on holding to such equal-mindedness does Śānti come to the heart; but sorrow keeps pursuing those who live with divided feelings like these: swelling with joy when Swami speaks, sinking when Swami does not speak.