Shloka 36
अव्यक्त-गुण-पुरुषविवेकः | Avyakta, Guṇas, and Discrimination of Puruṣa
एवं द्वन्द्चान्यथैतानि समावर्तन्ति नित्यश: । ममैवैतानि जायन्ते धावन्ते तानि मामिति
evaṁ dvandvān yathaitāni samāvartanti nityaśaḥ | mamaivaitāni jāyante dhāvante tāni mām iti ||
Vasiṣṭha said: “Thus these pairs of opposites—such as pleasure and pain—keep recurring again and again by their very nature. Yet the embodied self, through ignorance, imagines: ‘These arise for me alone; they rush upon me.’ Taking them as personal assaults, one becomes distressed and strives anxiously to escape them. In truth, it is the person conjoined with Prakṛti who, deluded, constructs such notions—thinking, for example, ‘I shall go to the world of the gods and enjoy the fruits of all my deeds,’ or ‘I shall experience here the manifest results of the good and evil actions done in a former life.’”
वसिष्ठ उवाच
Educational Q&A
Dualities like pleasure and pain recur naturally; suffering intensifies when the self appropriates them as ‘happening to me.’ This egoic misreading, rooted in ignorance and identification with Prakṛti, fuels anxiety about escaping experiences and about enjoying or fearing karmic results.
Vasiṣṭha instructs a kingly listener (addressed as ‘Nareśvara’) in a reflective, philosophical discourse. He explains how the embodied person misconstrues recurring life-experiences as personal attacks and spins expectations about heavenly enjoyment and karmic fruition, thereby remaining bound to distress.