Shloka 47
नरक-निर्णयः, पाप-कर्म-फल-व्यवस्था, प्रायश्चित्त-क्रमः, तथा हरि-स्मरण-परमत्वम्
वस्त्व् एकम् एव दुःखाय सुखायेर्ष्योद्भवाय च कोपाय च यतस् तस्माद् वस्तु वस्त्वात्मकं कुतः
vastv ekam eva duḥkhāya sukhāyerṣyodbhavāya ca kopāya ca yatas tasmād vastu vastvātmakaṃ kutaḥ
If one and the same thing becomes a cause of sorrow and also of happiness, of envy and of anger, how can that object have any fixed nature of its own? Its effects shift according to the mind that apprehends it; reality itself does not change.
Sage Parāśara (in instruction to Maitreya)
Concept: Since the same object can occasion contrary emotions, the object has no fixed emotional nature; the experiencer’s mind conditions the felt outcome.
Vedantic Theme: Maya
Application: Notice how praise/blame and gain/loss shift your mood; practice observing reactions as mental events rather than properties of things.
Vishishtadvaita: Implied dependence of experience on the jīva’s dharma-bhūta-jñāna and its contractions/expansions, while the object’s reality remains under the Lord’s order.
Vishnu Form: Para-Brahman
Bhakti Type: Shanta
FAQs
This verse highlights that experiences like happiness, sorrow, envy, and anger depend on the perceiver’s mental conditioning; therefore, clinging to objects as inherently fulfilling is a cause of bondage.
By showing that the very same object can trigger opposite emotions, Parāśara implies that the mind’s projections and attachments create fluctuation, not an unchanging essence in external things.
Against the shifting nature of worldly experience, Vishnu is implicitly the stable Supreme Reality sought in liberation—unchanging, reliable, and the true refuge beyond the mind’s oscillations.