Q0372

Bhagavad Gita

A verified English rendering from the curated archive.

English

Treating pleasure and pain, gain and loss, victory and defeat as the same…
Thinker Bhagavad Gita
School Indian philosophy
Source Bhagavad Gita 2.38
Theme Equanimity
Another quotation More from this thinker

Source context

This English passage is associated with Bhagavad Gita 2.38, within the tradition of Indian philosophy. The wording below is a verified rendering prepared for careful reading rather than a claim of unique translation authority.

A short reading

Read in the register of equanimity, the sentence asks the reader to test an assumption rather than to collect a slogan. In Bhagavad Gita's wider work, similar claims are usually offered as prompts for judgment: what would have to be true for the sentence to hold, and what would follow if it did?

How to cite this quotation

APA: Bhagavad Gita. (n.d.). Treating pleasure and pain, gain and loss, victory and defeat as the same… In Philosophy Blind Box. https://www.philosophydef.com/quotes/q0372

MLA: Bhagavad Gita. “Treating pleasure and pain, gain and loss, victory….” Philosophy Blind Box, https://www.philosophydef.com/quotes/q0372.

Chicago: Bhagavad Gita. “Treating pleasure and pain, gain and loss, victory….” Philosophy Blind Box. Accessed 2026. https://www.philosophydef.com/quotes/q0372.

Same thinker

More from Bhagavad Gita

  1. You have a right to action alone, never to its fruits.
  2. Contacts with the senses give cold and heat, pleasure and pain; they come and go and are impermanent—endure them.
  3. One should lift oneself by the Self and not degrade oneself; for the Self alone is friend and enemy of the self.
  4. Contacts with the senses, O son of Kunti, give cold and heat, pleasure and pain; they come and go — endure them.
  5. One should lift oneself by oneself; one should not degrade oneself.

All quotations by Bhagavad Gita

Same theme

More on equanimity

  1. I shall endeavor not to laugh at human actions, nor to weep over them, nor to hate them, but to understand them.
  2. This mind is luminous—what more is there to say?
  3. Contacts with the senses, O son of Kunti, give cold and heat, pleasure and pain; they come and go — endure them.
  4. Do not be troubled about whether the rest of life will be long or short, as if that mattered much.

Browse the equanimity theme