Human Excellence in Bhagavad Gita. Sthairyam (Steadiness) (13.8) Sthairyam (Steadiness) Sthairyam means the sense of consistency and perseverance in whatever one does.

Human Excellence in Bhagavad Gita. Sthairyam  (Steadiness) (13.8)

Sthairyam  (Steadiness) Sthairyam  means the sense of consistency and perseverance in whatever one does.

Persistence is a decision. It is a commitment to finish what you start.

Fritz Kreisler, the great violinist, was once asked, "How do you play so well? Are you lucky?" He replied, "It is practice. If I don't practice for a month, the audience can tell the difference. If I don't practice for a week, my wife can tell the difference. If I don't practice for a day, I can tell the difference." Persistence means commitment and determination. There is pleasure in endurance. Commitment and persistence is a decision. Athletes put in years of practice for a few seconds or minutes of performance. Persistence is a decision. It is a commitment to finish what you start. When we are exhausted, quitting looks good. But winners endure. Ask a winning athlete. He endures pain and finishes what he started. Lots of failures have begun well but have not concluded anything. Persistence comes from purpose. Life without purpose is drifting. A person who has no purpose will never persevere and will never be fulfilled.

It is a well-known fact that no real work can be done by fits and starts. One should be consistent and steady. In order to do things consistently, a person should be convinced about its importance and the need to do it. And in order to be convinced, one should have the right company.

To be steady is a sign of a stable state of mind.  doing karma in the right way is the method.  Krishna tells him to fight the battle of life. In other words, Arjuna should do work; or be a Karma Yogi.

Karma, rightly done, leads to purity of mind which is the primary condition for gaining Self-Knowledge. The scheme is this: do your duty (svadharma), which will purify the mind (chitta shudhi) and  then finally giving up external action, one will deeply reflect and meditate over the Vedantic Truths. These are the well-known three steps about  sadhana: first listen to the truth (shravana), then deeply reflect over them (manana) and finally, having cleared the mind of all doubts and impurities meditate on the truth (nididhyasana). Through this process one gets established in the knowledge about the truth and finally becomes fit to attain  jnana  or SelfKnowledge.

In some cities or large campuses, they show the road map of entire place and then mark out ‘You are Here’. Having known where we stand, we then chalk out the path to our place of destination. Similarly we should know where do we stand in this the cycle of worldly existence (samsara chakra). This means evaluating ourselves, the state of our mind, the state of our maturity, our emotional strengths, our understanding of the ways of the world and our mind and so on. The scriptures tell that once we realize where we are, next we should take the path best suited to us at that stage of life. We must keep to this inner order of steps. For this we should know what we need  now  and be determined  about it.

As life is short and has many pitfalls and temptations, we have to quickly decide what we want. Do we want to spend our life only struggling with the ‘outside’? Correcting others or correcting ourselves? If we think that we need to change before changing others, then we should turn within. This approach is different from others who are busy correcting others. It is like becoming an athlete. If one wants to be an athlete, he should spend his time building up his stamina, do workouts, do exercises and jogging, toughen his body and be willing to face challenges in the race. He should not be blaming others and correcting the ground for his running. When the goal (lakshya) becomes clear then the way (marga) too becomes clear. One should thus be steady in one’s efforts.

To be steady or committed to one way of life, one needs clarity of understanding and clarity cannot come without deep thinking and analysis. Says a Sanskrit verse:  When two pieces of dry twigs are rubbed, fire is ignited  If earth is dug, it gives out water  If there is enthusiasm nothing is impossible  [Hence] If you start towards the right direction and keep working, you will reach the goal.

The point is that we should not waste our efforts in constantly changing our loyalties. Human life is so precious and the time allotted to us is so limited. We should not waste our efforts and time in trying our hands at different places and doing things sporadically and inconsistently.

Again, merely taking an initiative is not sufficient. We should have commitment to it and that comes when our emotional self is one with our intellectual self. The intellectual-self only makes an intellectual decision that it is good to do something but to put it into practice becomes possible only when our emotional-self comes into picture. Intellectual-self may be compared to a father and emotional-self to a mother. Hence we have both father and mother in us. Since our emotional-self implements the decisions made by the intellectual-self, it will be good if the emotional-self takes the decisions as well.
How to make the emotional-self take decision? To do this one should think deeply and analyze. This will lead to the conviction that ‘This alone I have to do, I cannot waste my time anymore’. This is how steadiness comes in life. And once one becomes steady then one does not need external support and motivation.

A clear mind is the source of steadiness. If I know very clearly what I want in my life, commitment is bound to come. How committed are people to money, power or popularity! They keep thinking about them and cannot even sleep. Being convinced that they need these things, they are forced by their own mind to work day and night. Only when we apply our mind consistently on our  goal can we really work to reach it. No matter in what condition we are placed, we should not give up our struggle. Says a verse: When the great ocean was churned (samudra manthanam) by gods, it gave rise to many things. Along with numerous attractive objects, dreadful poison also came out. Poison could not frighten gods nor could precious gems tempt them from their efforts. They continued to churn the ocean till the nectar (amrita) came out.

This is the ideal of steady effort. Once we are committed to our goal, we should go on working in spite of difficulties—until we reach our desired objective. If we stop before gaining that, we will have to start all over again. We should know that no great result can be achieved without persistence and consistency.

" We have  to  begin  from  the  beginning, to  take  up the  works  as  they  come  to  us  and  slowly  make  ourselves  more unselfish  every  day.  We  must  do the  work  and  find  out  the  motive  power  that prompts  us;  and,  almost  without exception,  in  the  first  years,  we  shall  find  that our  motives  are  always  selfish;  but  gradually  this  selfishness  will melt  by persistence,  till  at  last  will  come  the  time  when  we  shall  be  able  to  do really  unselfish  work.  We  may  all hope  that some  day  or  other,  as  we  struggle  through  the  paths  of  life,  there  will  come  a  time  when  we  shall  become perfectly  unselfish;  and  the  moment  we  attain  to  that, all our  powers  will  be  concentrated,  and  the  knowledge which  is  ours  will  be  manifest." (CW of Swami Vivekananda Vol.1 page 338)

( Based on Vedanta Kesari and other sources
Edited and Condensed by Swami Adhishwarananda)

अमानित्वमदम्भित्वमहिंसा क्षान्तिरार्जवम् |
आचार्योपासनं शौचं स्थैर्यमात्मविनिग्रह: || (Gita 13.8)