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Upanishads · Śāṭyāyanīya 2
॥
Devanāgarī
समासक्तं सदा चित्तं जन्तोर्विषयगोचरे । यद्येवं ब्रह्मणि स्यात्तत्को न मुच्येत बन्धनात्
Transliteration (IAST)
samāsaktaṃ sadā cittaṃ jantorviṣayagocare | yadyevaṃ brahmaṇi syāttatko na mucyeta bandhanāt
Word-by-word
SanskritIASTMeaning
समासक्तं सदा चित्तंsamāsaktaṃ sadā cittaṃthe consciousness of a creature, always firmly attached
जन्तोः विषय-गोचरेjantoḥ viṣaya-gocareto the sphere of objects
यदि एवं ब्रह्मणि स्यात्yadi evaṃ brahmaṇi syātif it were so in brahman
तत् कः न मुच्येत बन्धनात्tat kaḥ na mucyeta bandhanātthen who would not be freed from bondage
Translation
"The consciousness of a creature is always firmly attached to the sphere of objects; if it were so [fixed] in brahman — who would not be freed from bondage?"
Version
059c42663a6d · published Aug 12, 2026, 5:00:00 AM UTC
Available inRUENPage between verses with
Here is an argument we examined twice when reading the Varāha (3.13 and 3.25), and here it is given a third time, in its shortest form. There it was said: a person knows how to praise the wealthy and knows how to scrutinize others' faults — apply that same skill to the chief matter, and nothing more is needed. Here it is put even more simply: attachment already exists in a person, and moreover is firm and constant.
That is, the trouble is not that he does not know how to become attached, but in what he is attached to. This argument, to my mind, is the most practical of all found in this literature, and it is worth voicing what follows from it. It follows that the task is not the extermination of attachment but the change of its object; and any teaching that requires first detaching and only then attaching sets things in an unachievable order.
Hence the Vaiṣṇava side holds the rule cited when reading the Jābāla-darśana (4.9): attraction departs not by prohibition but by a better taste; and the Gītā's verse 2.59 — raso'py asya paraṃ dṛṣṭvā nivartate — speaks of the same thing. Let us add the word samasakta, "firmly attached," from sam-ā-sañj, "to stick to." From the same root comes the word āsakti, "attachment," which on her nine-step ladder stands as the seventh step; and that where yoga has a-saṃsakti, "non-clinging," she has āsakti, "clinging," was discussed when reading the Varāha (4.1).