Summary:

Bhagavad Gita, Chapter 4, Verse 21: Freedom from expectations means releasing the childish notion that something amazing should happen to you. Placing your worth in hundreds of unpredictable variables creates a no-win situation. Every action returns four possibilities – expected, more, less, or opposite – and acknowledging all four builds genuine mental composure, acting as a shock absorber for inevitable inconveniences. Mastery of mind and senses isn't a technique but taking full responsibility for your choices, since no one external forces them to remain underutilized. Trusteeship, rather than ownership, reduces “my-ness” and the anxiety of loss, recognizing Ishvara as the real owner and your body and life as entrusted to you by a grand intelligence with multiple stakeholders – parents, society, and nature itself.

Bhagavad Gita, Chapter 4, Verse 22: A wise person is content with whatever life brings, knowing the world operates on cause-effect – not on what you feel you deserve. When things don't go your way, the healthy response is throwing another cause into the field rather than blaming the world for being unfair. Jealousy is the lowest of the six-fold afflictions because it is the only one that makes you unhappy at someone else's happiness, revealing a deep sense of incompleteness within. True even-mindedness isn't cold or artificial – it comes from genuinely accepting that success and failure, comfort and discomfort, always come as a pair. When this isn't understood, the mind builds unexamined stories that harden into blame, and those closest to us usually pay the price.

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Bhagavad Gita, Chapter 4, Verse 21:
Freedom from expectations

निराशीः यत-चित्त-आत्मा त्यक्त-सर्व-परिग्रहः ।
शारीरम् केवलम् कर्म कुर्वन् न आप्नोति किल्बिषम् ॥ ४-२१॥
nirāśīḥ yata-citta-ātmā tyakta-sarva-parigrahaḥ ।
śārīram kevalam karma kurvan na āpnoti kilbiṣam ॥ 4-21॥
The person who is free of expectations, whose body, mind, and senses have been mastered, who has given up all possessions, doing only action that sustains the body, does not incur sin.

“Free of expectations” (nirāśiḥ)

Four possibilities

It's an error to associate your worth and contentment to a specific result. Because it creates a no-win situation. Additionally, you're placing your worth in hands of hundreds of unpredictable variables and people whose job isn't to make you feel good, but to serve their own interests, which in most cases conflicts with yours. There's nothing wrong with this. You too are protecting your interests which knowingly or unknowingly causes discomfort for someone else.

This means, even if you can act with care, empathy, deliberation and mindfulness – the reality is, you might never be acknowledged or validated for it. Because every action you do will return four possibilities…

1. 1. 1. You got exactly as expected. This is ideal.
      2. You got more then expected. Why not!
      3. You go less then expected. Usually the case.
      4. You got totally opposite. Totally taken by surprise. Unprepared for it.

Acknowledging four possibilities gives mental composure, a shock absorbed for inevitable inconveniences. Meaning, an equanimous mind as quoted throughout the Gita (EG: 2.48, 2.56, 6.7) – isn't an injunction, but acknowledgement of four possibilities.

Something amazing should happen to me

Additionally, freedom from expectations is letting go of the childish idea that something amazing should happen to me.

Burden of what should and shouldn’t happen has reduces because your fallback is Ishvara's complete fair and predictable order which is never not operable. Ishvara isn't an entity with a vendetta or fancy towards you. Ishvara is an impersonal order that operates without fail. For instance, if I lie, I will feel discomfort. That is Ishvara's indicator that I need to change course. If I feed my mind with negative material, I feel overwhelmed and gloomy. It's not Ishvara having something against me; but telling me through my body and mind that I need to reassess my choices.

So it's unrealistic that something amazing should happen to you, because that's turning Ishvara into an anthropomorphic being.

Mastery of the mind & senses

Living from the vision that you are the decision maker, you choose what the mind and senses see, is what the verse calls  yatacittātmā; mastery of the mind/senses. Noone external is forcing them to remain underutilized. 

Therefore mastery of mind/senses isn't necessarily a technique, but taking responsibility for your choices. 

“Doing only actions that sustains the body” (śārīraṁ kevalaṁ karma)

Literal meaning:

Wise person has given up everything, and only doing actions that sustain the body. This would be an incorrect interpretation because it's unrealistic.

Deeper meaning:

Interpretation 1: The wise person, owning to their past sadhana, they're not acting from pressure of likes-dislikes or personal agenda. So their actions are simple and straightforward. 

Interpretation 2: The wise person does NOT neglect their body, even if assimilated “I am free of this body”. It’s maintained in a healthy condition because that's the natural order. Every living specie is endowed with a program to maintain its wellbeing and not hurt itself (aka: ahimsa).

“Gives up all possessions” (tyakta-sarva-parigraha)

Literal meaning:

The wiser you get, the more things you rid of. This is impractical & unrealistic.

Deeper meaning:

Standpoint of a Sannyāsī:

One is free to “walk out at any time,” symbolizing ultimate non-attachment.

Standpoint of a Grhasta:

Convert ownership (false notion that I own this body and it's my body alone) to trusteeship. Knowing my body and life is entrusted to me by the grand intelligence, reminds me it's not mine. It has multiple stakeholders, including parents, microorganisms, society, etc. Knowing this, I use it responsibly, and extract life lessons using this body, mind and life situations. 

The real owner is Ishvara who was there before you were born. Trusteeship is product of re-understanding the world, rather then an injunction.

Trusteeship reduces “my-ness” which makes you like a suspicious-ninja, afraid what you own will be taken away. Truth is, it will! So trusteeship reduces anxiety of loss.

NEXT VERSE: Unaffected by the opposites, a wise person accepts whatever comes by chance, and makes the most of it, without complaining…

Bhagavad Gita, Chapter 4, Verse 22:
Wise person is free from jealousy

यदृच्छा-लाभ-सन्तुष्टः द्वन्द्व-अतीतः विमत्सरः ।
समः सिद्धौ असिद्धौ च कृत्वा अपि न निबध्यते ॥ ४-२२॥
yadṛcchā-lābha-santuṣṭaḥ dvandva-atītaḥ vimatsaraḥ ।
samaḥ siddhau asiddhau ca kṛtvā api na nibadhyate ॥ 4-22॥
The one who is happy with whatever comes by chance, who is unaffected by the opposites, free from jealousy, and even-minded with reference to success and failure, is not bound even though performing action.

“Happy with whatever comes by chance” (yadṛcchā-lābha-santuṣṭaḥ)

In reference to sannyāsī:

There's two types of sannyasi. Vividiṣā, one who desires to know Brahman, and renounced everything to focus exclusively on self-knowledge. And vidvat, one who was a vividiṣā, and attained moksha, or who attained moksha and decided to take sannyasa. So whenever we use the word “sannyasi” throughout BG, it can refer to either.

In both cases, Sannyāsī is not begging, but has an acceptance of whatever food comes without any planning or scheming to acquire it. Like a dog who follows you up a mountain, without concern how he’ll come down or where to get water.

In reference to grhasta:

Three unhealthy patterns associated with happiness:

1. 1. 1. When things happen our way, we’re happy and sometimes become arrogant.
      2. When things don’t go our way, we’re thrown off center, get angry and blame something or someone. 
      3. Pseudo-spiritual approach is to establish oneself in artificial composure, convincing oneself “Nothing affects me!”.

Whereas a jnani-grhasta also recognizes “nothing affects me”, but it comes from an authentic assimilated vision. He further acknowledges that things aren't supposed to always go my way, and when they don't, it's not that the world is unfair or I don’t deserve it — but world operates per cause-effect relationship operating for thousands of years.

So a healthy attitude when things aren't going your way is, “There must be some causes responsible that I’m not aware of. What I need to do is throw another cause into the field to increase the likelihood of getting what is needed”. So you act  from “what’s next?” — problem-solving mode.

“Free from jealousy” (vimatsaraḥ)

Here, jealousy (matsara) represents all six of the “six-fold afflictions” or indicators that something needs to change. They are…

1. 1. Desire (kāma)
   2. Anger (krodha): Two major causes for anger are (a) Belief that you, Atma, can get hurt, and (b) Things aren't going your way, and your expectations have made you forget four possibilities (discussed in verse 21). 
   3. Greed (lobha)
   4. False values/delusion (moha)
   5. Vanity / excessive pride (mada)
   6. Jealousy (matsara): Jealousy is the lowest of the six on the human scale, because it is the only one that involves being unhappy at another's happiness. Being free from jealousy is freedom from the core human feelings of incompleteness and incompetence.

“Unaffected by opposites – thus even-minded in reference to success/failure”

Involves accepting comfort can’t go without discomfort. Thus it’s unrealistic to lose your emotional landscape and discrimination when discomfort/failure arrives. Knowing this, one becomes more even-minded with reference to success and failure.

Even-minded does not mean becoming cold or apathetic or uncaring towards situations, because a healthy human heart responds to situations.

How to maintain an equanimous, composed mind amidst failures?

Periodically re-assess how things are going in our life:

Our mind keeps defaulting to old, ineffective patterns. Unless you periodically check up on it, it forms half-cooked stories about what happened, and this story becomes an orientation. Meaning, even when things are fine, this orientation ends up seeking faults. This is called confirmation bias. Finding evidence to support my unconscious stories. This is how all blame or attack happens; a byproduct of not re-assessing one's stories.

Often those closest to us end up receiving the blame or the attack, or perhaps you're on the receiving end.

Why do we blame those closest to us, usually family members?

1. 1. 1. You won't leave them: The attacker knows you won't leave them, thus they express raw-unfiltered emotions, as opposed to boss where cost is high.
      2. Displaced frustration: Instead of taking accountability, one lashes externally towards something one believes is cause of his/her frustration. EG: “If only you did that, I wouldn’t be going through this”.
      3. Protecting one's self-esteem: Confronting truth that one didn’t take full responsibility for their life/emotions/education is far more painful then rewriting history to make someone else the villain.

Allowing yourself to be emotionally affected:

Creating superficial even-mindedness, or not allowing yourself to be emotionally affected just because you read “the wise are unaffected by success or failure”, ironically makes you miss out on crucial lessons and situations you need to go through in order to emotionally evolve. 

Arjuna wept on Kurukshetra, acknowledging his confusion and overwhelm, which inevitably caused him to seek guidance. Had he pretended in name of being a tough warrior, a spiritually savvy thinker, his artificial composure would've blocked the very transformation he needed to develop emotional strength and intellectual clarity. 

Unaffected by Opposites vs. Middle-Way:

1. Unaffected by opposites (dvandvātīta): Knowledge that opposites make up experiences, thus affording one objectivity, vs. complaint/negativity. EG: People complain of cold in winter, heat in summer, and worry about rainy/windy months. The one who is dvandvātīta is free from this entire “matter for complaint.”
2. Middle-Way: Active sadhana taken up to avoid-extremes.

NEXT VERSE: When perform actions with the right attitude, instead of binding you, they free you…

 

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Course was based on Swami Dayananda (Arsha Vidya) home study course.

Recorded 22 March, 2026