Bhagavad Gita 2.38 · BG 2.38
Chapter 2Verse 38
Sankhya Yoga
सुखदुःखे समे कृत्वा लाभालाभौ जयाजयौ। ततो युद्धाय युज्यस्व नैवं पापमवाप्स्यसि॥
sukha-duḥkhe same kṛtvā lābhālābhau jayājayau, tato yuddhāya yujyasva naivaṁ pāpam avāpsyasi
Translation
Treat pleasure and pain, gain and loss, victory and defeat as the same. Then prepare for action. Acting this way, you bring no wrongdoing on yourself.
Treat winning and losing the same. Then just do the work in front of you.
What does this mean?
This is practical advice before a practical task. Don't wait for the odds to feel fair or the outcome to feel certain. Treat both directions of the result the same way, and then simply do the work in front of you.
In simple words
Krishna tells Arjuna to stop waiting for the situation to feel fair or the outcome to look certain. Hold winning and losing, gain and loss, as the same, and then just do the task in front of you. Acting that way, he says, you take on no blame.
The deeper idea
This comes right before the Gita turns to its teaching on action. The point is that Arjuna is paralyzed by staring at outcomes, and the fix is to stop letting the result decide whether he moves. 'Treat them as the same' isn't indifference to whether you succeed. It's refusing to let the forecast run you. Once the outcome stops being load-bearing, action becomes possible again.
How it applies to life
Think of a decision you keep circling because you can't tell how it'll land, taking the job, having the hard talk, submitting the work. The circling itself is the problem. This verse says to accept that it could go either way, that you can handle either way, and then act. The stuckness usually isn't caused by the situation being genuinely impossible. It's caused by needing to know the ending first.