Less reaction creates more wisdom.

This verse presents one of the most elegant tests of steady wisdom: the response to good fortune and misfortune. The ordinary human pattern is predictable — we rejoice when things go well and despise or recoil from what seems unfavorable. The sthitaprajna, however, receives both with equanimity.

The word 'anabhi-snehaḥ' indicates not a cold indifference but a freedom from the sticky, clingy quality of attachment that distorts our perception of events.

The verse does not say the wise person is emotionless or robotic. It says they do not 'abhinandati' — a word suggesting the gushing over-enthusiasm with which we typically greet favorable outcomes — and they do not 'dveṣṭi,' meaning actively harbor aversion or hatred toward what is unpleasant. There is a middle way between forced positivity and reactive negativity, and that middle way is the hallmark of established wisdom.

This quality of 'sarvatra anabhi-snehaḥ' — everywhere free from excessive attachment — is an inner orientation that affects every relationship and every experience. It does not mean the wise person withdraws from the world or stops caring; rather, their caring is clean, present, and unconditional, not colored by personal stakes in specific outcomes. This is the love that transcends preference — a hallmark of genuine spiritual maturity.