Bhagavad Gita 6.32 · BG 6.32
Chapter 6Verse 32
Dhyana Yoga
आत्मौपम्येन सर्वत्र समं पश्यति योऽर्जुन। सुखं वा यदि वा दुःखं स योगी परमो मतः॥
ātmaupamyena sarvatra samaṁ paśyati yo 'rjuna, sukhaṁ vā yadi vā duḥkhaṁ sa yogī paramo mataḥ
Translation
One who sees all beings as like themselves, Arjuna, and feels their pleasure and their pain as their own, is regarded as the highest yogi.
Feel someone else's pain and joy as if they were your own. That's the real measure.
What does this mean?
The highest mark of practice here isn't a state you reach alone on a cushion. It's being able to feel someone else's pain and joy with the same weight as your own. When the line between your wellbeing and theirs gets thin, that's the sign something real has shifted.
In simple words
Krishna says the highest yogi isn't the one who's gone furthest alone. It's the one who can feel another person's pain and joy with the same weight as their own, because they see everyone as basically like themselves.
The deeper idea
This is a striking place to locate the peak of practice. Not in a private state of bliss or a feat of concentration, but in a specific way of relating to others: the line between your wellbeing and theirs getting thin. Seeing all beings as like yourself is the perception, and feeling their pleasure and pain as your own is what follows from it. The Gita is saying that if all the inner work doesn't produce this, it hasn't reached its highest point.
How it applies to life
It's a useful check on any kind of self-improvement. If years of practice have made you calmer and more disciplined but no more able to feel with other people, this verse suggests something's incomplete. The measure it offers is concrete: when someone else's bad news actually lands in you, and their good news genuinely lifts you, without you having to perform either, something real has shifted.