Sanskrit
या निशा सर्वभूतानां तस्यां जागर्ति संयमी । यस्यां जाग्रति भूतानि सा निशा पश्यतो मुनेः ॥
yā niśā sarvabhūtānāṃ tasyāṃ jāgarti saṃyamī yasyāṃ jāgrati bhūtāni sā niśā paśyato muneḥ
Translation
That which is the night of all beings, for the disciplined man is the time of waking; when other beings are waking, then is it night for the sage who seeth.
Annie Besant · The Bhagavad-Gita, translated by Annie Besant (4th ed., 1922) — Wikisource · Public Domain
Explanation
A deliberately paradoxical image marking a shift from warning back to description: the disciplined sage is awake to what ordinary people sleep through entirely — the self, the peace described since verse 55 — and correspondingly indifferent to the pursuits (status, pleasure, gain) that keep everyone else occupied. It reads almost as a riddle, which is the point — this state isn’t fully describable from outside it.
Concepts