Classical Vedanta · part of the Mahabharata
Bhagavad Gita 5.24
The yogi whose happiness, delight, and light are all within
योऽन्तःसुखोऽन्तरारामस्तथान्तर्ज्योतिरेव यः। स योगी ब्रह्मनिर्वाणं ब्रह्मभूतोऽधिगच्छति॥
One whose happiness is within, whose delight is within, and whose light is within, that yogi attains absolute freedom.
What this verse points to
Three times the same preposition: happiness within, delight within, light within. The repetition is doing the work — the verse is describing a complete relocation of where a person looks when they need something.
This is not a rejection of outer life. It is a description of someone for whom outer life has stopped being load-bearing.
Sit with it
Notice the first moment in your sit when you reach outward — for a sound, a plan, the time. Come back, and see if the reaching was necessary.
About the Bhagavad Gita
The Bhagavad Gita is a 700-verse dialogue set on the battlefield of Kurukshetra, in which Krishna counsels the warrior Arjuna at the moment he refuses to fight. Across eighteen chapters it draws together the paths of action, devotion, and knowledge into a single teaching on how to act without being bound by action. It sits inside the Bhishma Parva of the Mahabharata and has been the most widely commented-upon text in the Vedantic tradition, from Shankara onward.
References to this text are given as chapter.verse — here, 5.24.