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Brahman, the Godhead; Atman, the divine core of personality; dharma, the law that expresses and maintains the unity of creation; karma, the web of cause and effect; samsara, the cycle of birth and death; moksha, the spiritual liberation that is life’s supreme goal.
the world consists of a multiplicity of separate objects in a framework of time, space, and causality because these are the conditions of perception. In a word, the mind looks at unity and sees diversity; it looks at what is timeless and reports transience. And in fact the percepts of its experience are diverse and transient; on this level of experience, separateness is real. Our mistake is in taking this for ultimate reality, like the dreamer thinking that nothing is real except his dream.
The word dharma means many things, but its underlying sense is “that which supports,” from the root dhri, to support, hold up, or bear. Generally, dharma implies support from within: the essence of a thing, its virtue, that which makes it what it is.
“It is the dharma of a scorpion to sting. But it is the dharma of a human being to save.”
On a larger scale, dharma means the essential order of things, an integrity and harmony in the universe and the affairs of life that cannot be disturbed without courting chaos. Thus it means rightness, justice, goodness, purpose rather than chance.
The law of karma states unequivocally that though we cannot see the connections, we can be sure that everything that happens to us, good and bad, originated once in something we did or thought. We ourselves are responsible for what happens to us, whether or not we can understand how. It follows that we can change what happens to us by changing ourselves; we can take our destiny into our own hands.
we never really encounter the world; all we experience is our own nervous system.
your sorrow has no cause. The wise grieve neither for the living nor for the dead. 12 There has never been a time when you and I and the kings gathered here have not existed, nor will there be a time when we will cease to exist. 13 As the same person inhabits the body through childhood, youth, and old age, so too at the time of death he attains another body. The wise are not deluded by these changes.
They live in wisdom who see themselves in all and all in them, who have renounced every selfish desire and sense craving tormenting the heart. 56 Neither agitated by grief nor hankering after pleasure, they live free from lust and fear and anger. Established in meditation, they are truly wise. 57 Fettered no more by selfish attachments, they are neither elated by good fortune nor depressed by bad. Such are the seers.
Use all your power to free the senses from attachment and aversion alike, and live in the full wisdom of the Self. 69 Such a sage awakes to light in the night of all creatures. That which the world calls day is the night of ignorance to the wise.
They are forever free who renounce all selfish desires and break away from the ego-cage of “I,” “me,” and “mine” to be united with the Lord. 72 This is the supreme state. Attain to this, and pass from death to immortality.
“Through selfless service, you will always be fruitful and find the fulfillment of your desires”: this is the promise of the Creator.
What is the force that binds us to selfish deeds, O Krishna? What power moves us, even against our will, as if forcing us? KRISHNA 37 It is selfish desire and anger, arising from the guna of rajas; these are the appetites and evils which threaten a person in this life.
Just as a fire is covered by smoke and a mirror is obscured by dust, just as the embryo rests deep within the womb, knowledge is hidden by selfish desire – 39 hidden, Arjuna, by this unquenchable fire for self-satisfaction, the inveterate enemy of the wise.
The demonic do things they should avoid and avoid the things they should do. They have no sense of uprightness, purity, or truth. 8 “There is no God,” they say, “no truth, no spiritual law, no moral order. The basis of life is sex; what else can it be?” 9 Holding such distorted views, possessing scant discrimination, they become enemies of the world, causing suffering and destruction. 10 Hypocritical, proud, and arrogant, living in delusion and clinging to deluded ideas, insatiable in their desires, they pursue their unclean ends. 11 Although burdened with fears that end only with death, they
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To refrain from selfish acts is one kind of renunciation, called sannyasa; to renounce the fruit of action is another, called tyaga. 3 Among the wise, some say that all action should be renounced as evil. Others say that certain kinds of action – self-sacrifice, giving, and self-discipline – should be continued.
Self-sacrifice, giving, and self-discipline should not be renounced, for they purify the thoughtful.
