More on this book
Community
Kindle Notes & Highlights
It is better to strive in one’s own dharma than to succeed in the dharma of another. Nothing is ever lost in following one’s own dharma, but competition in another’s dharma breeds fear and insecurity.
The senses are higher than the body, the mind higher than the senses; above the mind is the intellect, and above the intellect is the Atman. 43 Thus, knowing that which is supreme, let the Atman rule the ego. Use your mighty arms to slay the fierce enemy that is selfish desire.
Krishna begins to talk about action, and work, and things that should be done and should not be done. It is essential, he reminds Arjuna, to act wisely, with detachment. The wise never act with selfish attachment to the fruit of their labor; they give their best in fortune and misfortune alike. Such people act in freedom.
The wise see that there is action in the midst of inaction and inaction in the midst of action. Their consciousness is unified, and every act is done with complete awareness.
The awakened sages call a person wise when all his undertakings are free from anxiety about results; all his selfish desires have been consumed in the fire of knowledge. 20 The wise, ever satisfied, have abandoned all external supports. Their security is unaffected by the results of their action; even while acting, they really do nothing at all.
True sustenance is in service, and through it a man or woman reaches the eternal Brahman. But those who do not seek to serve are without a home in this world.
Sankhya and yoga might also be translated as “theory and practice.”
The true goal of action is knowledge of the Self. Following either path faithfully will lead to the complete spiritual vision.
In the Gita, the word yogi often has a more modest definition: it can mean a person who does his or her job with detachment from the rewards (6:1), or it can be rendered as “one who has attained the goal of meditation.”
For yogi literally means “one who is accomplished in yoga,” and yoga means “integration of the spirit.” In this sense, yoga means wholeness or the process of becoming whole at the deepest spiritual level.
The true yogi, the person who is truly integrated inside, looks upon and feels everyone else’s joy and sorrow just as if it were his own. He sees the Self in all beings, everywhere.
How is this self-conquest to be made? Very simply, the Gita teaches that the mind must be made one-pointed through the practice of meditation.
Those who aspire to the state of yoga should seek the Self in inner solitude through meditation. With body and mind controlled they should constantly practice one-pointedness, free from expectations and attachment to material possessions.
When a person responds to the joys and sorrows of others as if they were his own, he has attained the highest state of spiritual union.
Through constant effort over many lifetimes, a person becomes purified of all selfish desires and attains the supreme goal of life.
I am the father and mother of this universe, and its grandfather too; I am its entire support. I am the sum of all knowledge, the purifier, the syllable Om; I am the sacred scriptures,
I am the goal of life, the Lord and support of all, the inner witness, the abode of all. I am the only refuge, the one true friend; I am the beginning, the staying, and the end of creation; I am the womb and the eternal seed.
Samadhi is the word used by Patanjali in his classic work, the Yoga Sutras, to describe the final stage in meditation, in which the mind is completely concentrated and a superconscious mode of knowing comes into play. Patanjali speaks of many different kinds of samadhi, but for practical purposes we may speak of two: savikalpa and nirvikalpa.
This theme dominates the remaining chapters of the Gita: it is devotion that is all-important on the spiritual quest.
The Buddha explains, “All that we are is the result of what we have thought: it is founded on our thoughts; it is made of our thoughts.” What we think, we become, for as Emerson says, the ancestor of every action is a thought. Thus our thoughts, taken together, bear fruit in the actions, decisions, and desires that shape our lives.
The field, Arjuna, is made up of the following: the five areas of sense perception; the five elements; the five sense organs and the five organs of action; the three components of the mind: manas, buddhi, and ahamkara; and the undifferentiated energy from which all these evolved. 6 In this field arise desire and aversion, pleasure and pain, the body, intelligence, and will.
Here the Gita explains human experience in terms of the three qualities of prakriti, known as gunas: sattva, rajas, and tamas.
The quality of sattva combines goodness, purity, light, harmony, balance. In terms of evolution, sattva is on the highest level. Rajas is energy – or, on the human level, passion – which can be both good and bad. In personality rajas may express itself in anger, hatred, or greed; but it also provides motivation, the will to act.
In any given personality or phenomenon all the three gunas are likely to be present. It is the mix of the three that colors our experience.
It is the three gunas born of prakriti – sattva, rajas, and tamas – that bind the immortal Self to the body. 6 Sattva – pure, luminous, and free from sorrow – binds us with attachment to happiness and wisdom. 7 Rajas is passion, arising from selfish desire and attachment. These bind the Self with compulsive action. 8 Tamas, born of ignorance, deludes all creatures through heedlessness, indolence, and sleep.
Sattva binds us to happiness; rajas binds us to action. Tamas, distorting our understanding, binds us to delusion.
The fruit of good deeds is pure and sattvic. The fruit of rajas is suffering. The fruit of tamas is ignorance and insensitivity.
From sattva comes understanding; from rajas, greed. But the outcome of tamas is confusion, infatuation, and ignorance.
The Upanishads speak of five pranas; here the Gita mentions the two most prominent: the prana by which we breathe and the prana that digests food.
Lust, anger, and greed are the three doors to hell that Arjuna must at all costs not enter. The person who enters will not only fail to reach life’s final goal, but will not achieve any measure of lasting happiness and prosperity.
Be fearless and pure; never waver in your determination or your dedication to the spiritual life. Give freely. Be self-controlled, sincere, truthful, loving, and full of the desire to serve.
“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.
There are three gates to this self-destructive hell: lust, anger, and greed. Renounce these three. 22 Those who escape from these three gates of darkness, Arjuna, seek what is best and attain life’s supreme goal.
Driven by selfish desire, they miss the goal of life, miss even happiness and success.
The mantram Om Tat Sat affirms that only the good really exists; the opposite word, asat, implies that evil is transient and therefore is not ultimately real.
Every creature is born with faith of some kind, either sattvic, rajasic, or tamasic.
Those who are sattvic worship the forms of God; those who are rajasic worship power and wealth. Those who are tamasic worship spirits and ghosts.
The three kinds of faith express themselves in the habits of those who hold them: in the food they like, the work they do, the disciplines they practice, the gifts they give.
The sattvic perform sacrifices with their entire mind fixed on the purpose of the sacrifice. Without thought of reward, they follow the teachings of the scriptures. 12 The rajasic perform sacrifices for the sake of show and the good it will bring them. 13 The tamasic perform sacrifices ignoring both the letter and the spirit. They omit the proper prayers, the proper offerings, the proper food, and the proper faith.
one must not be driven by a selfish desire for any kind of reward, for such compulsive work can only stunt full spiritual development.
Those who are attached to personal reward will reap the consequences of their actions: some pleasant, some unpleasant, some mixed. But those who renounce every desire for personal reward go beyond the reach of karma.
It is better to perform one’s own duties imperfectly than to master the duties of another.
