The Bhagavad Gita

by Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa

to one fact about the Gita that will save you a lot of anguish and frustration: It contradicts itself. This was recognized early on and was cited by Shankara as the reason for writing his commentary.

Gita was written, the various systems of philosophy were not yet rigid and standardized, nor conceived of as being mutually exclusive.

it is a work of mysticism and devotion, and is not intended to be logical or systematic.

the text has the practical aim of salvation and is content to tolerantly lay o...

Contacts with the elements, Son of Kunti, are the source of cold, heat, pleasure, and pain. They come and go eternally. Endure them, Bharata! The man whom they do not trouble, O Bull Among Men, the wise man for whom pain and pleasure are the same: He is fit for immortality.

There is no becoming from the nonexistent, nor any unbecoming from the existent. The boundary between these two has been perceived by those who see the basic principles.

Yes, observe your personal law; do not waver. For there is nothing better for a warrior than lawful combat.

And when it happens of its own accord, an open door to heaven, happy are the warriors, Son of Pritha, who obtain such combat.

Treating happiness and unhappiness, profit and loss, victory and defeat alike, make yourself ready for battle! Thus you will incur no guilt.

There is no unsuccessful effort here, nor is there any backlash. Even a little of this law saves one from great distress.

Stay aloof from this world of three qualities, Arjuna. Be indifferent to pairs of opposites, forever fixed in clarity, nonacquisitive, self-possessed.

You are only entitled to the action, never to its fruits. Do not let the fruits of action be your motive, but do not attach yourself to nonaction.

Perform your actions with mental discipline, Dhananjaya, without attachment, remaining equable in success and failure. Equanimity is called Yoga.

For action is by far inferior to a disciplined disposition, Dhananjaya. Seek shelter in your disposition!

The man whose disposition is disciplined transcends both good and bad actions in this world.

When your mind crosses beyond the opacity of illusion, you will become indifferent to both future and past revelations.

When a man contemplates sense objects, he grows attached to them. This attachment produces desire, and from desire, anger is born. Anger produces confusion, confusion produces loss of memory, loss of memory produces destruction of the mind, and because the mind is destroyed, he perishes.

That man attains tranquility into whom all desires flow like water flows into the sea and fills it without moving it, not he who is filled with desires.

‘If you think, Janardana, that disposition is better than action, then why do you urge me to such terrible action, Keshava? It is as if you confuse my mind with self-contradictory words.

‘In this world, I have formerly taught two alternatives, blameless Prince: the discipline of knowledge for men of intellect, and the discipline of action for men of action.

He who controls his organs of action, but sits brooding over sense objects in his mind like a deluded soul, he is called a hypocrite.

You must perform a customary action, for that is better than inaction.

With the exception of action done for the sake of sacrifice, this world is bound by the consequences of action. Therefore, Son of Kunti, perform actions free from attachment.

Therefore, you should always perform actions that have to be done disinterestedly, for a man who performs acts disinterestedly reaches the supreme good.

The learned man should act in the same way as an ignorant man who is attached to action, Bharata, but without attachment, in order to keep the world on its course.

They say that the senses are great. Greater than the senses is the mind, greater than the mind is the intellect, but greater than the intellect is the self.

When you have thus understood what is greater than the intellect, when you have strengthened your self by your self, Mighty-armed Prince, kill the enemy, so hard to assail, which has the form of desire.’

For whenever the law declines and lawlessness is on the rise, Bharata, then I create myself.

I am born from age to age to protect the good and destroy the wicked in order to establish the law.

The mentally disciplined knower of truth should think, “I do not do anything,” even when he sees, hears, touches, smells, walks, sleeps, breathes, talks, defecates, grasps, and opens and closes his eyes, realizing that this is the senses operating on their sense objects.

He who—even in this world, before he is released from his body—is able to resist the impulse arising from desire and anger, he is mentally disciplined, he is a happy man.

He who is happy within, he who is delighted within, and who finds light within, he is a yogi. Having become Brahman, he attains the beatitude of Brahman.

Shutting out external sense impressions, fixing his vision between the eyebrows, equalizing the inhalation and exhalation moving inside the nostrils: The sage who controls his intellect, mind, and senses; is intent on release; and has cast away desire, fear, and anger—he is forever released.

For only then is he said to have attained Yoga—when he no longer attaches himself to sense objects or actions, and has renounced all intentions.

He should lift his self up by his self; he should not let his self sink down. The self alone is the friend of the self; the self alone is the enemy of the self.

The self is a friend to that self by which self the self has been conquered. But the self of a man with an unconquered self would act in hostility like an enemy.

When thought settles down, restrained by the practice of Yoga, and when indeed he rejoices in the self seeing the self by means of the self; when he knows an infinite bliss which must be grasped by the mind, a bliss beyond the senses, and standing on which he remains truly unmovable; when he has acquired this bliss and he understands there is no other acquisition beyond it, when he rests on it and is not swayed even by profound sorrow, then he should know that this bliss, called Yoga, unbinds his union with sorrow. This Yoga should be practiced with determination and a happy heart.

For supreme happiness comes to this yogi whose passions are at rest, who, stainless, has become Brahman.

The man absorbed in Yoga sees his self in all beings, and all beings in his self. He sees the same in everything.

Having reached the worlds of those whose acts were virtuous and stayed there very many years, the man fallen from Yoga is reborn in the house of pure and prosperous people.

Among thousands of people, perhaps one strives for success, and of the successful ones, perhaps one knows me truly.

My primordial nature is divided into these eight factors: earth, water, fire, wind, ether, mind, intellect, and ego-consciousness.

Son of Kunti, I am the taste in the waters, I am the splendor in the moon and the sun, the syllable om in all the Vedas, the sound in ether, manliness in men. I am also the pure fragrance in the earth and the brightness in fire. I am the life in all beings and the austerity in all ascetics.

I am the strength in the strong, but without desire and passion. I am the desire in beings, Bull of the Bharatas, but desire consistent with the law.

The whole world is deluded by these three states of being produced by the properties. It does not know that I am above them, imperishable.

For this divine illusory power of mine, produced by the properties, is hard to escape. Only those who take refuge in me overcome this power of illusion.

Deluded evildoers, the lowest of men, do not resort to me. Their insight carried away by illusion, they rest in a demonic state of being.

Of these, the man of knowledge stands out, always disciplined and with singular devotion. For to the man of knowledge, I am immensely dear, and he is dear to me.

All manifestations arise from the unmanifest at the break of day. As night falls, they are dissolved in this very thing called the unmanifest.