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Emerson mentions the Gita often in his Journals, with the greatest respect: It was the first of books; it was as if an empire spake to us, nothing small or unworthy but large, serene, consistent, the voice of an old intelligence which in another age & climate had pondered & thus disposed of the same questions which exercise us.
Thoreau speaks of it in awed superlatives: The reader is nowhere raised into and sustained in a higher, purer, or rarer region of thought than in the Bhagvat-Geeta.… Beside [it], even our Shakespeare seems sometimes youthfully green and practical merely.
for I never can tire of hearing your life-giving, honey-sweet words. (10.18)
Yet from a clearer perspective, not only is there nothing to overcome, there is no one in particular to overcome it.
The spiritually mature human being lets all things come and go without effort, without desire for any foreseen result, carried along on the current of a vast intelligence.
No fixed statement of the truth can apply to all circumstances, and honorable men, during every war within memory, have come to opposite conclusions about what their duty is. Gandhi, who thought of the Gita as his “eternal mother,” is almost convincing when he says that the deepest spiritual awareness necessarily implies absolute nonviolence. On the other hand, I can imagine even a buddha enlisting in the war against Hitler.
It returns to its central point—letting go of the fruits of action—again and again, addressing not only superior students but also the great majority, who are spiritually unfocused and slow to grasp the point: “Let go.”—What does that mean?
“It means this.”—I don’t get it. “It means that.”—I still don’t get it. “Then let me paint you a picture.”—But how do I let go? “Just act in this way.”—But I can’t. “All right, then act in that way.”—But what if I can’t do that either? “All right, here’s still another approach.” Thus, generously, patiently, the poem guides even the least gifted of us on the path toward freedom.
Of the various paths to self-realization—karma yoga (the path of action), jñana yoga (the path of knowledge or wisdom), raja yoga (the path of meditation), and bhakti yoga (the path of devotion or love)—the poet clearly prefers the last.
“Renunciation of the fruits of action,” Gandhi wrote, “is the center around which the Gita is woven. It is the central sun around which devotion, knowledge, and the rest revolve like planets.”
You have a right to your actions, but never to your actions’ fruits. Act for the action’s sake. And do not be attached to inaction. Self-possessed, resolute, act without any thought of results, open to success or failure. (2.47–48)
Do your work, then step back. The only path to serenity.
When you truly feel equal love for all beings, when your heart has expanded so much that it embraces the whole of creation, you will certainly not feel like giving up this or that. You will simply drop off from secular life as a ripe fruit drops from the branch of a tree. You will feel that the whole world is your home.
Krishna says, for example, that he is all that is. But all that is, is in him, though he is not in it. But he is the best of all that is. But he is beyond is and is not. Thus the poet keeps switching modes of reference, as our minds whirl, from one set of “I am” ‘s to the next.
I am the ritual and the worship, the medicine and the mantra, the butter burnt in the fire, and I am the flames that consume it. I am the father of the universe and its mother, essence and goal of all knowledge, the refiner, the sacred Ôm, and the threefold Vedas. I am the heat of the sun, I hold back the rain and release it; I am death, and the deathless, and all that is or is not. (9.16–19)
Krishna’s first-person pronoun is a resplendent act of the human imagination: it is the poet himself speaking as God so that he can speak about God.
However men try to reach me, I return their love with my love; whatever path they may travel, it leads to me in the end. (4.11)
If a thousand suns were to rise and stand in the noon sky, blazing, such brilliance would be like the fierce brilliance of that mighty Self. (11.12)
Complete hymn of Oppenheimer's famous quote "Now I become death"
As the bomb exploded, Oppenheimer thought of another, later verse: I am death, shatterer of worlds, annihilating all things. (11.32)
The Tao doesn’t take sides; it gives birth to both good and evil. The Master doesn’t take sides; she welcomes both saints and sinners.
When your understanding has passed beyond the thicket of delusions, there is nothing you need to learn from even the most sacred scripture.
Once we have practiced meditation sincerely and seen layer after layer of the inauthentic fall away, we come to a place where dualities such as sacred and profane, spiritual and unspiritual, fall away as well.
They can exist in different proportions in a single being, determining his mental outlook and his actions. A man whose nature is dominated by sattva will be clear-thinking, radiant, and truthful. A man whose nature is dominated by rajas will be passionate, quick to anger, and greedy. A man whose nature is dominated by tamas will be stupid, lazy, and stubborn. But most men will be found to have elements of guas different from their dominating ones, i.e., to be motivated by a combination of guas. The aim of the upward-reaching atman, or Self, is to transcend the guas, break free of their
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Arjuna saw them standing there: fathers, grandfathers, teachers, uncles, brothers, sons, grandsons, fathers-in-law, and friends, kinsmen on both sides, each side arrayed against the other. In despair, overwhelmed with pity, he said: “As I see my own kinsmen, gathered here, eager to fight, my legs weaken, my mouth dries, my body trembles, my hair stands on end, my skin burns, the bow Gandiva drops from my hand, I am beside myself, my mind reels. I see evil omens, Krishna; no good can come from killing my own kinsmen in battle. I have no desire for victory or for the pleasures of kingship. What
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It would be better if Dhritarashtra’s men killed me in battle, unarmed and unresisting.”
Arjuna said: “When the battle begins, how can I shoot arrows through Bhishma and Drona, who deserve my reverence?
Although you mean well, Arjuna, your sorrow is sheer delusion. Wise men do not grieve for the dead or for the living. Never was there a time when I did not exist, or you, or these kings; nor will there come a time when we cease to be.
Only the man who is unmoved by any sensations, the wise man indifferent to pleasure, to pain, is fit for becoming deathless.
In vipassana this was callef being equanimous.
If you think that this Self can kill or think that it can be killed, you do not well understand reality’s subtle ways.
It never was born; coming to be, it will never not be. Birthless, primordial, it does not die when the body dies.
Just as you throw out used clothes and put on other clothes, new ones, the Self discards its used bodies and puts on others that are new.
Death is certain for the born; for the dead, rebirth is certain. Since both cannot be avoided, you have no reason for your sorrow.
Know what your duty is and do it without hesitation. For a warrior, there is nothing better than a battle that duty enjoins.
If you are killed, you gain heaven; triumph, and you gain the earth. Therefore stand up, Arjuna; steady your mind to fight.
Indifferent to gain or loss, to victory or defeat, prepare yourself for the battle and do not succumb to sin.
Indifference to the results.
Resolute understanding is single-pointed, Arjuna; but the thoughts of the irresolute are many-branched and endless.
Foolish men talk of religion in cheap, sentimental words, leaning on the scriptures: “God speaks here, and speaks here alone.”
Driven by desire for pleasure and power, caught up in ritual, they strive to gain heaven; but rebirth is the only result of their striving.
They are lured by their own desires, besotted by the scriptures’ words; their minds have not been made clear by the practice of meditation.
As unnecessary as a well is to a village on the banks of a river, so unnecessary are all scriptures to someone who has seen the truth.
You have a right to your actions, but never to your actions’ fruits. Act for the action’s sake. And do not be attached to inaction.
Self-possessed, resolute, act without any thought of results, open to success or failure. This equanimity is yoga.
Action is far inferior to the yoga of insight, Arjuna. Pitiful are those who, acting, are attached to their action’s fruits.
When your understanding has passed beyond the thicket of delusions, there is nothing you need to learn from even the most sacred scripture.
who is unattached to all things, who neither grieves nor rejoices if good or if bad things happen— that man is a man of firm wisdom.
If a man keeps dwelling on sense-objects, attachment to them arises; from attachment, desire flares up; from desire, anger is born; from anger, confusion follows; from confusion, weakness of memory; weak memory—weak understanding; weak understanding—ruin.
who meets the objects of the senses with neither craving nor aversion,
When the mind constantly runs after the wandering senses, it drives away wisdom, like the wind blowing a ship off course.
Abandoning all desires, acting without craving, free from all thoughts of “I” and “mine,” that man finds utter peace.
If you think that understanding is superior to action, Krishna, why do you keep on urging me to engage in this savage act?
