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In this world there are two main paths: the yoga of understanding, for contemplative men; and for men who are active, the yoga of action.
No one, not even for an instant, can exist without acting; all beings are compelled, however unwilling, by the three strands of Nature called gunas.
He who controls his actions but lets his mind dwell on sense-objects is deluding himself and spoiling his search for the deepest truth.
The superior man is he whose mind can control his senses; with no attachment to results, he engages in the yoga of action.
Do any actions you must do, since action is better than inaction; even the existence of your body depends on necessary actions.
Beings arise from food; food arises from rain; rain arises from worship; worship, from ritual action; ritual action, from God; God, from the deathless Self. Thus, the all-present God requires the worship of men.
He who fails to keep turning the wheel thus set in motion has damaged the working of the world and has wasted his life, Arjuna.
The wheel of life has to keep moving.
Without concern for results, perform the necessary action; surrendering all attachments, accomplish life’s highest good.
Though the unwise cling to their actions, watching for results, the wise are free of attachments, and act for the well-being of the whole world.
The wise man knows that when objects act on the senses, it is merely the gunas acting on the gunas; thus, he is unattached.
Craving and aversion arise when the senses encounter sense-objects.
That force is desire, it is anger, arising from the guna called rajas; deadly and all-devouring, that is the enemy here.
Why do people do evil?
Men say that the senses are strong. But the mind is stronger than the senses; the understanding is stronger than the mind; and strongest is the Self. Knowing the Self, sustaining the self by the Self, Arjuna, kill the difficult-to-conquer enemy called desire.
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.
All roads lead to Rome.
With no desire for success, no anxiety about failure, indifferent to results, he burns up his actions in the fire of wisdom.
Surrendering all thoughts of outcome, unperturbed, self-reliant, he does nothing at all, even when fully engaged in actions.
The true renunciate neither desires things nor avoids them;
The man who has seen the truth thinks, “I am not the doer” at all times—when he sees, hears, touches, when he smells, eats, walks, sleeps, breathes,
at all times he thinks, “This is merely sense-objects acting on the senses.”
Sitting down, having chosen a spot that is neither too high nor too low, that is clean and covered with a grass mat, a deerskin, and a cloth,
he should concentrate, with his whole mind, on a single object;
With torso and head held straight, with posture steady and unmoving, gazing at the tip of his nose, not letting his eyes look elsewhere,
He who eats too much food or too little, who is always drowsy or restless, will never succeed in the yoga of meditation.
Earth, fire, water, and wind, air, mind, and understanding, and the I-sense: these are the eight aspects of my physical nature.
This is my lower nature; but beyond this, I have another, higher nature; the life that sustains all beings in the world.
I am the taste in water, the light in the moon and sun, the sacred syllable Ôm in the Vedas, the sound in air. I am the fragrance in the earth, the manliness in men, the brilliance in fire, the life in the living, and the abstinence in ascetics. I am the primal seed within all beings, Arjuna: the wisdom of those who know, the splendor of the high and mighty.
I am the strength of the strong man who is free of desire and attachment; I am desire itself when desire is consistent with duty.
Meditate on the Guide, the Giver of all, the Primordial Poet, smaller than an atom, unthinkable, brilliant as the sun.
If you know that one single day or one single night of Brahma lasts more than four billion years, you understand day and night.
Now, Arjuna, I will tell you the times at which men of yoga die and must be reborn, or die never to return.
a man will escape from rebirth; by the other, he is born again.
Knowing these two paths, Arjuna, the man of yoga, at all times resolute in his nonattachment, goes far beyond the merit
I am the Self, Arjuna, seated in the heart of all beings; I am the beginning and the life span of beings, and their end as well.
Majesty infinite in power, you pervade—no, you are—all things.
Knowledge is better than practice; meditation is better than knowledge; and best of all is surrender, which soon brings peace.
He who neither disturbs the world nor is disturbed by it, who is free of all joy, fear, envy— that man is the one I love best.
He who is pure, impartial, skilled, unworried, calm, selfless in all undertakings— that man is the one I love best.
He who, devoted to me, is beyond joy and hatred, grief and desire, good and bad fortune— that...
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The same to both friend and foe, the same in disgrace or honor, suffering or joy, untroubled, indifferent to praise and blame, quiet, filled with devotion, content with whatever happens, at home wherever he is— that man is the one I love best.
This body is called the field, Arjuna; the one who watches whatever happens within it— wise men call him the Knower.
I will teach you what should be known; knowing it, you are immortal; it is the supreme reality, which transcends both being and nonbeing.
Though lacking senses itself, it shines through the working of the senses; unattached, all-sustaining, experiencing the gunas yet above them,
Nature is the cause of any activity in the body; the Self is the cause of any feelings of pleasure or pain.
The Self, abiding in Nature, experiences the gunas; its attachment to the gunas causes its birth in good wombs or evil wombs.
He who thus knows the Self as separate from Nature and the gunas will never be born again, whatever path he may follow.
By meditation, some men can see the Self in the self; others, by the yoga of knowledge; others, by selfless action.
Still others, not seeing, only hear about it and worship; they too cross beyond death, trusti...
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Seeing the great Lord everywhere, he knows beyond doubt that he cannot harm the Self by the self, and he reaches the highest goal.
He who sees that all actions are performed by Nature alone and thus that the self is not the doer—that man sees truly.
The three gunas, born of Nature— sattva, rajas, and tamas— bind to the mortal body the deathless embodied Self.
