The Bhagavad Gita (6 page)

35  “But your superb soldiers will think it was fear that made you withdraw. Though they esteemed you before, they will treat you and your name with derision.

36  “Your enemies who have harbored a grudging respect for your prowess in battle will slander you and ridicule your bravery. Do you really think they will believe that you withdrew out of love for kith and kin? Those who used to shudder at the thought of fighting you will crack insolent jokes about your faintheartedness. Failure to do your duty will destroy the well-deserved reputation you built over many heroic battles.

37  “This battle is a righteous cause, Arjuna. No matter what happens, you win. If killed, you immediately enter heaven; if victorious, you achieve a great name and fame. Either way, you triumph. So, arise, Arjuna! Fight!

38  “And heed this important point about life in general: The way to win this great war is to react alike to both pain and pleasure, profit and loss, victory and defeat.”

39  Krishna, as though to solidify that point, pauses a moment and then continues. “You have now heard an intellectual explanation of the principle of
Atma
(the True Self), and of the need to discriminate between the Real (unchanging) and the not-Real (
anything
that changes). Now pay attention while I explain a practical spiritual discipline called
karma yoga
for living a more effective, happier life in this vexing, ever-changing world. This is the path of selfless, God-dedicated action. By making this your path you can
live a spiritual life and yet stay fully active in the world. You can remain a man of action, achieving your very best, and yet not be bound or caught by the worldly.

40  
“Karma yoga
(literally, ‘union with God through action’) is not in the least bit dangerous, Old Friend. On this path no effort ever goes to waste and there is no failure. Even a little practice of this will protect you from the cycle of death and rebirth.

41  “When one’s actions are not based on desire for personal reward, one can more easily steady the mind and direct it toward the
Atma,
the True Self Within. For the person of steady mind, Arjuna, there is always just one decision, but for the quivering mind pulled in a thousand directions, the decisions that plague it are endless, and they exhaust one’s mental strength. People with an unsteady mind inevitably end up failing; those with an unwavering mind achieve great success.

42-43  “There are people, ignorant of this principle, who take delight in their own particular dogma, proclaiming there is nothing else. Their idea of ‘heaven’ is their own enjoyment. The main reason they do their activities is to achieve the pleasures and power that ‘heaven’ promises. Thus, even though their motive is common and positive, they are in truth filled with rather selfish desires.

44  “With their minds thus taken up by their own selfish desires for everlasting pleasure and power, they are not able to develop the utter concentration needed to reach union with God, which is mankind’s only real objective.

45  “The scriptures describe three components of nature (called
gunas).
I will describe these in more detail later,
but for now, concentrate on transcending
all
of them. Focus on going beyond all of nature and all worldly attachments. To be bound to worldly nature is certainly not the purpose of life. Focus instead on the Eternal that lies beyond this worldliness. Concentrate on freeing yourself from the tyranny of the so-called pairs of opposites. Release yourself from always trying to evaluate and judge everything. Disentangle from your habit pattern of seeing things as good or bad, lovable or hateful, pleasant or painful, and so forth. The tendency to get trapped in apparent opposites is a common and debilitating malady. Instead, remain tranquil and centered in the Self
(Atma).
Take care not to seek acclaim or acquire earthly objects.

46  “A reservoir that is necessary during a dry spell is of little use during a flood. Similarly, to the enlightened person even scriptures are superfluous. Yes, live amicably with worldly existence, but know you must transcend it. Prepare yourself for nothing less than union with Divinity itself!

47  “Work hard in the world, Arjuna, but for work’s sake only. You have every right to work but you should not crave the fruits of it. Although no one may deny you the outcomes of your efforts, you can, through determination, refuse to be attached to or affected by the results, whether favorable or unfavorable.

“The central points of issue, Arjuna, are desire and lack of inner peace. Desire for the fruits of one’s actions brings worry about possible failure — the quivering mind I mentioned. When you are preoccupied with end results you pull yourself from the present into an imagined, usually fearful future. Then your anxiety robs your energy and, making matters worse, you lapse into inaction and laziness.

“One does not accomplish great ends in some by-and-by future, O Warrior. Only in the present can you hammer out real achievement. The worried mind tends to veer from the only real goal — realizing the
Atma,
uniting with Divinity, the True Self Within.

“The ideal, Arjuna, is to be intensely active and at the same time have no selfish motives, no thoughts of personal gain or loss. Duty uncontaminated by desire leads to inner peacefulness and increased effectiveness.
This
is the secret art of living a life of real achievement!

48  “To work without desire may seem impossible, but the way to do it is to substitute thoughts of Divinity for thoughts of desire. Do your work in this world with your heart fixed on the Divine instead of on outcomes. Do not worry about results. Be even tempered in success or failure. This mental evenness is what is meant
by yoga
(union with God). Indeed, equanimity is
yoga!

49  “Work performed with anxiety about results is far inferior to work done in a state of calmness. Equanimity — the serene mental state free from likes and dislikes, attractions and repulsions — is truly
the ideal
attitude in which to live your life. To be in this state of mind is to be lodged in the Divine. Pitiful are those pulled by the fruits of their action.

50  “When you are endowed with this basic detachment, you shed the
karmic
consequences of both your good and bad deeds, casting aside the inevitable effects of your actions. Never lose sight of the overriding goal, which is to free yourself from bondage during this lifetime, to shed attachment to worldly things, detach from ego, and truly release yourself from the wheel of
birth and death. When you do this, you actually become one with God.

“I see that you sigh at this breathtaking goal, Arjuna. Know that you can achieve this by first uniting your heart with God and only then pursuing worldly things. Proceed in this order, not in the reverse order, and then your actions will be linked to the very purpose of life — which is, again, union with the Divine.

51  “A
yogi
is a truly wise person whose consciousness is unified with Brahman (the Godhead).
^*
True
yogis
are detached. They are not at all concerned about the fruits of their actions and thus have left all anxiety behind. Detachment is the means to convert misery-laden
karma
(here indicating the entangling consequences of one’s acts) into misery-free living. Detachment is the means for rising above worldly activities and getting to a state
beyond
the worldly.

“Achieve that transcendent state, Arjuna, and enter the battle not merely as a soldier but as a man of true wisdom, a
yogi.
These high spiritual teachings are not meant just for the recluse; they are intended for active people like you, immersed in the hustle and bustle of the world.

52  “When your mind crosses the mire of delusion and your intellect clears itself of its confusion about the truth of who you really are, your True Self, then you will become dispassionate about the results of all your actions.

53  “At present, Arjuna, your mind is bewildered by conflicting ideas and philosophies. When it can rest steady and undistracted in contemplation of the True Self Within, you will be enlightened and completely united in love with the Divine. This is where
yoga
reaches its culmination: the merging of individual consciousness in Cosmic Consciousness. This is nothing less than the goal of life!”

  54  Arjuna, listening attentively, interrupts. “But Krishna, how does one identify the enlightened person you describe, the one absorbed in the Divine? How would such a one speak, sit, or move about, for example? If I knew that I could better strive for it.”

  55  Krishna answers, “Old friend, you should strive to become such a person! This person is called an Illumined One, a
Sthithaprajna
(literally, one who is established in wisdom). This is the one who abandons all selfish desires, cravings, and torments of the heart; who is satisfied with the True Self
(Atma)
and wants nothing outside the Self. This one knows that real bliss is only found within.

  56  “This is the man or woman whose mind is unperturbed by sorrow and adversity, who doesn’t thirst for pleasures, and is free of the three traits that most tarnish the mind — namely attachment, fear, and anger. Such a one is an Illumined One, a
Sthithaprajna.

57  “The person who is detached, desireless, who neither rejoices nor gets depressed when faced with good fortune or bad — that person is poised in wisdom above worldly turmoil and is therefore an Illumined One.

58  “The Illumined One has learned to deftly withdraw the senses from the attractions of the world, just as the turtle naturally pulls in its limbs to protect itself. This is very important, Arjuna. Let Me explain further.

59-60  “When people pull back from worldly pleasures their knowledge of the Divine grows, and this knowing causes the yearning for pleasure to gradually fade away. But inside, they may still hanker for pleasures. Even those minds that know the path can be dragged away from it by unruly senses.

“Much of one’s spiritual discipline must therefore focus on taming wayward senses and being ever vigilant against the treacherousness of the senses. The refinement of an individual or a society is measured by the yardstick of how well greed and desires are controlled.

61  “The Illumined Ones subdue their senses and hold them in check by keeping their minds ever intent on achieving the overarching goal of union with God. They get in the habit of substituting Divine thoughts for attractions of the senses.

62-63  “The downward spiral to one’s ruin consists of the following process: Brooding on (or merely thinking about) worldly attractions develops attachments to them. From attachments to sense objects come selfish desires. Thwarted desires cause anger to erupt. From anger arises delusion. This causes confusion of the mind and makes one forget the lessons of experience. Forgotten lessons of experience cloud the reason, which results in loss of discrimination (between Truth and non-Truth, Real and not-Real). Finally, losing the faculty of discrimination makes one veer from life’s
only purpose, achieving union with the Divinity within. Then, unfortunately, one’s life itself is wasted.

64-65  “But when you can move about in a world that surrounds you with sense attractions, and yet be free of either attachment or aversion to them, tranquillity comes and sits in your heart — and you are absorbed in the peace and wisdom of the Self within. Serenity, Arjuna, is the point at which all sorrow ends!

66  “This
Atmic
wisdom (knowledge of the True Self) is not for all. Those with agitated, uncontrolled minds cannot even guess that the
Atma
is present here within. Without quietness, where is meditation? Without meditation, where is peace? Without peace, where is happiness?

67-68  “The roving mind that attaches to the objects of the senses loses its discrimination and is adrift, a ship without a rudder. Even a small wind blows it off its safe-charted course. Those who use all their powers to restrain the senses, steady the mind, and free themselves from both attachment and aversion — they are the people of true wisdom, Illumined Ones.

69  “Worldly people perceive existence itself quite differently than do spiritually wise people. It is like night and day; what is nighttime for one is daytime for the other. What worldly persons experience as real — the body, earthly pursuits, pleasure, pain, illness, sensory attractions — the Illumined Ones see as not Real and of no consequence. What the Illumined One knows as Real — Spirit, quietness, and so forth — the unenlightened consider to be unreal and of no value.

70  “Waters from many rivers continually flow into the ocean but the ocean never overfills. In a like manner,
desires and attachments constantly flow into the mind of the Illumined One, but he or she, like the ocean in its deepest depths, is totally still and never disturbed.

71  “To gain access to this state of utter peace, Arjuna, you must be free of ego (the sense of ‘I’ and ‘mine’), and live devoid of cravings. You must forget desire.

72  “This is the fixed, still state of the Illumined One, the
Sthithaprajna,
the one firmly established in union with God. Once one achieves this state, one never falls back from it into delusion. Furthermore, the person in this state at the instant of death merges into Divinity and becomes one with the Divine. And this, Arjuna, as I have often repeated, is the very goal of life!”