The Vision ........... The Concept .......... The Group ......... The Process

Shrimat Bhagwat Gita

Chapter - I

Arjuna Vishada Yoga

Dhritrashtra said: Gathered together at Kurukshetra, the field of religious activities, what, O Sanjay, did my war-inclined sons and those of Pandu do?

Sanjay said: Now seeing the Pandvas army arrayed properly the prince Duryodhana drew near his preceptor Drona and spoke these words:

“Behold, O Master, this mighty army of the sons of Pandu, marshaled by the son of Dhrupad, your talented disciple. Here are mighty archers and peers in warfare to heroic. Arjuna and Bhima, Yujudhana, Virata and Dhrupad are great chariot-warrior. Dhirshtaketa, Chekitana and the valiant king of Kasi, Purujit, Kuntibhoja and Saibya, the best among men. Know you, O the best of the twice born, all those who are our distinguished chiefs, the leaders of my army, I name them for your information. Your venerable self, Bhishma, Karan, Kripa victorious in fight, Ashwathama, Vikarna and Saumadathi as well. And there are yet other heroes well trained in warfare, which equipped with manifold weapons and missiles, are ready to lay down their lives for my sake. Multitudinous is our army marshaled by Bhishma, but meager is the army of theirs marshaled by Bhima. Now all of you assume positions in your respective directions and protect Bhishma alone, by all means”.

In order to embolden Duryodhana, Bhishma the mighty grandsire, the oldest of the Kurus, now raised a lion’s roar and blew his conch. Then suddenly blared forth conches and kettle drums, tabors and trumpets and cow-horns; and tremendous was that noise. Then seated as Madhva and Pandava were in their magnificent chariot yoked to white stead, they gracefully blew their divine conchs. Panchajanya was blown by Hrishikesha, and Devadatta by Dhananjaya. Vrikodara of terrible exploits blew his great conch, Paundra. The king Yudhishthra, the son of Kunti, blew Anantavijaya, Nakula and Sahadeva blew Sughosha and Manipushpaka.

The ruler of Kasi, the adept archer and Shikhandi the great chariot-warrior Dheshtdyumna and Virata and Satyaki, the invincible, O ruler of the earth, Dhrupad and the sons of Draupadi and the mighty armed son of Subhadra all these as well, blew their several conchs, filling the earth and the sky with reverberation that tumultuous uproar rent the hearts of the sons of Dhritrashtra. Then, O ruler of the earth, seeing Dhritrashtra sons being positioned and the fighting about to commence, Pandvas, whose ensign badge is Hanuman, lifting his bow spoke the following words to Krishna.

Arjuna said: Place my chariot, O Achyuta, between the two armies so that I may behold the war indeed that stands here, with whom I must wage this war. I desire to discern those that throng here to fight, intent on pleasing in battle the evil minded son of Dhritrashtra.

Sanjaya said: Thus requested by Gudakesa, Hrishikesha, O Bharata, having placed the best of chariots in between the two armies, facing Bhishma and Drona and all the rulers of the earth, spoke:

“O, Partha, behold all the Kurus gathered together.”

Standing there Partha then beheld in both the armies, paternal uncles, grandfathers, teachers, maternal uncles, cousins, sons, grandsons, comrades, fathers-in-law and benefactors. He, the son of Kunti, gazing at those kinsmen posted in positions spoke this in sadness, filed as he was with choking compassion.

Arjuna said: Seeing these my kinsmen, collected here prompted by war, my limbs fail me, O Krishna, and my mouth is parched up. My body quivers and my hair stand on end. The bow Gandiva slips from my hand and my skin burns all over. I am unable to stand, my mind whirls as it guise, and Keshava, I see adverse omens. I do not foresee any good ensuing from the slaughter of kinsmen in battle. O Krishna, I hanker not for victory or empire or pleasure even. Of what avail to us is kingdom or enjoyment or even life.

O Govinda, those for whose sake we seek kingdom, enjoyments and pleasures, they stand here in battle, staking life and property. Teachers, fathers, sons as well as grandfathers, maternal uncles, fathers-in-law, grandsons, brothers-in-law and other relatives. Though myself slain by them, I would not, O Madhusudhan seek to slay them even for the sake of domination over the three worlds, how then for the earth? What delight can we derive, O Janardhana, by doing away with these sons of Dhritrashtra.  Sin only will accrue to us by slaying these desperadoes. We should not, therefore, slay the sons of Dhritrashtra, our kinsmen.

How can we, O Madhva killing our own kinsmen, be happy? Although these, with understanding clouded by greed, see no guilt in the in termination of a family, no crime in hostility to friends, why should we not learn to recoil from such a sin. O Janardhana, we who see evil in the destruction of a family? In the decline of a family, its time-honoured usages perish, with the perishing of sacred rites impiety overtakes the entire family. With the growth of impiety, O Krishna, the family women become unchaste, and women getting corrupted, O Varshneya caste admixture ensues. Hell is verily the lot of the family and family destroyers through caste admixture, for, their ancestors fall deprived of manes-cakes and liberations.

The everlasting caste virtues and the family merits get ruined because of the caste confusion created by the bad deeds of the family-destroyers. We have heard O, Janardhana, that hell is verily the long lasting abode of the men whose family religious practices have been broken. Goaded by the greed of the pleasures of a kingdom, we are, alas, bent on perpetrating the great sin of killing our kinsmen. Should the sons of Dhritrashtra with weapons in hand slay me, unresisting and unarmed in the battle that would indeed the better for me.

Sanjay said:  So saying, overwhelmed with sorrow in the battle field, Arjuna sat on the seat of his chariot, abandoning his bow and arrows.

CHAPTER-II

SANKHYA YOGA

Sanjay said: Madhusudhan spoke these words to him who was thus overwhelmed with compassion and drowned in distress, and whose eyes were drenched in tears of despondency.

The Blessed Lord said: Whence has this unmanly, heaven barring and shameful dejection come upon you, at this juncture, O Arjuna? Yield not, O Partha to feebleness. It does not befit you. Cast off this petty faint-heartedness, wake up, O vanquishes of foes.

Arjuna said: O slayer of Madhusudhan, O slayer of foes, how shall I with arrows counterattack Bhishma and Drona, who are worthy of worships? To eat the beggar’s bread, even is far better in this world than to slay these great souled masters. But if I kill them, my enjoyment of wealth and desires in this world itself will be stained with blood. Whether we should conquer them or they conquer us, I do not know which would be better. These very sons of Dhritrashtra stand before us, after slaying whom we should not care to live.

My nature is weighed down with the taint of feeble mindedness, my understanding is confused as to duty. I entreat you, say definitely what is good for me. I am your disciple. Do instruct me who have taken refuge in you. I do not find any remedy to the grief that parches my senses, though I was to gain unrivalled and prosperous monarchy on earth or even sovereignty over the celestials.

Sanjay said: After addressing the Lord of the senses thus, Gudakesa, the terror of the foes, submitted to Govinda, I shall not fright and held silence. Then smiling, as it were, Hrishikesha spoke these words to the desponding one placed between the two armies.

The Blessed Lord said: O Bharata, you grieve for those who should not be grieved for, yet you spell words of wisdom. The wise grieve neither for the living nor for the dead. Nor I, nor you, nor any of these ruling princes were ever non-existent before, nor is it that we shall not cease to be in the future. As the indweller in the body experiences childhood, youth and old age in the body, He also passes on to another body. The serene one is not affected thereby.

The contacts of the senses with their objects create, O son of Kunti, feelings of heat and cold, of pain and pleasure. They come and go and are impermanent. Bear them patiently, O Bharata. That man, O the best of men, is fitted for immortality, whom these do not torment, who is balanced in pain and pleasure and steadfast. The unreal has no existence, the real never ceases to be. The truth about both has been realized by the seers. Know that to be verily indestructible by which all this is pervaded. None can effect the destruction of the immutable.

These bodies of the indweller, who is eternal, indestructible and immeasurable are said to have an end. Fight, therefore, O Bharata. He who hold Atman as slayer and he who considers it as the slain, both of them are ignorant. It slays not, nor is it slain. The Atman is neither born nor does it die. Coming into being and ceasing to be do not take place in It. It is unborn, eternal, constant and ancient. It is not killed when the body is slain. He who cognizes the Atman as indestructible eternal, unborn and changeless, how can he slay, O Partha, or cause another to slay?

As a man casting off worn out garments puts on new ones, so the embodied, casting off worn out bodies enters into others. Weapons do not cleave the Atman, fire burns it not, water wets it not, wind dries it not.  This self is uncleavable, incombustible and neither wetted nor dried. It is eternal, all pervading, stable immovable and everlasting. This Atman is said to be unmanifested, unthinkable and immutable. Therefore, knowing it as such, you should not grieve. Or if you conceive of Atman as given to constant births and deaths, even then, O mighty armed, you should not sorrow.

Death is certain of that which is born, birth is certain of that which is dead. You should not, therefore, lament over the inevitable. Beings are all, O Bharata, unmanifested in their origin, manifested in their mid-state and unmanifested again in their end. What is the point then for anguish? One beholds the self as wonderful, another mentions of it as marvelous, another again hears of it as strange, though hearing yet another knows it not at all. This indweller in the bodies of all is ever invulnerable, O Bharata. Therefore, you should not grieve for any thing.

Again looking at your own, duty as well, you should not waiver for there is nothing more welcome to a Kshatriya than righteous war. Happy are the Kshatriya, O Partha, who obtain such a warfare that comes unsought as an open gateway to heaven. But if you will not wage this righteous warfare, then forfeiting your own duty and honor, you will incur sin. The great chariot warriors will view you as one fled from the war out of fear, you that were highly esteemed by them will be lightly held. Your enemies will also slander your strength and speak many unseemly words. What can be more painful then that.

Slain you will gain heaven, victories you will enjoy the earth. Therefore, rouse up, O son of Kunti, resolved to fight. Treating alike pain and pleasure, gain and loss, victory and defeat, engage yourself in the battle. Thus you will incur no sin. The ideal of self knowledge has been presented to you. Hearken now to the practice thereof. Endowed with it, O Partha, you will break through the bonds of karma. In this there is no loss of attempt, nor is there any adverse effect. The practice of even a little of this dharma protects one from great fear.

To the firm-in-mind, O joy of the Kurus, there is in this but one decision, many-branching and endless are the decisions of the infirm-in-mind. The unwise who delight in the flowery words, disputing about the Vedas say that there is nothing other than this, who are desire-ridden, who hold the attainment of heaven as the goal of birth and its activities, whose words are laden with specific rites bringing in pleasure and lordship. There is no fixity of mind for them who cling to pleasure and power and whose discrimination is stolen away. The vedas enumerate the three gunas. You transcend the three gunas. O Arjuna, be free from the pair of opposites, ever-balanced, unconcerned with getting and keeping and centered in the Self.

To an enlightened Brahma, all the Vedas are as useful as a tank when there is a flood everywhere. Seek to perform your duty, but lay not claim to its fruits. Be you not the producer of the fruits of Karma, neither shall you lean towards inaction. Perform action, O Dhananjaya, being fixed in yoga, renouncing attachment and even-minded in success and failure; equilibrium is verily yoga. Motivated karma is, O Dhananjaya, far inferior to that performed in the equanimity of mind, take refuge in the evenness of the mind, wretched are the result seekers. The one fixed in equanimity of mind frees oneself in this life from vice and virtue alike, therefore, devote yourself to yoga, work done to perfection is verily yoga.

The wise, imbued with evenness of mind, renouncing  the fruits of their actions, freed from the  fetters of births, verily go to the stainless state. When your understanding transcend the taint of delusion, then shall you gain indifference to things heard and those yet to be heard. When your intellect, tossed about by the conflict of opinions, has become poised and firmly fixed in equilibrium, then you shall get into yoga.

Arjuna said: What, O Keshava, is the mark of the man of steadfast wisdom, steeped in Samadhi? How does the man firm in wisdom speak, how sit, how walk?

The Blessed Lord said:  When a man abandons, O Partha, all the desires of the heart and is satisfied in the self by the self, then is he said to be one stable in wisdom. The mind is not perturbed by adversity. He who does not crave for happiness, who is free from fondness, fear and anger is the Muni of constant wisdom. He who is unattached everywhere, who is not delighted at receiving good nor dejected at coming by evil, is poised in wisdom. When also, like a tortoise its limbs, he can withdraw the senses from sense objects, his wisdom is then set firm. Sense objects drop out for the abstinent man, though not the longing for them. His longing also ceases when he intuits the Supreme.
The exited senses, O son of Kunti, impetuously carry away the mind of even a wise man, striving for perfection. The yogi having controlled them all, sits focused on Me as the Supreme goal. His wisdom is constant whose senses are under subjugation. Brooding on the objects of senses, man develops attachment to them, from attachment comes desire, from desire anger sprouts forth. From anger proceeds delusion, from delusion confused memory, from confused memory the ruin of reason, due to the ruin of reason he perishes.

But the disciplined yogi, moving among objects with the sense under control and free from attraction and aversion gains in tranquility. In tranquility all his sorrow is destroyed.  For the intellect of the tranquil-minded is soon anchored in equilibrium. There is no wisdom in the fickle minded, nor is there meditation in him. To the un-meditative, there is no peace. And how can the peace-less enjoy happiness? Just as a gale pushes away a ship on the waters, the mind that yields to the rowing senses carries away his discrimination. Therefore, O mighty-armed, his cognition is well poised, whose senses are completely restrained form their objects.

That which is night to all beings, in that the disciplined man wakes, that in which all beings wake, is night to the Atman-cognizing Muni. Not the desire of desires, but that man attains peace, in which all desires merge even as rivers flow into the ocean which is full and unmoving. That man attains peace who lives devoid of longing, freed from all desires and without the feeling of ‘I’ and ‘Mine’. This O Partha, is the Brahma state. Attaining this, none is bewildered. Being established in It, even at the death-hour, a man gets into oneness with Brahma.

CHAPTER  III

 KARMA YOGA

 

Arjuna said: If it is held by you, O Janardhana, that knowledge is superior to action, why then do you, O Keshava enjoin on me this terrible action. With these perplexing words, you are, as it were, confusing my comprehension. Tell me with certainty the path by pursuing which I may reach the supreme.

The Blessed Lord said: The twofold path was given by me, O sinless one, to the world in the beginning, the path of knowledge to the discerning, the path of work to the active. Man gains not actionlessness by abstaining from activity, nor does he rise to perfection by mere renunciation. None can even remain really actionless even for a moment, for everyone is helplessly driven to action by the gunas, born of Prakriti. That deluded man is called a hypocrite who sits controlling the organs of action, but dwelling in his mind on the objects of senses. But he excels, O Arjuna, who, restraining the senses by the mind unattached directs his organs of action at the path of work.

Engage yourself in obligatory work, for action is superior to inaction, and inactive, even the mere maintenance of your body would not be possible. The world is bound by actions other than those performed for the sake of Yajna. Do therefore, O son of Kunti, earnestly perform action for Yajna alone, free from attachment. Having created mankind in the beginning together with Yajna, the Prajapati said “By this shall you propagate, this shall be the milch of your desires. Cherish the Devas with this, and may those Devas cherish you, thus cherishing one another, you shall reap the supreme good. Cherished by Yajna, the Devas shall bestow on you the enjoyments you desire”.

A thief verily is he who enjoys what is given by them without returning them anything. Those who eat the remains of yajna are freed from all sins, but the sinful ones who cook food only for themselves, they verily eat, sin. From food beings become, from rain is food produced, from yajna rain proceeds; yajna is born of karma. Know karma to have risen from the Veda, and the Veda from the imperishable. The all – pervading Veda is, therefore, ever centered in yajna. He who does not follow on earth the wheel thus revolving, sinful of life and rejoicing in the senses, he O Partha, live in vain.

But the man who rejoices in the self, is satisfied with the self and is centered in the self, for him verily there is no obligatory duty. For him there is in this world no object to acquire by doing an action, nor is there any loss by not doing an action, nor has he to depend on any body for anything. Therefore, constantly perform your obligatory duty without attachment, for by doing duty without attachment, man verily obtains the supremely as Janaka and others. Having an eye to the guidance of men also you should perform action. Whatever a great man does is followed by others, people go by the example he sets up. There is naught in the three worlds O Partha, that has not been done by Me, nor anything unattained that might be attained, still I engage in action. If ever I did not engage in work relentless, O Partha, men would in every respect follow My path. These worlds would perish if I did not do action. I should be the cause of confusion of species and I should destroy these beings.

As the unenlightened act from attachment to action, O Bharata, so should the enlightened act without attachment, desirous of the guidance of the multitude?  Let not the wise man unsettle the mind of ignorant people attached to karma. By doing persistently and precisely let the wise induce the others in all activities. The gunas of Prakriti perform all karma, with the understanding clouded by egoism, man thinks – I am the doer. But, O mighty armed the one intuitive into the nature of guna and karma knows that gunas as senses abide with gunas as objects, and does not become entangled. Those deluded by gunas of Prakriti get attached to the functions of the gunas.

The man of perfect knowledge should not unsettle the mediocre whose knowledge is imperfect. Surrendering all actions to Me. with your thoughts resting in self, freed from hope and selfishness and cured of mental fever, engage in battle. Those who ever abide in this teaching of mine, full of shraddha and free from caviling they too are released from actions. But those who carp at my teachings and act no thereon deluded in all knowledge and devoid of discrimination, know them to be ruined.

Even a wise man behaves in conformity with his own nature, what shall restraint avail? Attachment and aversion of the senses for their respective objects are natural, but none comes under their domination, they are verily his enemies. One’s own dharma, though imperfect, is better than the dharma of another well discharged. Better death in one’s own dharma, the dharma of another is full of fear.

Arjuna said – But dragged on by what a man commits sin, unwillingly though, O Varshneya constrained as it were by force.

The Blessed Lord said: It is desire, it is wrath begotten by the Rajo-guna, all consuming, all sinful, know this as the foe here on earth. As fire is enveloped by smoke, as a mirror by dust, as an embryo by the womb, so is this covered by that? knowledge is covered, O son of Kunti, by this insatiable fire of desire, the constant foe of the wise. The senses, the mind and the intellect are said to be its seat, by these it deludes man by veiling his wisdom. Therefore, O eminent of the Bharatas, mastering first the senses, slay it – the sinful the destroyer of knowledge and realization.

The senses are said to be superior to the body; the mind is superior to the senses, the intellect is superior to the mind, and what is superior to the intellect is Atman. Thus knowledge is superior to the intellect. Restraining the self by the self, slay O mighty armed the enemy in the form of desire, difficult to overcome.

CHAPTER IV

TRANA KARMA  SANYASA YOGA

 

The Blessed Lord said: This imperishable yoga, I declared to Vivasvat, Vivasvat taught it to Manu, Manu told it to Ikshvaku, thus transmitted in regular succession the royal sages know it. This yoga, by long efflux of time decayed in this world, O scorcher of foes. The same ancient yoga has been today told to you by Me, for you are My devotee and friend, and this secret is supreme indeed.

Arjuna said: Later was your birth, earlier the birth of Vivasvat, how then I to understand that you told it in beginning?

The Blessed Lord said: Many are the births taken by Me and you, O Arjuna, I know them all while you know not Prantapa. Though I am unborn, imperishable and the lord of beings, yet subjugating My Prakriti, I come into being by My own maya. Whenever there is decay of dharma and rise of adharma, and then I embody Myself O Bharata. For the protection of the good, for the destruction of the wicked and for the establishment of dharma, I am born age after age. He who thus knows my divine birth and action in true light, having dropped the body, comes not to birth again, but comes into Me.

O Arjuna, freed from passion, fear and anger, filled with Me, taking refuge in Me, purified by penance in the fire of knowledge, many have entered into My Being. In whatever way men identify with Me, in the same way do I carry out their desires; men pursue My path, O Partha, in all ways. Longing for success in action on earth, they worship the Gods, for quickly is success born of action in this world of man. The fourfold caste system was created by me by the different distribution of guna and karma. Though I be the author thereof, know me to be the action less and changeless. Nor do actions taint Me nor is the fruit of action desired by Me. He who thus knows Me is not bound by actions.

Having known thus even the ancient seekers after freedom preformed action, therefore, do you perform action, as did the ancient in the olden times. Sages too are perplexed as to what is action, what is inaction. Therefore, I shall tell you what action is, by knowing which you shall be freed from evil. It is needful to discriminate action, to discriminate forbidden action and to discriminate inaction, inscrutable is the way of karma.

He who sees inaction in action, and action in inaction, he is wise among men, he is a yogi and accomplisher of every thing. Whose doings are all  devoid of  design and  desire for results, and whose actions are all burnt by  the fire of knowledge, him, the sages call wise. Having abandoned attachment to the fruits of action, ever content, depending on nothing, though engaged in karma, verily engaged in karma, verily he does not do anything. Hoping for naught, his mind and self controlled, having abandoned all possessions, performing karma by the body alone, he incurs no sin. Content with what he obtains without effort, free from pair of opposites, without envy, balanced in success and failure, though acting he is not bound.

Of one unattached, liberated, with mind absorbed in knowledge, performing work for yajna alone, his entire karma melts away. The oblation is Brahma, the clarified butter is Brahma, offered by Brahma in the fire of Brahma, unto Brahma verily he goes who cognizes Brahma alone in his action. Some yogis perform sacrifices to Devas alone, while others offer the self as sacrifice by the self verily in the fire of Brahma. Some offer hearing and other senses as sacrifice in the fire of restraint, while others offer sound and other sense objects as sacrifice in the fire of the senses. Others again offer all the actions of the senses and the functions of the life-energy, as a sacrifice in the fire of self control, kindled by knowledge.

Yet others offer wealth, austerity and yoga as sacrifice, while still others of self-denial and extreme vows, offer sacred study and knowledge as sacrifice. Yet others offer as sacrifice the outgoing breath in the incoming, and the incoming in the outgoing, restraining the flow of the outgoing and incoming breaths, solely absorbed in the regulation of the life-energy. Still others of regulated food habits offer in the Prana the functions thereof. All these knower of yajna, have their sins destroyed by yajna. The eaters of the nectar, the remnant of yajna go to the eternal Brahma.

This world is not for the non sacrificer, how then the others, O best of the Kurus. Various yajnas such as these are spread out in the storehouse of Vedas. Know them all to be born of karma, and thus knowing you shall be free. Knowledge-sacrifice, O scorcher of foes, is superior to wealth sacrifice. All karma in its entirety, O Partha, culminates in knowledge. Seek that enlighten by prostrating, by questions and by service, the wise, the seers into the Truth will instruct you in that knowledge. Knowing this Partha, you will not again fall into this confusion, by this you will see the whole of the creation in yourself and in Me.

Even if you be the most sinful of all sinners, yet shall you cross over all sin by the raft of knowledge. As the blazing fire reduces fuel to ashes, O Arjuna, so does the fire of knowledge reduce all karma to ashes. Verily there is no purifier in this world like knowledge. He that is perfected in yoga, realizes it in this own heart in due time. The man of shraddha, the devoted, the master of his senses, obtains knowledge. Having obtained knowledge, he goes promptly to the peace supreme. The ignorant, the man devoid of shraddha, the doubting self, goes to destruction. The doubting self has neither this world, nor the next, nor happiness. With work absolved in yoga, and doubts rent asunder by knowledge, O Dhananjaya, actions do not bind him, who is poised in the self. Therefore, severing with the sword of knowledge, this ignorance – born doubt about the self, dwelling in your heart, be established in yoga. Stand up, O Bharata.

CHAPTER V

SANYASA YOGA

 

Arjuna said: Renunciation of action, O Krishna, you commend and again its performance. Of the two, which one is the better? Tell me that conclusively.

The Blessed Lord said: Renunciation and performance of action both lead to freedom, of the two, performance of action is superior to the renunciation of action. He should be known a constant Sanyasi, who neither hates nor desires, free from the pair of opposites, O mighty armed, he is easily set free from bondage. Children, not the wise, speak of knowledge and performance of action as different. He who is truly established in one, obtains the fruit of both. The stage reached by the karma yogis is also reached by the gyana yogis.

He sees who sees gyana and karma yoga as one is a yogi. Sanyas, O mighty armed, is hard to attain to without karma yoga, the man of meditation, purified by karma yoga quickly goes to Brahma, with the mind purified by karma yoga, and the self disciplined, and the senses subdued, one who  realizes  one’s self as the self in all beings, though acting, is not affected. The sage centered in the  self should think, “I do nothing at all” – though seeing, hearing, touching, smelling, eating, moving, sleeping, breathing, speaking, emptying, holding, opening and closing the eyes – firm in the thought that the senses move, among sense objects.

He who acts, abandoning, attachment, dedicating his deeds to Brahma, is untainted by sin as a lotus leaf by water. The yogi, abandoning attachment, performs work with the body, the mind, the intellect and the senses only, for self purification. Abandoning the fruits of action, the yogi attains peace born of steadfastness. Impelled by desire, the non-yogi is bound, attached to fruit. Having mentally renounced all actions, the self disciplined indweller rests happily in the city of nine gates, neither acting nor causing to act. The Lord does not create agency or actions for the world. The Omnipresent does not take note of the merit or demerit of any. Knowledge is veiled by ignorance, mortals are thereby deluded. Shining like the Sun, knowledge reveals the Supreme in them, in whom ignorance is destroyed by self-knowledge.

Those who think of That merge in That, get fixed in That, have That as the Goal, they attain to non-return, their taints being dispelled by knowledge. Man of self-knowledge is same sighted on a Brahma imbibed with learning and humility, a cow, an elephant, a dog and an outcaste. Transitory existence is overcome even here by them whose mind rests on equanimity. Brahma is flawless and the same in all, therefore, they are established in Brahma. Established in Brahma with firm understanding and with no delusion, the knower of Brahma rejoices not, getting what is pleasant and grieves not, getting what is unpleasant.

With the self detached from the external contacts he realizes the bliss in the self. Devoted as he is to the meditation of Brahma, he enjoys imperishable Bliss. The delights that are contact born are verily the wombs of pain, they have, O son of Kunti, a beginning and an end, no wise man rejoices in them. He who is able to resists the impulse of desire and anger even here before he quits the body, he is a yogi, he is a happy man. He whose happiness is within, whose delight is within, whose  illumination is within, only that yogi becomes Brahma and gains the beatitude of  Brahma with sins destroyed, doubts (dualities) removed, mind disciplined, being delighted in the welfare of all beings, the Rishis attain the beatitude of  Brahma.

The beatitude of Brahma is both here and hereafter, for those Sanyasi who have shed lust and anger subdued their merit and realizes the self. Shutting out external objects, fixing the gaze between the eye-brows, equalizing the outward and inward breaths moving in the nostrils, the sage who has controlled the senses, mind and intellect, who is solely pursuing liberation, who has cast away desire, fear and anger, he is verily liberated. Having Me known as the Lord of yoga’s and asceticism, as the ruler of all the worlds, as the friends of all beings, he attains peace.

CHAPTER VI

DHYANA YOGA

 

The Blessed Lord said: He who discharges his duty without seeking its fruits, he is the Sanyasi, and he is the yogi; not he who is without sacred fire and without rites. Know that as Yoga, O Pandava, which is called sanyasa, for none becomes a yogi without renouncing sankalpa. Karma is said to be the means of the muni who seeks to attain the yoga; serenity is said to be the means when he has attained to yoga. Then alone is one said to have attained to yoga when, having renounced all sankalpa, one does not get attached to senses-objects and actions. Let a man raise himself by his own self; let him not debase himself. For he is himself his friend, himself his foe.

To him who has conquered his (base) self by the (divine) self, his own self is the friend, but to him who has not subdued the self, his own self acts as the foe. The self disciplined and serene man’s supreme self is constant in cold and heat, pleasure and pain, is also in honour and dishonour. That yogi is steadfast who is satisfied with knowledge and wisdom, who remains unshaken, who has conquered the senses, to whom a clod, a stone and a piece of gold are the same. He stands supreme who has equal regard for friends, companions, enemies, neutrals, arbiters, the hateful, the relatives, saints and sinners.

A yogi should always try to concentrate his mind living alone in solitude, having subdued his mind and body and got rid of desires and possessions. Having firmly fixed in a  clear place, his seat neither too  nigh nor too low, and having spread  over it the kusa-grass, a deer skin and a cloth, one over the other, sitting thereon his seat, making the mind one-pointed and  restraining the thinking faculty and  the senses,  he should practice yoga for self purification. Let him hold the body, head and neck erect and still, gazing at the tip of his nose, without looking around.

Serene and fearless, firm in the vow of a Brahmachari, subdued in mind, he should sit in yoga thinking on Me and intent on Me alone. Keeping himself ever steadfast in this manner, the yogi of subdued mind attains the peace abiding in Me and culminating in Nirvana. Yoga is not possible for him who eats too much or for him who abstains too much from eating, it is not for him, O Arjuna, who sleeps too much or too little. For him who is moderate in eating and recreation, temperate in his actions, who is regulated in sleep and watchfulness, yoga becomes the destroyer of pain.

When the disciplined mind rest sin the self alone, free from desire for objects, then is one said to be established in yoga. ‘As a lamp in a windless place does not flicker’ – this is the simile used for the disciplined mind of yoga practicing concentration on the self. When the mind, disciplined by the practice of yoga, attains quietude, and when beholding the self by the self, he is satisfied in the self; when he feels that supreme bliss which is perceived by the intelligence and which transcends the senses and wherein established he never moves from the Reality, and having gained which, he thinks that there is no greater gain than that, wherein established he is not shaken even by the heaviest affliction. Let this disconnection from union with pain be known by the name of yoga. This yoga should be practiced with determination and with undistracted mind.

Abandoning without reserve all desires born of sankalpa, and curbing in, by the mind, all the senses from all sides, with his intellect set in  firmness let him attain quietude little by little, with the mind fixed on the self let him not think of anything. By whatever cause the wavering and unsteady mind wanders away, let him curb it from that and subjugate it solely to the self. Supreme Bliss verily comes to that. Yogi whose mind is calm, whose passions are pacified, who has become one with Brahman and who is sinless constantly engaging the mind this way, the yogi who has put away it, attains with ease the infinite bliss of contact with Brahman, this mind being harmonized by yoga, he sees himself in all beings and all beings in himself, he sees the same in all.

He who sees Me every where and sees all in Me, he never becomes lost to Me, nor do I become lost to him. He, who established in oneness, worships Me abiding in all beings, those yogi lieges in Me, whatever may be his mode of living. That yogi, O Arjuna, is regarded as the Supreme, who judges pleasure or pain everywhere by the same standard as he applies to himself.

Arjuna said:  This yoga of equanimity taught by you, O Madhusudhan – I do not see any stability in it, because of restlessness. The mind verily is O Krishna, is restless, turbulent, strong and obstinate. It deems it as hard to control as the wind.

The Blessed Lord said: Doubtless, O mighty armed the mind is restless and hard to control but by practice and non attachment, O son of Kunti, it can be controlled. Yoga is hard to attain, I concede, by a man who cannot control himself, but it can be attained by him who has controlled himself and who strives by right means.

Arjuna said: He who is unable to control himself, though possessed of  faith, whose mind deviates from yoga, what end does he meet with, O Krishna, having failed to attain perfection in yoga fallen from both, does he not perish like a rent cloud, without any hold, O mighty armed, deluded in the path of  Brahman. Design, to dispel completely this doubt of mine, O Krishna, for there is none but yourself who can destroy this doubt.

The Blessed Lord said: O Partha, neither in this world nor in the next is there destruction for him, for the doer of good; O my son never comes to grief. Having attained to the worlds of the righteous and having lived for countless years, he who falls from yoga is reborn in the house of the pure and prosperous or he is born in a family of wise yogis only; a birth like this is verily very difficult to obtain in this world. There he regains the knowledge acquired in his former body, and he strives more than before for perfection, O joy of the Kurus.

By that very former practice, he is led on inspite of himself. Even he who merely wishes to know of yoga rises superior to the performer of Vedic rites. The yogi who strives with assiduity purified from sins and perfected through many births reaches then the supreme good. The yogi is deemed superior to ascetics, superior to men of knowledge even; he is also superior to ritualist. Therefore, be you a yogi, O Arjuna. And of all yogis, he who worships Me with faith, his in most self merges in Me – him I hold to be the most devout.

CHAPTER VII

JANANA VIJNANA YOGA

 

The Blessed Lord said: Listen, O Partha, how, with your mind clinging to Me and taking refuge in Me and practicing yoga, you will without any doubt know Me in full. I shall teach you in full this knowledge combined with realization, which being known, nothing more here remains to be known. Among thousands of men scarcely one strives for perfection, and of those who strives and succeed, scarcely one knows Me in truth. Earth, water, fire, air, ether, mind, intellect and egoism, thus is My Prakriti divided eight fold. This is My lower Prakriti but different from it, know O mighty armed, My higher Prakriti –the life element by which this universe is upheld.

Know that these two are the womb of all beings. I am the origin and desolation of the universe. There is nothing whatsoever higher than Me. O Dhananjaya, this is string on Me, as rows of gems on a string. I am the sapidity in water, O sun of Kunti, I, the radiance in moon and sun; I am the syllable Om in all the Vedas; sound in ether and manliness in man. I am the sweet fragrance in earth and the brilliance in fire. I am the life in all beings and the authority in ascetics. Know Me, O Partha, as the eternal seed of all beings; I am the intelligent of the intelligent, the splendor of the splendid. I am the strength of the strong devoid of desire and passion. In beings I am desire, not contrary to dharma, O chief of the Bharatas. And whatever being are the Sattva, of Rajas or of Tamas, know them to proceed from Me.

Still I am  not in them, they are in Me. Deluded by these three fold dispositions of Prakriti – the Gunas, this world does not know Me, who on above them and immutable. Verily this divine illusion of Mine, made up of the Gunas, is hard to surmount but those who take refuge in Me alone, they cross over this illusion. The evil doers, the deluded, the lowest of men, deprived of discrimination by Maya and following the way of the asuras, do not seek refuge in Me.

Four type of virtuous men worship Me. O Arjuna, the man in distress, the man seeking knowledge, the man seeking wealth  and the man imbued with wisdom. O the best of the Bharatas. Of these, the wise man, ever steadfast and devoted to the one, excels; for   supremely dear am I do the wise and he is dear to Me. Noble indeed are all these but the wise man, I deem, to the My very self. For steadfast in mind, he is established in Me alone, as the supreme goal. At the end of many births, the man of wisdom takes refuge in Me, realizing that Vasudeva is all that is. Rare indeed is that great soul.

But those whose discrimination has been led astray by this or that desire to go to other Gods, following this or that rite, constrained by their own nature. Whatever form any devotee with faith wishes to worship, I make that faith of his steady. Endowed with that faith, he engages in the worship of that form, and from it he obtains his desires, which are being actually ordained by Me. But the fruit that accrues to those men of small intellect is finite. The worshipers of the gods go to the gods, My devotees come to Me.

Men of poor understanding think of me, the unmanifest, as having manifestation not knowing my supreme state, immutable and unsurpassed.  I am not revealed at all, as I am veiled by yoga maya. This deluded world knows Me not, the unborn, the unchanging. I know, O Arjuna, the beings of the past, the present and the future, but no one knows Me.

By the delusion of the pair of opposites arising from desire and aversion, all beings O Bharatas, are subject to illusion at birth. O harasser of foes. But those men of virtuous deeds whose sins have come to an end, who are freed from the delusion of the pains of opposites, worship Me remaining steadfast in their vows. Those who take refuge in Me and strive for deliverance from decay and death, they realize in full that Brahman, the individual self and all Karma. Those who realize me in the Adhibhuta, in the Adhidaiva and in the Adhiyajna, they of steadfast mind realize Me even in the hour of death.

CHAPTER VIII

AKSHRA BRAHMA YOGA

 

Arjuna said: What is that Brahman? What is Adhyatma? What is karma? O best among man. What is said to be Adhibhuta and what is called Adhidaiva? Who and how is Adhiyajna here in this body. O Madhusudhan? And how at the time of death, art thou to be known by the self controlled.

The Blessed Lord said:  I the imperishable Brahman, the supreme dwelling in the individual body am called Adhyatma. The offering which causes the origin of beings is called karma. Adhibhuta pertains to the perishable Nature and Purusha is the Adhidaiva. I alone am the Adhiyajna here in this body. O best of the embodied. And whoever at the time of death, leaving the body, goes forth remembering Me alone, he attains My being. There is no doubt about this. Whatever being a man thinks of at the last moment when he leaves his body, that alone does he obtain.

O Kaunteya, being ever absorbed in the thought thereof. Therefore at all times think upon Me only and fight with mind and understanding set on Me, you will surely come to Me. With the mind not wandering after any thing else, made steadfast in yoga of constant practice, he who meditates on the supreme resplendent Purusha reaches him. O Partha, the Omniscient, the Ancient, the Ruler, Minuter than an atom, the supporter of all, of form inconceivable, effulgent like the sun and beyond all darkness, he who meditates on this resplendent, supreme Purusha, at the time of death, with a steady mind, devotion and strength of yoga, will fixing the entire Prana in the middle of the eye brows, he reaches Me.

That which the knower of Veda call the imperishable and into which under the sanyasi, self controlled and freed from attachment and desiring which they lead a life of continence, that I shall disclose to you with brevity. All the gates of the body closed, the mind confined within the heart, having fixed his life energy in the head, engaged in firm yoga; uttering the one – syllable ‘Om’ Brahman, thinking of Me, he who departs, leaving the body, attains the supreme Goal. I am easily attainable, O Partha, by that ever steadfast yogi, who constantly remembers Me daily and thinks of none else. All worlds in clouding that of Brahman are subject to return, O Arjuna, but on reaching me, O son of Kunti, there is no rebirth.

Those who know that the day of Brahma lasts a thousand yugas and that his night last a thousand yugas, they are the knower of day and night. At the coming of day all manifest beings proceed from the unmanifested and all the coming of night they merge again in the some which is called the unmanifested. This multitude of beings, coming forth again merge O Partha, in spite of themselves, at the approach of night, and re-manifest  themselves at the approach of day. But beyond this unmanifested, there is yet another unmanifested eternal existence which does not perish even when all existences perish. This unmanifested is called the Imperishable. It is said to be the ultimate goal. Those who attain to it, return not. That is My Supreme abode.

That supreme Purusha, O Partha is attainable by unswerving devotion to Him alone within whom all beings dwell, by whom all this is pervaded. Now I shall tell you, O the best of the Bharatas, the time in which the yogis depart never to return and also the time in which they depart to return. Fire, light, day till  the right half of the moon and the six months of the  northern path of the sun, then going  forth, the knower of Brahman go to Brahman. The bright  and the dark, these paths are deemed to be the world’s eternal paths by the  one man who goes, not to return,  by the other he returns again.

 Knowing these two paths, O Partha, no yogi is deluded. Therefore, O Arjuna, be steadfast in yoga, at all times. The yogi who knows this transcends the fruits of meritorious deeds attached to the study of the Vedas, sacrifices and gifts and attains to the supreme primeval abode.

CHAPTER IX

RAJAVIDYA RAJAGUHYA YOGA

 

The Blessed Lord said: To you who do not cavil, I shall surely declare this, the most profound knowledge combined with realization by knowing which you will be released from evil. The sovereign science, the sovereign secret, the supreme purifier is this, directly realizable in accord with dharma, very easy to practice and imperishable. Men devoid of shraddha for this dharma do not attain Me, O Oppressor of the foes, but return to the path of the mortal world.

This entire universe is pervaded by Me, in My unmanifested form, all beings exist in Me, but I do not abide in them. Nor do the beings dwell in Me, behold My divine yoga. Bringing forth and supporting the beings, My self does not dwell in them. As the mighty wind moving everywhere rests in the akash, know you that so do all beings rest in Me. All beings, O Kaunteya, go into My Prakriti, at the end of a kalpa. I generate them again at the beginning of the next kalpa. Animating My Prakriti I send forth again and again all this multitude of beings helpless under the regime of Prakriti. Nor do these acts, O Dhananjaya, bind Me who remain like one unconcerned, unattached to these acts.

Because of My proximity. Prakriti produces all this, the moving and the unmoving, the world, therefore, resolves. O son of Kunti fools disregard Me as one clad in human form, not knowing My higher nature as the Great Lord of beings. Of vain hopes, of vain actions, of vain knowledge, devoid of discrimination, partaking verily of the delusive nature of Rakshasas and Asuras. But the Mahatmas, O Partha, partaking of the divine nature, worship Me with a single mind, knowing Me as the immutable and the source of all beings. Glorifying Me always, striving, firm in vows, prostrating before Me, they worship Me with devotion, steadfast.

Yet others sacrifice with the Yajna of knowledge and worship Me in various ways as the one, as the distinct and as the all faced. I am Kratu, I am Yajna, I am Swadha, I am the medicinal hub, I am mantra, I am also the clarified butter, I am fire, I am oblation, I am the Father of this world, the mother, the dispenser and the Grandfather; I am the knowable, the purifier, the syllable Om and also the Rick, the Samya and the Yajur. I am the God, the supporter, the Lord, the witness, the Abode, the shelter, the friend, the origin, the dissolution, the foundation, the treasure house and the seed imperishable. I give heat, I withhold and send forth the rain; I am immortality and death; I am being as well as non-being.

O Arjuna, The knower of the three Vedas, the drinkers of soma, purified from sin, worshipping Me by sacrifices, pray for the way of heaven. They reach the holy world of the Lord of the Devas and enjoy in the heaven the celestial pleasures of Devas. Having enjoyed the vast world of heaven, they return to the world of mortals of the exhaustion of their merits; thus abiding by the injunctions of the three Vedas desiring objects of desires they go and come. To those men who worship Me alone, thinking of no other, who are ever devout, I provide gain and security.

Even those devotees who endowed with Shraddha, worship other gods, worship Me alone, O son of Kunti, by the wrong method I am verily the Enjoyer and the Lord of all Yajnas. But these men do not know Me in reality hence they fall. Votaries of the Devas go to Devas; the votaries of the Pitrus go to Pitrus, to the Bhutas go to Bhutas worshippers; My votaries come to Me. Whoever offer Me with devotion, a leaf, a flower, a fruit or water, I accept that, the pious offerings of the pure in heart whatever you do, whatever you eat, whatever you offer in sacrifices, whatever you gift away, whatever austerity you practice, O Kaunteya, do it as an offering to Me. Thus shall you be free from the bondage of actions yielding good and bad results.

With the mind firmly set in the yoga of renunciation and liberated, you shall come to Me. I am the same to all beings; to Me there is none hateful, none dear. But those who worship Me with devotion, they are in Me and I also am in them. Even if man of the most sinful conduct worships Me with undeviating devotion, he must be reckoned as righteous, for he has rightly resolved. Soon does he become a man of righteousness and obtains lasting peace.

O Kaunteya, know for certain that My devotee never perishes. For those who take refuge in Me, O Partha, though they be of inferior birth-women, Vaishya and Shudra- when they attain the supreme Goal. How much more then the holy Brahmans and devoted royal saints. Having cone into this transient  joyless world, do worship Me. Fix your mind on Me, be devoted  to Me; sacrifice unto Me, bow down to Me, taking Me as the Supreme Goal, you will come to me.

CHAPTER X

VIBHUTI YOGA

 

The Blessed Lord said: Once again, O mighty-armed, listen to My supreme word. Out of a desire to do you good I wish of it to your absorbing delight. Neither the hosts of Devas nor the great Rishis know My origin, for in every respect I am the source of the Devas and the great Rishis. He who knows Me as unborn and beginning less, as the Great Lord of the world, he among mortals is un-deluded and freed from all sins.

Intellect, wisdoms, non delusion, patience, truth, self restraint, calmness, pleasure, pain, birth, death, fear and fearlessness. Non injury, equanimity, contentment, austerity, charity, fame and obloquy these different qualities of beings arise from Me alone. The seven great Rishis and the ancient Manus, endowed with My power were bone of My mind, and from them have come forth all the creatures in the world. He who knows in truth this glory and power of Mine is endowed with unfaltering yoga, of this there is no doubt.

I am the origin of all; from M all things evolve. The wise know this and adore Me with all their heart with their minds fixed on Me., with their life absorbed in Me, enlightening each other and ever speaking of Me, they are contented  and delighted. To them, ever devout, worshipping Me with love, I give the yoga of discrimination by which they come to Me. Out of pure compassion for them dwelling in their hearts; I destroy the ignorance born darkness by the luminous lamp of wisdom.

Arjuna said: You are the Supreme Brahman, the supreme abode, the supreme Purifier the Eternal, Divine Purusha, the Primeval Deity, the born, and the omnipresent. All the Rishis have thus acclaimed you, as also the Deva Rishi Narada, so also Asita, Devala and Vyasa and now you yourself say it to Me. I hold as true, all that you say to me, O Keshava. Neither the Devas nor the Danavas, O Lord, know veil your manifestation. Verily you alone know yourself by yourself, O Purushottama, O source of beings, O Lord of being, O God of Gods, O Ruler of the world. Condescend to tell without reserve of your divine glories by which glories you remain pervading all these worlds. How may I know you, O Yogi, by constant meditation? In what various aspects are you, O Lord, to be thought of by me? Tell me again in detail, O Janardhana, of your yoga powers and attributes for I am not satisfied with hearing your life infusing words.

The Blessed Lord said: Very well. I shall now tell you My divine glories according to their prominence; O best of the Kurus, there is no end to the details of My manifestation. I am the self, O Gudakesa, seated in the hearts of all beings. I am the beginning, the middle and also the end of all beings. Of the Adityas I am Vishnu, of the luminaries the radiant sun; I am Marichi of the Marut, of the asterisms the Moon am I. Of the vedas I am the sampan, I am Vasava among the Devas; of the senses I am the mind and among living beings I am consciousness of the Rudras I am Sankara of the Yakshas and Rakshasas I am Kubera, of the Vasus I am Pavaka, and of mountains I am Meru.

O priests O Partha know Me to be the chief Brihaspati; of generals I am Skanda and of bodies of water I am the ocean. Of the great Rishis I am Bhrigu, of utterances I am the mono syllable “Om” of yajnas I am japa -yajna and of unmoving things, the Himalaya. Of all trees I am Asvathama, of Deva  Rishis I am Narada, of the Gandharvas I am Chitraratha and of the Siddhas I am the Muni Kapila . O horses, know Me to be the mentor-born Ucchaisravas, of lordly elephants Airavata and of men, the monarch. O weapons I am thunderbolt; of cows I am Kamadhenu, I am Kandarpa of the progenitors of serpents I am Vasuki. Of the Nagas I am Ananta; of the water deities I am Varuna; of the Pitrus I am Aryans, of controllers I am Yama.

Of the daityas I am Prahlada and of beckoners I am Prime; of beasts I am the lord of beasts and Vainatiya of birds. Of purifiers I the wind, of the wielders of weapon I am Rama, of fishes I am the Shark and of rivers I am the Ganges. Of created things I am the beginning and the end and also the middle, O Arjuna of the sciences I am the science of the self, of those who debate I am the reason. Of letters I am the letter A and of word compounds I am the dual (Dvanda). I am verily the inexhaustible time, I am the dispenser facing every where. And I am the all devouring death. 

I am the prosperity of those who are to be prosperous, and of female qualities I am Fame, Fortune, Speech, Memory, Intelligence, Constancy and Forbearance. Of the Saman hymns I am the Brihat-saman, of mantras I am Gayatri. Of months I am Margasirsha and of seasons, I am the flowering spring. I am the gambling of the fraudulent, I am the splendor of the splendid, I am victory, I am effort, I am the goodness of the good. Of the Vrishnis I am Vasudeva, of the Pandavas, Dhananjaya, of the sages I am Vyasa and of the seers I am Usara the seer, Of punishers I am the scepter; of those that seek victory I am statesmanship, and of secrets I am also silence, and I am the wisdom of the wise, and whatever is the seed of all beings, that am I.

O Arjuna, There is no being whether moving or unmoving that can exist without Me. There is end of My divine manifestations, O harasser of foes; this is only a brief exposition by Me of the extent of My glories. Whatever being there is glorious prosperous or powerful, now that to have sprung but from a spark of My splendor. But what need is there, O Arjuna, for this detailed knowledge, I stand supporting the whole universe with a single fragment of Myself.

CHAPTER XI

VISHVARUPA DARSANA YOGA

 

 Arjuna said: By the profound discourse concerning the self, which you have delivered out of comparison for me, my delusion has been dispelled. From you, O Lotus eyed, have been hard by me in detail of the origin and dissolution of beings and also of your inexhaustible greatness. As you have declared yourself to be, so it is, O Lord Supreme (Yet) I desire to see your Ishwara from O Purushottama. If you O Lord think it possible for me to see it, then does O Lord of Yoga show me your Eternal self?

The Blessed Lord said:  Behold My forms, O Partha by hundreds and thousands, manifold and divine and of multi-colours and shapes. Behold the Adityas, the Vasus, the Rudras, the two Asurins and also the Maruts. Behold, O Bharata many marvels never seen before. Behold here today, O Gudakesa, the whole universe of the moving and the unmoving, and whatever else you desire to see, all integral of My body. But you cannot see. Me with these eyes of yours; I give you divine sight; behold My Supreme Yoga.

Sanjaya said: Having thus spoken, O king, the greet Lord of Yoga, Hari showed to Partha. His supreme Ishwara form, birth many mouths and  eyes, with many marvelous sights, with many divine ornaments, with many uplifted divine weapons; wearing heavenly garlands and raiment’s, anointed with celestial perfumes all wonderful, resplendent, boundless with faces on  all sides. If the splendour of a thousand suns were to blaze forth all at once in the sky, that would be like the splendour of that Mahatma. There in the body of the God of Gods, Pandava then saw the whole universe with its many divisions drawn together into one. Then Dhananjaya, struck with amazement, his hair standing on end, bending down his head to the Lord in adoration, spoke with joined palms.

Arjuna said: I see all the gods. O God, in your body and hosts of all grades of beings. Brahma the Lord, seated on the lotus and all the Rishis and celestial serpents. I behold you, infinite in forms on all sides, with countless arms, stomachs, mouths and eyes, neither your end nor the middle for the beginning do I see, O Lord of the universe, O universal form. I see you with diadem, club and  discus; a mass of radiance blazing everywhere, hard to look at, all round dazzling like flaming fire and sun and immeasurable.

You are the imperishable, the Supreme Being to be realized. You are the great treasure-house of this universe; you are the imperishable Guardian of the Eternal Dharma. You are  the ancient Purusha, I deem, I see you without  beginning ,middle  or end infinite in power, of infinite arms, the sun and the moon being your eyes, the burning fire your Mouth, heating the whole universe with your radiance. This space between heaven and earth and all the quarters are filled by you alone. Having seen this, your marvelous and terrible for, the three worlds are trembling; with fear, O Mahatma. These hosts of Devas indeed enter into you, some in awe extol you with joined palms, bands of great Rishis and Siddhas pronounce,” May it be well” and praise you with sublime hymns.

The Rudras, Adityas, Vasus, Sadhyas Vishvas, Asvins, Maruts, Ushmapas, hosts of Gandharvas, Yakshas, Aswas and Sidddhas - they are all gazing at you and they are amazed. Seeing your immeasurable form with myriad mouths and eyes, O mighty-armed, with myriad arms, thighs and feet, with myriad stomachs and terrible with myriad tusks – the worlds is terror struck and so am I. When I see you touching the sky blazing with many colours, with mouths wide open, with large fiery eyes, my heart trembles in fear and I find neither courage nor peace, O Vishnu, when I see your mouths terrible with tusks resembling Pralaya-fires, I know not the four quarters nor do I find peace.

Be gracious, O Lord of the gods, o Abode of the universe. All the sons of Dhritrashtra, with hosts of kings of the earth, Bhishma, Drona and Sutaputra, with the warrior chiefs of ours, enter hurrying into your mouth, terrible with tusks and fearful to look at. Some are found sticking in the gaps between the teeth with their heads crushed to powder. Truly as the many torrents of river rush towards the ocean, so do these heroes in the world of men fling themselves into your fiercely flaming, mouths? As moths rush headlong into a blazing fire for destruction, so do these creatures hurriedly speed into your mouths for their destruction?

Devouring all the worlds an every side with your flaming mouths. You lick your lips. Your fiery rays, filling the whole world with radiance, are burning, O Vishnu. Tell me who you are, so fierce in form. I bow down to you, O God Supreme; have merry. I desire to know you, the Primal one. I know not your purpose.

The Blessed Lord said:  I am the mighty world-destroying time now engaged in wicking out the world. Even without you the warriors arrayed in hostile armies shall not live. You therefore, arise and obtain fame. Conquer the enemies and enjoy the unrivalled kingdom. By Me have they been verily slain already? You be merely an outward cause. O Sauyasachin, slay Drona, Bhishma,  Jayadratha, Karan and other brave warriors who are already doomed by Me. Be not distressed with fear. Fight and you will conquer your enemies in battle.

Sanjaya said: Having heard that speech of Keshava, the crowned one (Arjuna) with joined palms, trembling, prostrating himself, again addressed Krishna in a chocked voice, bowing down, overwhelmed with fear.

Arjuna said:  It is meet, O Hrishikesha that the world is delighted and rejoices in your praise, Rakshasas fly in fear in all directions, and all the hosts of Siddhas bow to you. And why should they not, O Great souled One, bow to  you greater (than all), the Primal cause, even of Brahma, O infinite Being, O Lord of Gods, O abode of the universe; you are the Imperishable, the being and the non-being, that which is the supreme. You are the Primal God, the ancient Purusha; You are the supreme Abode of all this, you are the knower and the knowable and the supreme Abode, this universe is pervaded by you, O Being  of infinite form, you are Vayu, Yama, Agini, Varuna, the Moon, Prajapati and the great grandfather.

Salutation, salutation to you, a thousand times, and again and again salutation to you. Salutation to you before, salutation to you behind, salutation to you on every side, O All Infinite in might and immeasurable in strength, you pervade all and therefore, you are all. Whatever I have rashly said from carelessness or love, addressing you as “O Krishna, O Yadav, O Sakhti”, looking on you merely as a friend, ignorant of this your greatness, in whatever way I may have insulted you for jest while at play, reposing sitting or at meals, when alone, O Achyuta, or in company – that I implore you, immeasurable one, to forgive.

You are the father of this world moving and unmoving. You are to be adored by this world, you the Greatest Guru; none there exists, who is equal to you in the three worlds; who then can excel you, O Being of unequalled power. Therefore, bowing down, prostrating my body, I implore you, adorable Lord to forgive me. Bear with me, O Lord, as a father with a son, as a friend with a friend as a lower with his beloved. I rejoice that I have seen what was never seen before, but my mind is confounded with fear. Show me that form only, O God, have merry, O God of Gods, O Abode of the universe; I desire to see you as before, crowned bearing a mace and a discus in the hand, in your former form only having four arms. O thousand armed, O universal form.

The Blessed Lord said: Graciously have I shown you, O Arjuna, this supreme form, by My yoga power this resplendent, universal infinite, primeval, which none but you have ever seen, Neither by the study of the Vedas, nor by yajnas, nor by gifts, nor by rituals, nor by severe penances, can this form of Mine be seen in the world of men by any one else but you, O hero of the Kurus. Be not afraid nor bewildered on seeing this terrible form of Mine, free from fear and delighted at heart, do you again see this My former form.

Sanjaya said: Having spoken thus to Arjuna, Vasudeva showed again His own form, and the great souled one assumed his gentle form consoled him who was terrified.

Arjuna said: Having seen this your gentle human form, O Janardhana, I am now composed and am restored to my own nature.

The Blessed Lord said: Very hard it is, indeed, to see this form of Mine which you have seen. Even the Devas are very eager to see this form. Neither by the Vedas, nor by austerity, nor by gift, nor by sacrifice can I be seen in this form as you have seen Me. But by unswerving devotion can I, of this form, be known and seen in reality and also entered into, O Scorcher of foes. He who does work for Me, who is devoted to Me, who is free from attachment, who is without hatred for any being, he comes to me, O Pandava.

CHAPTER XII

BHATKI YOGA

 

Arjuna said: Those devotees who, ever steadfast, worship you thus and those again who worship the imperishable, the unmanifest – which of these are better versed in yoga?

The Blessed Lord said: Those who have fixed their minds on Me and who, ever steadfast and endowed with supreme shraddha, worship Me - them do I consider perfect in yoga. But those who worship the imperishable, the indefinable, the unmanifest, the omnipresent, the unthinkable, the unchangeable, the immovable, the eternal- Having restrained all the senses, even-minded everywhere, engaged in the welfare of all beings - verily they also come into Me.

Greater is their difficult whose minds are set on the unmanifested, for the goal of the unmanifested is very hard for the embodied to reach. But those who worship Me, renouncing all actions in Me, regarding Me a the supreme goal, meditating  on Me with single minded yoga – for them whose thought is set on Me, I  become very soon, O Partha, the  delivers from the ocean of the mortal Sansara. Fix your mind on me alone, let your thoughts dwell in Me. You will hereafter live in Me alone. Of this there is no doubt.

 If you are not able to fix your mind steadily on Me, O Dhananjaya, then seek to reach Me by abhyasa-yoga. If you are unable even to practice Abhyasa Yoga, be you intent on doing actions for My sake, even by performing actions for My sake you will attain perfection. If you are not able to do even this, then taking refuge in Me, abandon the fruits of all actions with the self subdued. Better indeed is knowledge than (formal) abhyasa, better than knowledge is meditation, better than meditation is the renunciation of the fruit of action; peace immediately follows renunciation.

He who hates no being, who is friendly  and compassionate to all, who is free from the  feeling of ‘I and mine’, even minded in pain and pleasure and forbearing ever content, steady in meditation self controlled and possessed of firm conviction, with mind and intellect fixed on Me, he My devotee is dear to Me. He by whom the world is not afflicted and whom the world cannot afflict, he who is free from joy, anger, fear and anxiety-he is dear to Me. He who has no wants, who is pure and prompt, unconcerned, untroubled, and who is selfless in all his undertakings, he who is thus devoted to Me, is dear to Me. He who neither rejoices nor hates nor grieves nor desires, renouncing good and evil, full of devotion, he is dear to Me.

He who is the same  to foe and friend and also in honour and dishonour, who is  the same I cold and heat, in pleasure and pain, who is free from attachment, to who ensure and praise are equal, who is silent, content with every thing, homeless, steady minded, full of devotion - that man is dear to Me. They verily who follow this immortal dharma described above endued with Shraddha, looking upon Me as the supreme goal, and devoted-they are exceedingly dear to Me.

CHAPTER XIII

KSHETRA KSHETRAJNA VIBHAGA YOGA

 

Arjuna said: Prakriti and Purusha, also the Kshetra and Kshetrajna, knowledge and that which ought to be known, these O, Keshava, I desire to learn.

The Blessed Lord said: This body, O Kaunteya, is called kshetra, the field, he who knows it is called kshetrajna by the sages. And know Me as the kshetrajna in all Kshetra, O Bharata. The knowledge of kshetra and kshetrajna is deemed by Me as true knowledge. Hear briefly from Me, what the kshetra is, what properties are, what its modifications are, whence is what, and who He is and what these powers are. This has been sung by rishis in many ways, in various distinctive charts, in passages indicative of Brahman, full of reasoning and convincing.

The great elements, egoism, intellect, as also the unmanifested  the ten senses and the one mind, and the five objects of the senses, desire, hatred, pleasure, pain, the aggregate intelligence, firmness - the kshetra has been thus briefly described with its modifications. Humility, modesty, non injury, forbearance, uprightness, service of the teacher, purity, steadfastness, self control, dispassion towards the objects of  the senses, and also absence of egoism, perception of evil in birth, death, old age, sickness and pain, un-attachment, non identification of self with son, wife,  home  and the like, and constant  equanimity in the occurrence of the desirable and the undesirable, unswerving devotion to Me in yoga of non separation, resort to sequestered places, distaste for the society of men, constancy in self knowledge, perception of the end of the knowledge of Truth, this is declared to be knowledge and what is opposed to it is ignorance.

I shall describe that which has to be known, knowing which one attains to immortality. Beginning less is the supreme Brahman. It is not said to be ‘sat’ or ‘asat’ with hands and feet everywhere, with eyes and mouths everywhere, with ears everywhere. He exists enveloping all. Shining by the functions of all the senses, yet without the senses. Absolute, yet sustaining all, devoid of gunas, yet, He experiences them, without and within all beings, the unmoving and also the moving, because of this subtlety, He is incomprehensible, he is far and near. He is undivided and yet he seems to be divided in beings. He is to be known as the supporter of beings. He devours and he generates the light of all lights, he is said to be beyond darkness, knowledge the knowable, the goal of knowledge seated in the hearts of all. Thus the kshetra, knowledge and that which has to be known has been briefly described My devotee on knowing this, is fitted for My state.
Know that Prakriti and Purusha are both without beginning and know also that all modifications and gunas are born of Prakriti. In the production of the body and the senses, Prakriti is said to be the cause, in the experience of pleasure and pain, Purusha is said to be the cause. Purusha seated in Prakriti, experiences the gunas born of Prakriti, attachment to the gunas is the cause of his birth in good and evil wombs. The supreme Purusha in this body is also called the spectator, the one who permits, the supporter, the one who experiences, the great lord and the supreme self. He who thus knows the Purusha and Prakriti together with the gunas, is never born again, in whatever way he may live.

By meditation some behold the self in the self, others by the yoga of knowledge and yet others by karma yoga. Still others, not knowing thus, worship as they have heard from others, they too go beyond death by their devotion to what they have heard. Whatever being is born, the unmoving or the moving, O best of the Bharatas, know it to be form then union of kshetra and kshetrajna. He sees, who sees the supreme Lord, remaining the same in all beings, the undying in the dying. Because he who sees the Lord, seated the same everywhere destroys not the self by the self, therefore, he reaches the supreme goal.

He verily sees who sees that all actions are done by Prakriti alone and that the Atman is actionless, when he realizes the whole variety of beings as resting in one and in an evolution form that one alone, then he becomes Brahman.  Having no beginning and possessing no gunas, this supreme self, imperishable, though dwelling in the body, O Kaunteya, neither acts nor tainted. As the all pervading akash is not tainted by reason of its subtlety, so the self seated in the body every where is not tainted. As the one sun illumines this whole world, so does the Lord of the kshetra illumines the whole kshetra, O Bharata. They who perceive with the eye of wisdom this distinction between the kshetra and the kshetrajna and the deliverance of beings from the Prakriti, they go to the supreme.

CHAPTER XIV

GUNATRAYA VIBHAGA YOGA

 

The Blessed Lord said: I shall again declare that supreme knowledge, the best of all forms of knowledge by knowing which, all the sages have passed from this world to the highest perfection. They who, having devoted themselves to this knowledge having attained to unity with Me are neither born at the time of creation, nor are they disturbed at the time of dissolution. My womb is the Mahat Brahma (Prakriti), in that I place the germ, thence O Bharata, is the birth of all beings whatever forms are produced; O Kaunteya in any womb whatsoever, the great Brahma (Prakriti) is their womb, I the seed-giving father.

Sattva, Rajas, Tamas - three Gunas, O mighty armed, born of Prakriti, bind the indestructible embodied one fast in the body. Of these Sattva, being stainless is luminous, and un-obstructive. It binds, O sinless one, by creating attachment to happiness and attachment to knowledge. Know Rajas to be of the nature of passion, the source of thirst and attachment, it binds fast, O Kaunteya, the embodied one by attachment to action. But know Tamas to be born of ignorance, deluding all embodied beings, it binds fast, O Bharata, by heedlessness, indolence and sleep.

Sattva binds one to happiness and Rajas to action, O Bharata, while Tamas verily veils knowledge and binds one to heedlessness. Sattva asserts itself, O Bharata, by predominating over Rajas and Tamas, and Rajas over Sattva and Tamas and Tamas over Sattva and Rajas when the light of knowledge beams through all the gateways of the body, then it may be known that Sattva is predominant. Greed, activity, the undertaking of actions unrest, longing-these arise, O best of the Bharatas, when Rajas is predominant. Indiscrimination, inertness, heedlessness and delusion- these arise O joy of Kurus, when Tamas is predominant.

If the embodiment one meets with death when Sattva is predominant, then he goes to the pure worlds of those who know the highest. Meeting with death in Rajas, he is born among those attached to action and dying in Tamas, he is born in the wombs of the deluded. The fruit of good action, they say, is Sattavika and pure; verily the fruit of Rajas is pain, and ignorance is fruit of Tamas. From Sattva rises wisdom and greed from Rajas; heedlessness and error arise from Tamas and also ignorance.

Those who are fixed in Sattva go upwards; the Rajasikas remain in the middle and the Tamasikas, abiding in the functions of the lowest Gunas, go downwards. When the seer perceives no agent other than the Gunas and knows him who is higher than the Gunas, he enters into My Being. The embodied one having crossed over these three Gunas out of which the body is evolved, is freed from birth, death, decay and pain, and attains  to immortality. Arjuna said: what are the marks, O Lord, of him who has crossed over the three Gunas? What is his conduct? And how does he rise above the Gunas? 

The Blessed Lord said: He, O Pandava who hates not light, activity and delusion, when present, nor longs after them when absent. He who, sitting like one unconcerned is moved not b the Gunas, who, knowing that the Gunas operate, is firm and moves not, Balanced in pleasure and pain, self-abiding, viewing a clod of earth, a stone and gold alike; the same to agreeable and disagreeable firm, the same in censure and to raise, the same in honour and dishonour, the same to friend and foe, abandoning all undertakings-he is said to have risen above the Gunas. And he who serves Me with an unswerving devotion, he going beyond the Gunas, is fitted for becoming Brahman for I am abode of Brahman, the Immortal and the Immutable, the Eternal Dharma and Absolute Bliss.

CHAPTER XV

PURSHOTTAMA YOGA

 

The Blessed Lord said: They speak of an imperishable Ashvatha tree with its roots above and branches below. Its leaves are the vedas, he who knows it is the knower of the Vedas. Below and above spread its branches, nourished by the gunas; sense objects are its bunds; and below in the world of men stretch for the roots, engendering action. Its form is not here perceived as such, neither its end, nor its origin, nor its existence. Having cut asunder this firm rooted Ashvatha with the strong axe of non-attachment. Then that goal should be sought for, going whither, they do not return again.

Seek refuge in that primeval Purusha whence streamed forth the eternal activity. Free from pride and delusion, with the evil of attachment conquered, ever dwelling in the self, their desires being completely stilled, liberated from the pairs of opposites known as pleasure and pain, the un-deluded reaches that goal eternal. That the sun illumines not, nor the moon, nor fire; that is My Supreme abode, going whither they return not. An eternal portion of Myself having become the jiva in the world of jivas, attracts the senses, with mind as the sixth, abiding in Prakriti when the Lord obtains a body and when he leaves it, he takes these and goes, as the wind carries the scents from their sources.

Presiding over the ear, the eye, the touch, the taste, and the smell, as also the mind, he experiences objects. The deluded do not see him who departs, stays and enjoys, who is conjoined with the Gunas, but they see who possesses the eye of wisdom. Those who strive endued with yoga, cognize him dwelling in the self; though striving, the undefined and unintelligent see Him not. That light which residing in the sun illumines the whole world, that which is in the moon and in the fire-know that light to be Mine. Entering the earth I support all beings; by My energy and having become the sapid moon. I nourish all herbs. Abiding in the body of living beings as Vaisvanara, associated with Prana and Aprana, I digest the four kind of food. And I am seated in the hearts of all from Me are memory, knowledge, as well as their loss.

I am verily that which has to be known by all the Vedas, I am indeed the author of the Vedanta as well as the knower of the Vedas. There are two Purusha in the world, the perishable and the imperishable, and the Kutastha is called the imperishable. But distinct is the Supreme Purusha called the highest self, the indestructible Lord, who pervades and sustains the three worlds. As I transcend the perishable, and am even above the imperishable, therefore, I am known in the world and in the Veda as ‘Purushottama’ the highest Purusha. He, who un-deluded, knows Me as the highest Self – he knows all, O Bharata, and he worships Me with all his heart. Thus, O sinless one, has this most profound teaching being imparted by Me, knowing this a man becomes enlightened, O Bharata, and all his duties are accomplished.

CHAPTER XVI

DAIVASURA SAMPAD VIBHAGA YOGA

 

The Blessed Lord said: Fearlessness, purity of heart, steadfastness in knowledge and yoga, alms giving, control of the senses, yajna, study of the scriptures, austerity and straightforwardness, non-injury, truth, absence of anger, renunciation, serenity, absence of calumny, compassion to beings, un -covetousness, gentleness, modesty, absence of fickleness, vigor, forgiveness, fortitude, purity, absence of hatred, and absence of pride. These belong to one born for a divine state.

O Bharata, ostentation, arrogance and self conceit, anger and also harshness and ignorance belong to one who is born, O Partha, for a demoniac state. The divine nature is deemed for liberation, the demoniacal for bondage; grieve not, O Pandava, you are born for a divine state. There are two types of beings in this world, the divine and the demoniacal; the divine has been described at length, hear from Me, O Partha, of the demoniacal. The demoniac know not what to do and what to refrain from; neither purity, nor right conduct nor truth is found in them. They say:

“the universe is unreal, without a moral basis, without a God, born of mutual union, brought about by lust, what else?”

Holding this view, these ruined souls of small intellect, of fierce deeds, rise as the enemies of the world for its destruction. Filled with insatiable desires, full of hypocrisy, pride and arrogance, holding evil ideas through delusion, they work with impure resolve. Beset with immense cares ending, only with death, regarding gratification of lust as the highest, and feeling sure that that is all. Bound by a hundred ties of hope, given over to lust and anger, they strive to secure by unjust means hoards of wealth for sensual enjoyment.

“This today has been gained by me, this desire I shall fulfill; this is mine, and this earth also shall be mine in future. That enemy has been slain by me, and others also shall I slay. I am a lord, I enjoy, I am successful, powerful and happy. I am rich and well born who else is equal to me? I will sacrifice.”

 Thus deluded by ignorance bewildered by many a fancy, enmeshed in the senses of delusion, addicted to the gratification of lust, they fall into foul hell. Given over to egoism, power, insolence lust and wrath, these malicious people hate me in their own bodies and in those of others. Those cruel haters, worst among men in the world, I hurt these evil doers for ever into the wombs of the demons only. Entering into demoniac wombs, the deluded ones, in birth after birth, without ever reaching Me, they thus fall, O Kaunteya, into a condition still lower. Triple is this gate of hell, destructive of the self – lust, anger and greed; therefore should one abandon these three. The man who is liberated from these three gates to darkness, O Kaunteya, practices what is good for him and thus goes to the Supreme God. He who casting aside the ordinances of the scriptures, acts on the impulse of desire, attains not perfection, nor happiness nor the Supreme Goal. Therefore, let the scriptures be your authority in deciding what ought to be done and what ought not to be done. Having known what is said in the ordinance of the scriptures you should act here.

CHAPTER XVII

SRADDHATRAYA VIBHAGA YOGA

 

Arjuna said: What is the nature of the devotion of those, O Krishna, who though disregarding the ordinance of the Shastras, perform sacrifice with Shraddha? Is it one of Sattva, Rajas or Tamas.

The Blessed Lord said: The shraddha of the embodied is of three kinds, borne of their nature - the Sattavika the Rajasika and the Tamasika. Hear now about it. The Shraddha of every man, O Bharata, is in accordance with his natural disposition. Man is of the nature of Shraddha; what is shraddha is that verily he is. Sattavika men worship the Devas. Rajasika, the Yakshas and the Rakshasas, the others - the Tamasika men-the Pretas and the notes of Bhutas.

Those men who practice violent austerities not enjoined by the scriptures, given to hypocrisy and egoism, impelled by the force of best and attachment. Fools that they are, they torture their bodily organs and Me, too, who dwell within the body-know that they are Asurika in their resolve. The food also that is dear to all is of three kinds. So are the Yajnas, austerities and gifts. Hear now of the distinction of these.

The foods that augment vitality, energy, vigour, health, joy and cheerfulness which are savory and epigenous, substantial and agreeable are liked by the Sattavika. The food that is bitter, sour, saline, over hot pungent, dryad burning are liked by the Rajasika, and are productive of pain, grief and disease. That which is stale, tasteless, stinking, cooked overnight refuse and impure is the food liked by the Tamasika.

That Yajna is Sattavika which is performed by men desiring no fruit as enjoined by ordinance, with their mind fixed on the Yajna only for its own sake. That which is performed, O best of the Bharatas, in expectation of reward or for self- glorification, know it to be a Rajasika Yajna. They declare that Yajna to be Tamasika which is contrary to the ordinances, in which no food is distributed, which is devoid of mantras, gifts and Shraddha. Worship the Gods of the twice born, of teachers and of the wise, purity, uprightness, continence and non-injury – there are said to be the austerity of the body.

The speech which causes no excitement which is truthful pleasant and beneficial and also the practice of sacred recitation- these are said to form the austerity of speech. Serenity of mind, gentleness, silence, self control and purity of disposition – this is called the mental austerity.

This threefold austerity practiced by steadfast men with the utmost Shraddha, desiring no fruit they call Sattavika. The austerity which is practiced with the object of gaining respect, honour and reverence and with ostentation is here said to be Rajasika, it is unstable and transitory. That austerity which is practiced with a foolish obstinacy, with self torture or for the purpose of destroying another, is declared to be Tamasika.

That gift which is made to one who can make no return, with the feeling that it is one’s duty to give, and which is given at the  right place and time and to a worthy person, that gift is held Sattavika. And that gift which is given with a view to receive in return, or looking for the fruit, or again grudgingly is accounted as Rajasika. The gift that is given at a wrong place or time, to unworthy persons, without respect or with insult that is declared to be Tamasika.

“Om Tat Sat”, this has been declared to be the triple designation of Brahman. By that were mode of the Brahmans, the Vedas and the Tamas. Therefore, with the utterance of “Om” are the acts of sacrifice, gift and austerity, as enjoined in the scriptures, always undertaken by the followers of the Vedas.  Uttering “Tat” without aiming at the fruits, are the acts of sacrifice and austerity and the various acts of gifts performed by the seekers of Moksha. The word “Sat” is used in the sense of reality and of goodness; and so, also, O Partha, the word “Sat” is used in the sense of an auspicious act. Steadfastness in sacrifice, austerity and gift is also called “Sat” and action for the sake of the Lord is also called “Sat” whatever is sacrifice, given or performed and whatever austerity is practiced without Shraddha, it is called Asat, O Partha. It is of no account, here or hereafter.

CHAPTER XVIII

 MOKSHA SANYASA YOGA

 Arjuna said: I desire to know severally, O mighty-armed, the truth of Sanyasa, O Hrishikesha, as also of Tyaga O slayer of Kesi.

The Blessed Lord said:  The renunciation of kamya karma, the sages understand as Sanyasa, the wise declare that the abandonment of the fruits of all work as tyaga. Some sages declare that all action should be relinquished as evil, while other say that yajna, gift and austerity should not be relinquished. Learn from Me the truth about this abandonment, O best of the Bharatas. Abandonment, verily O best of men, has been declared to be of three kinds. Acts of yajna, gift and austerity should not be given up, but should be performed; yajna, gift and austerity are purifying to the wise. But even these actions should be performed giving up attachment and the fruits, O Partha, this is My certain and best belief.

Verily, the abandonment of any obligatory duty is not proper; such abandonment out of ignorance is declared to be Tamasika. He who from far of bodily trouble abandons action, because it is painful, thus performing a Rajasika abandonment, obtains not the fruit thereof. Whatever obligatory work is done, O Arjuna, merely because it ought to be done, abandoning/attachment and also fruit, that abandonment is deemed to be Sattavika. The relinquisher imbued with Sattva and a steady understanding and with his doubts dispelled, hates not a disagreeable work nor is the attached to an agreeable one.

It is indeed impossible for an embodied being to renounce action entirely. But he who renounces the fruit of action is regarded as one who has renounced. The threefold fruit of action wise, good and mixed accrues after death to one who does not relinquish but there is none ever for the one who renounces, Learn from Me, O mighty armed, these five factors in the accomplishment of all actions, as taught in the Sankhya which  is the end of action. The body, the agent, the various senses, the different functions of various sorts, and the presiding deity also the fifth.

    Whatever action a man performs with his body, speech or mind, whether right or wrong-these five are its causes. That being so, the man of perverse mind, who  on account of his imperfect understanding looks upon the self, the absolute, as the  agent – he dos not see at all. He who is free from the notions of egoism and whose understanding is not tainted – though he kills these people, he kills not, nor is rebound.  Knowledge the object of knowledge and the knower form the threefold incitement to action; and the instrument, the object and the agent are the three fold constituents of action.

    Knowledge action and actor are declared in the science of Gunas to be of three kinds only, according to the distinction of Gunas; hear of them also as they are. The knowledge by which the one imperishable Being is seen in all existences, undivided in the divided, knows that that knowledge is Sattavika. But that knowledge by which one sees in all beings manifold entities of different kinds as varying from one another- know that that knowledge is Rajasika. And the knowledge that clings to one single effect as if it were the woke, and is without reason, without foundation in truth, and trivial – that knowledge is declared to be Tamasika.

    An action which is ordained which is free from attachment, which is done without love or hatred by one not desirous of the fruit, the action is declared to be Sattavika. But that action which is done by one craving for desires, or again with egoism, or with much effort, that is declared to be Rajasika. That action which is undertaken from delusion, without heed to the consequences, loss, injury and ability that is declared to be Tamasika.

    An agent, who is free from attachment, non-egoistic, endued with firmness and zeal and unaffected by success or failure, is called Sattavika. Passionate, desiring to obtain the fruit of action, greedy, cruel, impure, moved by joy and sorrow- such an agent is said to be Rajasika. Unsteady, vulgar, stubborn, deceitful malicious, indolent, despondent, procrastinating such an agent is called Tamasika.

Hear the threefold distinction of understanding and firmness, according to the Gunas, as I explain them exhaustively and severally, O Dhananjaya. The intellect which knows the paths of work and renunciation, right and wrong action,  fear and fearlessness, bondage and liberation- that intellect, O Partha, is Sattavika. The intellect that makes a distorted group of dharma and adharma, of what ought to be done, and what ought not to be done – that O Partha, is Rajasika. Tat which enveloped in darkness, regards adharma as dharma and views all things in a perverted way, that intellect, O Partha, is Tamasika.

The unswerving firmness by which, through yoga, the functions of the mind, the Prana and the senses are regulated, that firmness, O Partha, is Sattavika. But the firmness, O Arjuna, by which one holds fast to Dharma, Kamaand Artha, desirous of the fruit of each from attachment, that firmness, O Partha, is Rajasika. That by which a  stupid man do not give up sleep, fear, grief, despair and also conceit, that firmness, O Partha, is Tamasika.

And now hear from Me, O Chief of the Bharatas the three kinds of happiness. That in which a comes to rejoice by along practice and in which he reaches the end of his sorrow. That which is like poison at first, but like nectar at the end; that happiness is said to be Sattavika, born of the translucence of intellect due to self realization. That happiness which arises from the contact of the senses and their objects and which like nectar at first but like poison at the end it is held to be Rajasika. That happiness which deludes the self both at the beginning and at the end and which arises from sleep, sloth and miscomprehension – that is declared to be Tamasika.

There is no being on earth, or again in heaven among the Devas, that is liberated from the three Gunas, born of Prakriti. The duties of Brahmans, Kshatriyas and Vaishyas as also of Shudras, O scorcher of foes, are distributed according to the Gunas born of their own nature.

Serenity, self restraint, austerity, purity, forgiveness, and also uprightness, knowledge, realization belief in a hereafter – these are  the duties of  the Brahmans, born of their own nature. Heroism, vigour, firmness, resourcefulness, not flying from battle, generosity and lordliness are the duties of the Kshatriyas born of their own nature.

Agriculture, cattle rearing and trade are the duties of the Vaisyas, born of their own nature; and action consisting of services is the duty of the Shudras born of their own nature. Devoted each to his own duty, man attains the highest perfection.

How engaged in his own duty, he attains perfection, that do you hear. He from whom is the evolution of all beings, by whom all  this is pervaded, worshipping him with his own duty, man attains perfection. Better is one’s own dharma, though imperfect, than the dharma of another well performed. He who does the duty ordained by his own nature incurs no sin. One should not abandon, O Kaunteya, the duty to which one is born, though it is attended with evil; for all undertakings are enveloped by evil, as fire by smoke.

He whose intellect is unattached everywhere, who has subdued his self, from whom desire has disappeared, he by renunciation attains the supreme state of freedom from action. Learn from Me in brief, O Kaunteya, how reaching such perfection, he attains to Brahman that supreme consummation of knowledge.

Endowed with pure understanding, restraining the self with firmness, turning away from sound and other objects, and abandoning attraction and aversion. Dwelling in solitude eating but little, speech, body and mind subdued, always engaged in meditation and concentration, endued with dispassion. Having abandoned egoism, violence, arrogance, desire, enmity, property, free from the notion of “mine” and peaceful, he is fit for becoming Brahman. Becoming Brahman, serene minded he neither grieves, nor desires, the same to all beings; he obtains supreme devotion to Me.

By devotion he knows Me in truth, what and who I am, then having known Me in truth, he forthwith enters into Me. Doing continually  all actions whatsoever, taking refuge in Me, by My grace he reaches the eternal  undecaying Abode. Mentally resigning all deeds to Me, having Me as the highest goal, resorting to Buddhi yoga, do you ever fix your mind on Me. Fixing your mind on Me, you will by My grace, overcome all obstacles, but if from egoism you will not hear Me, You will perish. If filled with egoism, you think “I will not fight” vain is this, your resolve; your nature will compel you. Bound by your  own karma born of your nature, that which from delusion you wish not to do, even that you shall do helplessly against your will.

O Kaunteya, the lord dwells in the hearts of  all beings, O Arjuna, and by his maya causes all beings to resolve  as though mounted  on a machine. Seek refuge in Him alone with al your heart, O Bharata. By his grace you will gain supreme peace and the eternal abode. Thus has wisdom more profound than all profundities been declared to you by Me.

Reflect upon it fully and act as you choose. Listen again to My supreme word, the profoundest of all. You are beloved of Me and steadfast of heart; therefore, I shall tell what is for you good. Fix your mind  on Me, be devoted to Me, sacrifice to Me, prostrate before Me, so shall you come to Me. This is My pledge to you, for you are dear to Me. Renounce all dharma and take refuge in Me alone. I shall liberate you from all sins, grieve not.

This is never to be spoken by you to one who is devoid of austerities, nor to one who is not devoted, nor to one who does not do service, nor to one who speaks ill of Me. He who with supreme devotion to Me will teach this immensely profound philosophy to My devotees, shall doubtless cone to Me alone. Nor is there any among men who renders dearer service to Me than he, nor shall there be another on earth dearer to Me then he.

And he who will study this sacred dialogue of ours, by him I shall have been worshipped by Jnana Yajna, such is My conviction. And the man, who fears this full of faith and free from scoff – even he, liberated from evil, shall attain the auspicious regions of righteous. Has this been heard by you, O Partha, with an attentive mind? Has the delusion of your ignorance been destroyed, O Dhananjaya?

Arjuna said: My delusion is destroyed. I have regained my memory through your grace, O Achyuta, I am firm, I am free from doubt. I shall act according to your word.

Sanjaya said: Thus have I heard this wonderful dialogue between Vasudeva and the high souled Partha, causing my hair to stand on end. Through the grace of Vyasa have I heard the supreme and most profound yoga direct from Krishna, the Lord of Yoga, himself declaring it? O King, as I recall again and again this wonderful and holy dialogue between Keshava and Arjuna I rejoice again and again. And as often as I recall that most wondrous form of Hari, great is my astonishment, O King, and I rejoice again and again. Wherever Krishna is, is Partha, the wielder of the bow, there are prosperity, victory, expansion, and sound policy, such is my conviction.

 …SRI KRISHNA PRANAM…

    So you think that money is the root of all evil? Have you ever asked what is the root of money? Money is a tool of exchange, which can’t exit unless there are goods produced and man able to produce them. Money is the material shape of the principle that man who wishes to deal with one another must deal by trade and give value for value. Money is not the tool of the moochers, who claim your   produce by tears, or of the looters, who take it from you by force. Money is made possible by the man who produces…”
   
    When you accept money in payment of your effort, you do so only on the conviction that you will exchange it for the product of the effort of others. It is not the moochers or the looters who give value to money. Not an ocean of tears nor all the guns in the world can transform those pieces of paper in your wallet into the bread you will need to survive tomorrow. Those pieces of paper, which should have been gold, are a token of honor – your claim upon the energy of the men who produce. Your wallet is your statement of hope that somewhere in the world around you there are men who will not default on that moral principle which is the root of money…”

    Have you ever asked for the root of production? Take a look at an electric generator and dace tell yourself that it was created by the muscular effort of unthinking brutes. Try to grow a seed of wheat without the knowledge left to you by men who had to discover it for the first time. Try to obtain your food by means of nothing but physical motions – and you’ll learn that man’s mind is the root of all the goods produced and of all the wealth that has ever existed on earth.

    But you say that money is made by the strong at the expense of the weak? What strength to you mean? It is not the strength of gurus or muscles. Wealth is the product of man’s capacity to think. Then is money made by the man who invents a motor at the expenses of those who did not invent it. Is money made by the intellectual at the expense of the fools? By the able at the expense of the incompetent? By the ambitious at the expense of the lazy? Money is made – before it can be looted or mooched – made by the effort of every honest man, each to the extent of his ability. An honest man is one who knows that he can’t consume more than he has produced.”

    To trade by means of money is the code of the men of good will. Money rests on the axiom that every man is the owner of this mind and his effort. Money allows no power to proscribe the value of your effort except the voluntary choice of the man who is willing to trade you his effort in return. Money permits you to obtain for your goods and your labour that which they are worth to the men who buy them, but no more money permits no deal except those to mutual benefit by the unforced judgment of the traders. Money demands of you the recognition that men must work of their own benefit, not for their own injury, for their gain, not their loss- the recognition that they are not beasts of burden, born to carry the weight of your money – that you must offer them values, not wounds – that the common bond among men is not the exchange of suffering, but the exchange of goods. Money demands that you sell, not your weakness to men’s stupidity, but your talent to their reason, it demands that you buy, not the shoddiest they offer, but the best that your money can find. And when men live by trade- with reason, not force, as their find arbiter – it is the product that wins, the best performance, the man of best judgment and highest ability – and the degree of man’s productiveness is the degree of this reward. This is the code of existence whose tool and symbol is money…

    But money is only a tool. It will take you wherever you wish, but it will not replace you as the driver. It will give you the means of the satisfaction of your desires, but it will not provide you will desires. Money is the scourge of the men who attempt to reverse the law of causality- the men who seek to replace the mind by seizing the products of the mind.

    Money will not purchase happiness for the man who has not concept of what he wants. Money will not give him code of values, if he’s evaded the knowledge of what to value, and it will not provide him with a purpose, if he’s evaded the choice of what to seek. Money will not buy intelligence for the fool, or admiration for the coward, or respect for the incompetent. The man, who attempts to purchase the brains of his superiors to serve him with his money replacing his judgment, ends up by becoming the victim of his inferiors. The men of intelligence desert him, but the cheats and the frauds come flocking to him, drawn by a law which he has not discovered: that no man may be smaller than his money.

    Only the man who does not need it, is fit to inherit wealth - the man who would make his own fortune no matter where he started. If an heir is equal to his money, it serves him, if not, it destroys him. But you look on and you cry that money corrupted him. Did it? Or did he corrupt his money? Do not envy a worthless heir, his wealth is not yours and you would have done no better with it. Do not think that is should have been distributed among you: loading the world with fifty parasites instead of one would not bring back the dead virtue which was the fortune. Money is a living power that dies without its roots. Money will not serve the mind that cannot match it. “Money is your means of survival. The verdict you pronounce upon the source of your livelihood is the verdict you pronounce upon your life. If the source is corrupt, you have demand your own existence. Did you get your money by fraud? By pandering to men’s vices or men’s stupidity? By catering to fools, in the hope of getting more than your ability deserves? By lowering your standards? By doing work you despise for purchases you scorn?  If so, then your money will not give you a moments or a penny’s worth of joy. Then all the things you buy will become, not a tribute to you, but a reproach, not an achievement but a reminder of shame. Then you will scream that money is evil. Evil, because it would not pinch-hit for your self respect? Evil, because it would not let you enjoy your depravity? Is this the root of your hatred for money?       
“Money will always remain an effect and refuse to replace you as the cause. Money is product of virtue, but it will not give you virtue and it will not redeem your vices. Money will not give you the unearned, neither in matter nor in spirit. Is this the root of your hatred for money?

    Or did you say it’s the love of money that is the root of all evil? To love a thing is to know and love to love its nature. To love money is to know and love the fact that money is the creation of the best power within you, and your passkey to trade your effort for the effort of the best among men. It’s the person who would sell his soul for a hiker who is loudest in proclaiming his hatred of money and he has good reason to hate it. The lovers of money are willing to work for it. They know they are able to deserve it.

    Let me give you a tip on a clue to men’s characters: the man who damns money has obtained it dishonorably; the man who respects its has earned it.

    Run for your life from any man who tells you that money is evil. That sentenced is the leper’s bell of an approaching looter. So long as men live together on earth and need means to deal with one another – their only substitute, if they abandon money, is the muzzle of a gun.

    But money demands of you the highest virtues, if you wish to make it or keep it. Men who have no courage, pride or self-esteem , men who have no moral sense of their right to then money  and are not willing to  defend it as they defend then life, men who apologize  for being rich-will not remain Richford long. They are the natural bait for the swarms of looters that stay under rocks for centuries, but come crawling  out at the first smell of a men who begs to be  forgiven for the guilt of  owing wealth. They will hasten to relieve him of the guilt and of his life, as he deserves.

    Then you will see the rise of the men of the double standards- the men who live by force, yet count on those who live by trade to create the value of their looted money- the men who are the hitchhikers of virtue. In a moral society, these are the criminals and the statute is written to protect you against them. But when a society establishes criminals - by- right and looters-by- laws –men who use force to seize the wealth of disarmed victims – then money becomes its creator’s avenger. Such looters believe it safe to rob defenseless men, once they’ve passed a law to disarm them. But their loot becomes the magnet for other looters, who get it from them as they got it. Then the race goes, not to the oblast at production. But to those most ruthless at brutality. When force is the standards, the murderer wins over the pickpocket. And then the society vanishes, in a spread of ruins and slaughter.

    Do you wish to know whether that day is coming? Watch money. Money is the barometer of a society’s virtue. When you see that trading is done, not by consent, but by compulsion-when you see that in order to produce, you need to obtain permission from men who produce nothing-when you see that money is  flowing to those who deal not I goods, but  in favours -when  you see that  men get richer  by graft and by pull than by work, and you laws don’t protect you  against them, but protect them against you – when you see corruption being rewarded and honesty becoming a self-sacrifice- you may know  that your society is doomed. Money is so noble a medium that it does not complete with guns and it does not make terms with brutality. It will not permit a country to survive a shelf-property, half-loot.

    Whenever destroyers appear among men, they start by destroying money, for money is men’s protection and the base of a moral existence. Destroyers seize gold and leave to its owners a counterfeit pile of paper. This kills all objective standards and delivers men into the arbitrary power of an arbitrary setter of values. Gold was an objective value, an equivalent of wealth produced. Paper is a mortgage as wealth that does not exist, backed by a gun aimed at those who are expected to produce it. Paper is a check drawn by legal looters upon an account which is not theirs; upon the virtue of the victims. Watch for the day when it bounced, marked ‘Account overdrawn?

    When you have made evil the means of survival, do not expect men to remain good. Do not expect them to stay moral and lose their lives for the purpose of becoming the fodder of the immoral. Do not expect them to produce, when production is punished and looting rewarded. Do not ask, ‘who is destroying the world you are’.

    You stand in the midst of the greatest achievements of the greatest productive civilization and you wonder why it’s crumbling around you, which you’re damning its life blood-money. You look upon money as the savages did before you, and you wonder why the single is creeping back to the edge of your cities. Throughout men’s history, money was always seized by looters of one brand or another, whose means changed, but  whose method remained the same; to seize wealth by force and to keep the producers bound, demeaned defamed, deprived of honor.  That phrase about the evil of money, which you mouth with such recklessness, comes from a time when wealth was produced by the labour of slaves-slaves who repeated the motions and discovered by somebody’s mind and let unimproved for centuries. So long as production was ruled by force, and wealth was obtained by conquest, there was little to conquer. Yet through all the centuries of stagnation and starvation, men exalted the looters, as aristocrats of the sour as aristocrats of birth, as aristocrats of the bureau, and despised the producers, as slaves, trader, as shopkeepers-as industrialists.”   

    To the glory of mankind, there was, for the first and only time in history, a century of money- and I have no higher , more reverent tribute to pay to America, for this means; a  country of reason, justice, freedom, production, achievement. For the  first time, man’s mind and money were set free and there were no fortunes by conquest, but only fortune-by-work and  instead of  swordsmen and  slaves, there appeared the  real makers of wealth, the greatest worker, the highest type of human being- the self - made man the American industrialists.”

    If you ask me to name the proudest distinction of Americans, I would choose - because it contains all the others – the fact that they were the people who created the phrase ‘to make money’. No other language or nation had ever used these words before, men had always thought of wealth as a static quantity- to be seized, begged, inherited, shared, looted or obtained as a favour. Americans were the first to understand that wealth has to be created. The words ’to make money’ hold the essence of human morality.

    Yet these were the words for which Americans were denounced by the rotted cultures of the looters’ continents, Now the looters’ credo has brought you to regard your proudest achievements as a hallmark of shame, your prosperity as guilt, your greatest men, the industrialists, as black guards, and your magnificent factories as the product and property of muscular labour, the labour of whip driven slaves, like the pyramids of Egypt. The rotter who simpers that he sees no difference between the powers of the dollar and the power of the whip, ought to learn the difference on his own hide- as I think he will.

    Until and unless you discover that money is the root of all good, you ask for your own destruction. When money ceases to be the tool by which men deal with one another, the mean become the tools of men. Blood, whips and guns – or dollars.  Take your choice – there is no other – and your time is running out.”
Atlas Shrugged - Ayn Rand - p. 380-385

    Do you remember what I said about money and about the men who seek to revere the law of cause and effect? The men who try to replace the mind by seizing the products of the mind? Well, the man who despises himself tries to gain self-esteem from sexual adventure - which can’t be done, because sex is not the cause, but an effect and an expression of a man’s sense of his own values.”

    “You’d better explain that.”

    “Did it ever occur to you that it’s the same issue? The men who think that wealth comes from   material resources and  has no intellectual root or meaning, are the men who think – for the same reason – that sex is a physical capacity which functions independently  of one’s mind, choice or code of values. They think that your body creates a desire and makes a choice for you just about in some such way as if iron ore transformed itself into railroad sails of its own volition. Love is blind, they say: sex is impervious to reason and mocks the power of all philosophers. But, in fact, a man’s sexual choice is the result and the sum of his fundamentals convictions. Tell me what man finds sexually attractive and I will tell you his entire philosophy of life. Show me the woman he sleeps with and I will tell you his valuation of himself. No matter what corruption his taught about the virtue of selflessness, sex is the most profoundly selfish of all acts, an act which he cannot perform for any motive but his own enjoyment – just try to think of performing it in a spirit of selfless charity ! – an act which is not possible in self –abasement, only in self exaltation, only in the confidence of being desired and being worthy of desire. It is an act that forces him to stand naked in spirit, as well as in body, and to accept his real ego as his standard of value. He will always be attracted to the woman whose surrender permits him to experience – or to fake- a sense of self esteem. The man who is proudly certain of his own values, will want the highest type of woman he can find, the woman he admires, the strongest, the  hardest to conquer-because  only the possession of a heroine will give him the sense of  an achievement, not the possession of a brainless slut…

    He does not seek to gain his value, he seeks to express it . There is no conflict between the standards of his mind and the desires of his body. But the man who is convinced of his own worthlessness will be drawn to a woman he despises – because she will reflect his own secret self, she will release him from that objective reality I which he is a fraud, she will give him a momentary illusion of his own value and a momentary escape from the moral code that dames him. Observe the ugly mess which most men make of their sex lives – and observe the mess of contradictions which they hold as their moral philosophy. One proceeds from the other. Love is our response to our highest values – and can be nothing else.  Let a men corrupt his values and his view of existence, let him profess that love is not self-employment but self-denial, that virtue consists not of pride, but of pity or pain or weakness or sacrifice, that the noblest love is born, not of admiration, but of charity, not in response to values, but in response to flaws - and he will have cut himself into two. His body will not obey him, it will not respond, it will make him impotent towards the women he professes to love and draw him to the lowest type of whore he can find. His body will always follow the ultimate logic of his deepest conviction, if he believes that flaws are values, he has damned existence as evil and only the evil attract him. He has damned himself and he will feel that depravity is all he is worthy of enjoying. He has equated virtue with pain and he will feel that vice is the only realm of pleasure. Then he will scream that his body has vicious desires of its own which his mind cannot conquer, that sex is sin, that true love is a pure emotion of the spirit. And then he will wonder why love beings him nothing but boredom, and sex nothing but shame.”

…

    “You do see that it’s the same issue? No, you’d never accept any part of their vicious creed. You wouldn’t be able to force it upon yourself. If you tried to damn sex as evil, you’d still find of yourself, against your will, acting on the proper moral premise. You’d be attracted to the highest woman you met.  You’d always want a heroine. You’d be incapable of self – contempt. You’d be unable to believe that existence is evil and that you’re a helpless creature caught in an impossible universe. You’re the man who’s spent his life shaping matter to the purpose of his mind. You’re  the man who would know that just as an idea unexpressed in physical action is contemptible hypocrisy, so is  platonic love – and just as physical action unguided by an idea is a fool’s self-fraud, so is sex when cut off from one’s code of values. It’s the same issue and you would know it. Your inviolate sense of self esteem would know it. You would be incapable of desire for a woman you despised. Only the man, who extols the purity of a love devoid of desire, is capable of the depravity of a desire devoid of love. But observe that most people are creatures cut in half who keep swinging desperately to one side or to the other. One kind of half is the man who despises money, factories, sky scrapers and his own body. He holds undefined emotions about non-conceivable subjects as the meaning of life and as his claim to virtue. And he cries with despair, because he can feel nothing for the woman he respects, but finds himself in bondage to an respectable passion for a slut from the gutter. He is the man whom people call an idealist. The other kind of half is the man whom people call practical, the man who despises principles, abstractions, art, philosophy and his own mind. He regards the acquisition of material objects as the only goal of existence - and he laughs at the need to consider their purpose or their source. He expects them to give him pleasure – and he wonders why the more he gets the less he feels. He is a man who spends his time chasing women. Observe the triple fraud which he perpetrates upon himself. He will not acknowledge his need of self-esteem, since he scoffs at such a concept as moral value, yet he feels the profound self – contempt which comes from believing that he is a piece of meat. He will not acknowledge, but he knows that sex is the physical expression of a tribute to personal values. So he tries by going through the motions of the effect, to acquire that which should have been the cause. He tries to gain a sense of his own value from the women who surrender to him-and he forgets that the women he picks have neither character nor judgment nor standards of values. He tells himself that all he’s after is physical pleasure – but observe that he tires of his women in a week or  a night, that he despises professional whores and that he loves to imagine he is reducing virtuous girls who make a great exception for his sake. It is the feeling of achievements that he seeks and never finds, what glory can there be in the conquest of a mindless body? 
Atlas Shrugged - Ayn Rand - p.453-455

…

That night and the weeks that followed, Michael Corleone came to understand the premium put on virginity by socially primitive people. It was a period of sensuality that he had never before experienced, a sensuality mixed with a feeling of masculine power. Apothem in those first days became almost his slave. Given trust, given affection, a young full blooded girl aroused from virginity to erotic awareness was delicious as an exactly ripe fruit. 
Godfather – Mario Puzo - p. 343

…

“You are making the same mistake as that woman, Mr. Rearden, though in a nobler form:.
“What do you mean”
“ I mean much more than just your judgment of me. The woman and all those like her keep evading the thoughts which they know to be good. You keep pushing out of your mind the thoughts which you believe to be evil. They do it, because they want to avoid effort. You do it because you won’t permit yourself to consider anything that would spare you. They indulge their emotions at any cost. You sacrifice your emotions at the first cost of any problem. They are willing to bear nothing. You are willing to ever anything. They keep evading responsibility. You keep assuming it. But don’t you see that the essential error is the same. Any refusal to recognize reality, for any reason whatever, has disastrous consequences. There are no evil thoughts except one: the refusal to think. Don’t ignore your own desires. Don’t sacrifice them. Examine their cause. There is a limit to how much you should have to bear.”
Atlas Shrugged  - Ayn Rand - p.387

“Did it ever occur to you……that  there is no conflict of interests among men, neither in business nor in trade nor in their most personal desires – if they omit the  irrational  from the view of the possible and destruction from their view of the  practical? There is no conflict, and no call for sacrifice, and no man is a threat to the aims of another – if men understand that reality is an absolute not to be faked, that lies do not work, that the unearned cannot be had, that the undeserved cannot be given, that the destruction of a value which is, will not bring value to that which isn’t. The businessman who wishes to gain a market by throttling a superior competitor, the  worker who wants to share his employer’s wealth, the artist who  envies a rival’s higher talent – they’re all wishing facts out of existence, and destruction is the only means of their wish. If they pursue it, they will not achieve a market, a fortune or an immortal fame-they will merely destroy production, employment and art. A wish for the irrational is not to be achieved, whether the sacrificial victims are willing or not. But men will not cease to desire the impossible and will not lose them longing to destroy- so long as self- destruction and self-sacrifice are practical to them as the practical means of achieving the happiness of the recipient.
…No one’s happiness but my own is in my power to achieve or to destroy. You should have had more respect for him and for me than to fear what you had feared.”                                                                                                                                  
Atlas Shrugged - Ayn Rand - p. 731-732

…

The fountain of nobler sentiments never dries up beyond redemption in the human breast, however object and mean the individual may be.

…

Death when unnecessary is a tragic thing.

…

Marie Antoinette was neither the great saint of royalism nor yet the great whore of revolution, but a mediocre, an average woman; not exceptionally able nor yet exceptionally foolish, neither fire nor ice, devoid of any vigorous wise to do good and of the remotest inclination to do evil, the average woman of yesterday, today and tomorrow; lacking impulse towards the demonic uninspired by the will of heroism and therefore (one might fancy) unsuited to become the heroine of a tragedy. But history, the demiurge, can construct a profoundly moving drama even though there is nothing heroic about its leading personalities. Tragically tension is not solely conditioned by the mighty lineament of centre figures, but also by a disproportion between man and his destiny. This disproportion is invariably tragically. It may manifest itself dramatically when a titan, a hero, a genius find himself in conflict with his environment, which proves too narrow and too hostile for the performance of his allotted task. Such is the tragedy of a Napoleon, prisoned on the remote island of St. Helena, of a Beethoven immersed in deafness, of every great man denied scope for his powers. But tragedy arises no less when a momentous position, a crushing reasonability, is thrust upon a mediocrity or a weakling. Indeed. Tragedy in this form makes a strong appeal to our human sympathies. A man out of the ordinary ruins unconsciously impelled to seek a fate out of the ordinary run. His super dimensional temperament makes him organically inclined to live heroically or (to use Nietzsche’s word) ‘dangerously.’ He challenges the world because it is his nature to do so. Thus in the last analysis the genius is partly responsible for his own sufferings, since his inward vocation mystically craves for the fiery ordeal which can alone evoke his uttermost energies. His relentless fate drives him swiftly and uplifts him as the storm at seagull.

    The mediocrity, on the other hand, is temperamentally disposed towards an easy and peaceful existence. He does not want, does not need tension, but would rather live quietly and inconspicuously, where the wind blows not fiercely and destiny does her work in milder fashion. That is why he adopts the defensive, that is why he grows anxious, that is why flees whenever an unseen hand tries to thrust him into the forefront of the fray. Far from craving for position of historical responsibility, he shrinks from it. He does not seek suffering, but has to bear it when it is forced upon it. If he is ever compelled to transcend his own standards, the compulsion has come from without, not from within. Precisely because the average man, the mediocrity, lack vision, lacks insight, his sorrow seems to be as great as and perhaps more moving; than that of the true hero whose misfortune stir the popular imagination, for poor everyman has to bear his cross unaided, and has not, like the artist, the spiritual salvation being able to transform his torment into work and thus give it lasting form.

    The life of Marie Antoinette is perhaps the most example in history of the way in which destiny will at times pluck a mediocre human being from obscurity, and,   with commanding hand, force the man or the woman in question to over step the bonds of mediocrity.

    Amid torments and trial the afflicted woman who had never been introspective, come at length to recognize the transformation. At the very time when she was stripped of the last insignia of power, she grew aware that in her, there had dawned something novel and stupendous, and that but her sufferings this dawn would never have begun. “Tribulations first means one realize what one is”. With mingled pride, agitation, and astonishment, she uttered these remarkable words, seized with a foreboding that though suffering her life otherwise commonplace would grew significant for posterity. The consciousness of a supreme duty lifted here character to a higher level than she had ever known. Just before the mortal, the transient frame perished, the immortal work of art was perfected. Marie Antoinette, the mediocrity, achieved greatness commensurate with her destiny.
The Portrait of an Average Woman-Marie Antoinette-S. Tefan Jwing- p. xi

    Yogis who do not follow the path of knowledge… depend upon the control of their mind for fearlessness, destruction of misery, the knowledge of self and peace. The mind can be brought under control only by relentless effort like that which is required to empty the ocean drop by drop with the help of a grass blade. A mind distracted with desires and enjoyments as well as a mind enjoying the pleasure of ‘complete oblivion (laya - sleep or stupor) should be brought under perfect discipline by awakening it through proper channels. For the ‘state of trance’ or ‘oblivion (laya) is as harmful as agitations of desires. Having seen repeatedly the painful consequences of all pleasures let one withdraw form Kama - Bhoga. Having understood everything as Brahma a wise man does not see duality, absence of duality is the Brahma state.

    A distracted mind in easier to tackle then a quite mind. A distracted mind can be quieted but to keep awake a quietened mind is difficult because it goes to sleep. The only way to tackle a quiet mind, is to empty it in atma-vichara (reflect upon Brahma). When the  mind tends to fall sleep, let one keep it awake by atma-vichara and when the mind becomes distracted by Kama –Bhoga, let is be withdrawn  by vairagya. Inspite of atma-vichara and vairagya if some hidden vague thoughts surface let one ignores them, because by ignoring they disappear again. A dominant disturbing thought need to be tackled through vairagya, but a vague disturbing thought be tackled by ignoring it.
   
    Once the samya - awastha in which all errors come to an end is reached, it does not go away, because it is not one of a state, but because it is the very swaroop of ones-self. Mind should not be allowed to enjoy the Bliss that is eked out of the condition of anand. It should be freed from attachment to such happiness though a steady exercise of discrimination. If the mind having attained once the equanimity, seeks to rush out into the external objects, then it should be unified with the self again, with self-effort.   
Minidoka Upanishad - Adwaita Prakarana - p.40-45

…

    There is legend about a bird which sings just once in its life, more sweetly than any other creature on the face of the earth. From the moment it leaves the nest it searches for a thorn tree, and does not rest until it has found one. Then, singing among the savage branches, it impales itself upon the longest, sharpest spine. And dying, it rises above its own agony to out carol the lark and the nightingale. One superlative song, existence the price. But the whole world still to listen, and God in His heaven smiles. For the best is only bought at the cost of great pain… or so says the legend.
The Thorn Bird

...

…and after a few blocks passed Rembrandt’s old home at Zeestraat ..
“He died in poverty and disgrace”, said Mendes in an ordinary tone as they passed the old house.
…..
    “He didn’t die unhappy, though” said Vincent

    “No” replied Mendes, “He had expressed himself fully and he knew the worth of what he had done. He was the only one in his time who did.”

    “Then did it make it all right with him, the fact that he knew? Suppose he had been wrong? What if the world had been right in neglecting him?”
“What the world thought made little difference. Rembrandt had to paint. Whether he painted well or badly didn’t matter, painting was the stuff that held him together as a man. The chief value of art, Vincent, lies in the expression it gives to the artist. Rembrandt fulfilled what he knew to be his life purpose; that justified him. Even if his work had been worthless, he would have been a thousand times more successful than if he had put down his desire and become the richest merchant in Amsterdam”
“I see”

    “The fact that Rembrandt’s work brings joy to the whole world today” continued Mendes, as though following his own line of thought., “is entirely gratuitous. His life was complete and successful when he died, even though he was hounded into his grave. The book of his life closed then, and it was a beautiful wrought volume. The quality of his perseverance and loyalty to his idea is what was important, not the quality of his work”

   “But how does a young man to know, he is choosing rightly Mijnheer? Suppose he thinks there is something special he must do with his life, and afterwards he founds out he wasn’t suited to that at all?”

    "You can never be sure about any thing for all the time, Vincent”, said Mendes. “You can only have the courage and strength to do what you think is right. It may turn out to be wrong, but you will at least have done it, and that is important thing.  We must act according to the best dictates of our reason and then leave it to God to judge of its ultimate value. If you are certain at this moment that you want serve our maker in one way or another, then that faith is the only guide you have to the future. Don’t be afraid to put your trust in it.”

    “Every person has an integrity, a quality of character, Vincent,” said Mendes… “and if he observes it, whatever he does well turn out well in the end. If you had remained  an art dealer, the integrity that makes you the sort of man you are would have made you a good art dealer. The same applies to your teaching. Someday you will express yourself fully, no matter what medium you may choose.”
Lust for Life – Irving Stone; p. 33-34.