1. Do not be dejected in a crisis, and exhibit weakness, faintness of heart and importance. It is ignoble, disgraceful, and debars you from heaven. (When you ought to act, you ought not to be dependent. That will never save you, but will only ruin you.)
2. Speak not words of apparent wisdom. (Arjuna was afraid to kill his own kinsmen, while willing enough to kill the innocent men who have come to fight for them out of a sheer sense of loyalty, forgetting the wise saying that to the good man the whole world is his family while to the selfish man only his narrow circle of relatives is his family.)
3. Do not weep for those who are living or for those who are dead, (The soul never dies, and the body, when it becomes useless for its progress, has to be changed to facilitate such progress. The soul is immortal, and it will be absurd to grieve for it.)
4. The soul is never born; it never dies. Never was there a time when it did not exist and never be a time hereafter when it will ceases to exit. The embodied soul passes through childhood, youth and old age, of the body, it passes after its death to another body. Weapons do not cleave it; fire does not burn it; water does not dry it. It cannot cleave; it cannot be burnt; it cannot be wetted; it cannot be dried. It is eternal, all- pervading unchangeable and immovable. It same forever and forever.
5. The body is ephemeral. What is born is sure to die and whatever dies it sure to be born again. Why then grieve for it seeing that it is inevitable? Mysterious is the origin of beings, manifest their intermediate stage and mysterious again in the end. So why grieve?
6. The unreal never is; the real is never is not
7. The bodies are transient manifestations of the eternal soul which is indestructible and incomprehensible.
8. The soul neither slays nor is slain. He who thinks it slays and he who think it is slain both of them know not correctly. It is neither slays nor slain
9. Know that the Self which pervades the whole universe has neither birth nor change and is imperishable and immutable. None can cause the destruction of this which is immutable.
10. One looks upon the soul as a marvel, another speaks of it as a marvel, still another hears of it as a marvel, but not one understands it even after hearing about it. And marvelous are they who see it, speak of it and hear of it.
11. Treat pleasure and pain, gain and loss, victory and defeat, alike and fight. The spirit of a man who has conquered himself and is attuned to serenity is steadfast in cold and heat, in pleasure and pain, and in honor and dishonor.
12. In the law of Nishkamakarma (work without expect anything), no effort is ever lost, no harm is ever done. Even a little of this law will save a man from great fear.
13. The resolute mind has a single aim, but the thoughts of the irresolute are many-branched and endless.
14. Your concern is with work and not with its fruits. So never hanker after the fruit or desist from work(fearing that it will not bear fruit)
15. Work with a balanced mind giving up all attachment. Have equanimity in success and in failure. This balance of mind is called yoga.
16. Lower far is mere action, compared to work done with this balance of mind. Miserable are they who work for fruit.
17. A man of even mind discards both good and evil, and does his work in the spirit of yoga.
18. Sages of even mind who renounce the fruits of their actions are freed from the bond of birth and go released to a region where no ills exit.
19. The sense objects fall away from the embodied soul when it ceases to feed on them, but the taste for them is left behind. Even that taste disappears when the Supreme is seen.
20. Though a man be ever so wise and strive ever so much, his dangerous sense will rebel and carry away his mind by force.
21. Holding all these in check let him controlled, intent on Me. For he whose senses are under control, his wisdom is firmly set.
22. When a man dwells in his mind on the sense objects an attachment for them arises. Desire is born of the attachment. From desire is born anger; from anger comes delusion; from delusion comes failure of memory; from wrecked memory the ruin of the understanding and from the ruin of his understanding, he perishes.
23. A man who has no self- control has no comprehension. Nor can he have any power of contemplation. Without contemplation, he has no peace. When he has no peace, how can he be happy?
24. When a man’s mind is governed by the roving senses, it carries away his wisdom as a gale carries away a ship upon the waters.
25. What is night to all beings; therein the self-controlled one is awake. Where all beings are awake, that is the night of the sage who sees.
26. In this world, the twofold way of life was of old declared by me, that the knowledge for men of contemplation, and that of work for men of action.
27. No man can ever be free from Karma, and a life of action, by merely avoiding work; and no man can ever attain perfection by mere renunciation. For no man can remain without doing any work even for a moment; everyone is driven to do some work or other by the strands born of nature. Do work you are obliged to do.
28. He who restrains his organs of action but sits brooding in his mind over the objects of sense, deludes himself and is called hypocrite.
29. In the beginning, the creator created man along with sacrifice, and said,” By this shall you multiply. This shall be the Kamadhenu which shall yield to you milk of your desires. With this shall you cherish the gods, and the god will cherish you. Thus cherishing one another you will attain the highest good. For cherished by sacrifice, the god will give you pleasure you desire. He is verily a thief who enjoys the things they give without giving them anything in return. He who will not turn with this wheel thus set in motion, that parasite lives in vain a life of sin, satisfying his senses.
30. From food are all creatures born; from rain is food produced; from sacrifice comes rain; sacrifice is sprung from work.
31. The wise men should not raise a doubt in the minds of the ignorant that are attached to their work. Himself doing all the work with faith, he should make others do them as well. Those who are deluded by the strands of nature are attached to the work which those strands prompt them to do.
32. All work is really done by the Gunas born of nature. But man, deluded by the egoistic feeling of “I” thinks, “I am the doer”. But he who knows the truth about the distribution of Gunas, and the consequence action produced, says to himself, “It is the organs of sense that are occupied with the sense-objects”, and escapes attachment.
33. Dedicate all your works to Me in spirit of surrender and fix your thought on the Self, and have no desire or thought of “me” or “mine”.
34. Those who, full of faith, practice this teaching of mine, without carping or cavil are released from their work.
35. Even a man of knowledge acts according to his own nature. All beings, unaided, follow their nature. What can mere repression do?
36. Love and hatred naturally arise towards the objects of each sense. But one should not fall under their sway for they are his enemies.
BHAGAVATH GITA
