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ARJUNA:
THOU whom all mortals praise, Janârdana! | |
| If meditation be a nobler thing | |
| Than action, wherefore, then, great Kesava! | |
| Dost thou impel me to this dreadful fight? | |
| Now am I by thy doubtful speech disturbed! | 5 |
| Tell me one thing, and tell me certainly; | |
| By what road shall I find the better end? | |
| |
KRISHNA:
I told thee, blameless Lord! there be two paths | |
| Shown to this world; two schools of wisdom. First | |
| The Sânkhy’s, which doth save in way of works | 10 |
| Prescribed 1 by reason; next, the Yôg, which bids | |
| Attain by meditation, spiritually: | |
| Yet these are one! No man shall ’scape from act | |
| By shunning action; nay, and none shall come | |
| By mere renouncements unto perfectness. | 15 |
| Nay, and no jot of time, at any time, | |
| Rests any actionless; his nature’s law | |
| Compels him, even unwilling, into act; | |
| [For thought is act in fancy]. He who sits | |
| Suppressing all the instruments of flesh, | 20 |
| Yet in his idle heart thinking on them, | |
| Plays the inept and guilty hypocrite: | |
| But he who, with strong body serving mind, | |
| Gives up his mortal powers to worthy work, | |
| Not seeking gain, Arjuna! such an one | 25 |
| Is honorable. Do thine allotted task! | |
| Work is more excellent than idleness; | |
| The body’s life proceeds not, lacking work. | |
| There is a task of holiness to do, | |
| Unlike world-binding toil, which bindeth not | 30 |
| The faithful soul; such earthly duty do | |
| Free from desire, and thou shalt well perform | |
| Thy heavenly purpose. Spake Prajâpati— | |
| In the beginning, when all men were made, | |
| And, with mankind, the sacrifice—“Do this! | 35 |
| Work! sacrifice! Increase and multiply | |
| With sacrifice! This shall be Kamadûk, | |
| Your ‘Cow of Plenty,’ giving back her milk | |
| Of all abundance. Worship the gods thereby; | |
| The gods shall yield ye grace. Those meats ye crave | 40 |
| The gods will grant to Labor, when it pays | |
| Tithes in the altar-flame. But if one eats | |
| Fruits of the earth, rendering to kindly Heaven | |
| No gift of toil, that thief steals from his world.” | |
| |
| Who eat of food after their sacrifice | 45 |
| Are quit of fault, but they that spread a feast | |
| All for themselves, eat sin and drink of sin. | |
| By food the living live; food comes of rain, | |
| And rain comes by the pious sacrifice, | |
| And sacrifice is paid with tithes of toil; | 50 |
| Thus action is of Brahmâ, who is One, | |
| The Only, All-pervading; at all times | |
| Present in sacrifice. He that abstains | |
| To help the rolling wheels of this great world, | |
| Glutting his idle sense, lives a lost life, | 55 |
| Shameful and vain. Existing for himself, | |
| Self-concentrated, serving self alone, | |
| No part hath he in aught; nothing achieved, | |
| Nought wrought or unwrought toucheth him; no hope | |
| Of help for all the living things of earth | 60 |
| Depends from him. 2 Therefore, thy task prescribed | |
| With spirit unattached gladly perform, | |
| Since in performance of plain duty man | |
| Mounts to his highest bliss. By works alone | |
| Janak, and ancient saints reached blessedness! | 65 |
| Moreover, for the upholding of thy kind, | |
| Action thou should’st embrace. What the wise choose | |
| The unwise people take; what best men do | |
| The multitude will follow. Look on me, | |
| Thou Son of Prithâ! in the three wide worlds | 70 |
| I am not bound to any toil, no height | |
| Awaits to scale, no gift remains to gain, | |
| Yet I act here! and, if I acted not— | |
| Earnest and watchful—those that look to me | |
| For guidance, sinking back to sloth again | 75 |
| Because I slumbered, would decline from good, | |
| And I should break earth’s order and commit | |
| Her offspring unto ruin, Bharata! | |
| Even as the unknowing toil, wedded to sense, | |
| So let the enlightened toil, sense-freed, but set | 80 |
| To bring the world deliverance, and its bliss; | |
| Not sowing in those simple, busy hearts | |
| Seed of despair. Yea! let each play his part | |
| In all he finds to do, with unyoked soul. | |
| All things are everywhere by Nature wrought | 85 |
| In interaction of the qualities. | |
| The fool, cheated by self, thinks, “This I did” | |
| And “That I wrought;” but—ah, thou strong-armed Prince!— | |
| A better-lessoned mind, knowing the play | |
| Of visible things within the world of sense, | 90 |
| And how the qualities must qualify, | |
| Standeth aloof even from his acts. Th’ untaught | |
| Live mixed with them, knowing not Nature’s way, | |
| Of highest aims unwitting, slow and dull. | |
| Those make thou not to stumble, having the light; | 95 |
| But all thy dues discharging, for My sake, | |
| With meditation centred inwardly, | |
| Seeking no profit, satisfied, serene, | |
| Heedless of issue—fight! They who shall keep | |
| My ordinance thus, the wise and willing hearts, | 100 |
| Have quittance from all issue of their acts; | |
| But those who disregard my ordinance, | |
| Thinking they know, know nought, and fall to loss, | |
| Confused and foolish. ‘Sooth, the instructed one | |
| Doth of his kind, following what fits him most; | 105 |
| And lower creatures of their kind; in vain | |
| Contending ’gainst the law. Needs must it be | |
| The objects of the sense will stir the sense | |
| To like and dislike, yet th’ enlightened man | |
| Yields not to these, knowing them enemies. | 110 |
| Finally, this is better, that one do | |
| His own task as he may, even though he fail, | |
| Than take tasks not his own, though they seem good | |
| To die performing duty is no ill; | |
| But who seeks other roads shall wander still. | 115 |
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ARJUNA:
Yet tell me, Teacher! by what force doth man | |
| Go to his ill, unwilling; as if one | |
| Pushed him that evil path? | |
| |
KRISHNA:
Kama it is! | |
| Passion it is! born of the Darknesses, | 120 |
| Which pusheth him. Mighty of appetite, | |
| Sinful, and strong is this!—man’s enemy! | |
| As smoke blots the white fire, as clinging rust | |
| Mars the bright mirror, as the womb surrounds | |
| The babe unborn, so is the world of things | 125 |
| Foiled, soiled, enclosed in this desire of flesh. | |
| The wise fall, caught in it; the unresting foe | |
| It is of wisdom, wearing countless forms, | |
| Fair but deceitful, subtle as a flame. | |
| Sense, mind, and reason—these, O Kunti’s son! | 130 |
| Are booty for it; in its play with these | |
| It maddens man, beguiling, blinding him. | |
| Therefore, thou noblest child of Bharata! | |
| Govern thy heart! Constrain th’ entangled sense! | |
| Resist the false, soft sinfulness which saps | 135 |
| Knowledge and judgment! Yea, the world is strong, | |
| But what discerns it stronger, and the mind | |
| Strongest; and high o’er all the ruling Soul. | |
| Wherefore, perceiving Him who reigns supreme, | |
| Put forth full force of Soul in thy own soul! | 140 |
| Fight! vanquish foes and doubts, dear Hero! slay | |
| What haunts thee in fond shapes, and would betray! | |
| |
Here endeth Chapter III. of the Bhagavad-Gîtâ | |
entitled “Karma-Yôg,” or “The Book | |
of Virtue in Work” | 145 |
