Bhagavad Gita: Excerpts and Some Comments
The Bhagavad Gita has come down to us as a small part of a much larger war-epic, called the Maha-barata (the “Great Barata”, wars of the Barata family). The Gita begins with a scene on the battlefield. A warrior named Arjuna is very anxious about the prospect of going into battle, in which he might have to kill some of his own relatives fighting for the other side. Arjuna is in a chariot, and the person driving the chariot turns out to be none other than the god Krishna. The Gita is presented as a long instruction and sermon given by Krishna to Arjuna. I have rearranged the passages in a more topical order to make it easier for the modern reader to grasp the main themes.
The translation of the Gita given here is adapted and rearranged from the translation of Eliot Deutsch (University Press of America. 1981). I have added a few comments in italics.
Internal blissful peace contrasted with external disturbance
One should not rejoice when obtaining the pleasant,
nor be agitated when obtaining the unpleasant…
The self who is unattached to external contacts
finds happiness in the Self…
The enjoyments which are born of contacts [with objects]
are only sources of sorrow.
These have a beginning and end;
the wise man does not rejoice in them.
He who is able to endure here on earth,
even before he is liberated from the body,
from the force that springs from desire and anger,
he is disciplined, he is the happy man.
He who is happy within, whose joy is within
and whose light is within;
that yogin becomes Brahman
and attains to the bliss of Brahman…
A yogin is a person who practices yoga. In the Gita, “yoga” is a very broad term referring to any religious or spiritual practice (including meditation), doing one’s social duties (karma yoga), and worshiping divine beings (bhakti yoga)
To these holy men who have destroyed desire and anger,
who have controlled their minds, who know the Self,
the bliss of Brahman is near…
Having controlled the senses, mind and intelligence,
the sage who has liberation as his goal,
who has cast away desire, fear and anger,
is freed forever. (Ch. 5, 20-28 )
When a man abandons all the desires of his mind,
and is satisfied in his self by the self alone,
then he is called a man of steady mind.
He whose mind is not troubled in sorrow,
and has no desire in pleasure,
his passion, fear and anger departed,
he is called a steady-minded sage.
He who is not attached to anything,
who neither delights nor is upset
when he obtains good or ill,
his mind is firmly established.
And when he completely withdraws his senses
from the objects of sense,
as a tortoise draws in his limbs,
his mind is firmly established.
The objects of sense, but not the taste for them,
fall away from the embodied soul who abstains from food.
Even the taste falls away from him
when the Supreme is seen. (Ch. 2, 55-59)
Those who “abstain from food” are individuals who strive for self-control by fasting . The author contrasts these individuals with meditators who lose their attachment to food because they have experienced a higher reality (“The Supreme”) in their meditation.
He who moves among the objects of sense,
the senses under control,
and is free from desire and aversion,
he who is thus self-controlled has serenity of mind.
And in that serenity,
the destruction of all pain is produced for him…
For the uncontrolled, there is no… concentration;
and without concentration there is no peace,
and for the unpeaceful, how can there be happiness?
When the mind hastens after the roving senses,
it carries along the understanding,
as wind carries away a ship on the waters…
What is night for all beings
is the time of waking for the man of self-control,
and when all beings are awake,
that is night for the sage who sees.
He attains peace into whom all desires flow
as waters into the sea,
which, though ever being filled, is ever motionless…
He who abandons all desires and acts without longing,
without self-interest or egotism, he attains peace.
This is the eternal state;
having attained it, one is no longer confused.
Fixed in it even at the time of death,
one attains to the bliss of Brahman. (Ch. 2, 64-72)
Brahman is the Supreme Being of contemporary Hinduism. Like the Christian God, except it is not a person. In the Gita, blissful union with Brahman is the goal of meditation. It is also equated with union with one’s true Self (atman), and with the god Krishna. When a person achieves this union with Brahman in her lifetime, she merges back into Brahman at death, instead of being reincarnated.
Let the yogin always concentrate on the Self [Atman],
abiding alone in solitude, with mind and Self controlled,
without desires and possessions.
Meditation
Having set in a clean place a firm seat for himself
that is neither too high nor too low,
made of kusha grass, a deerskin and a cloth,
one over the other;
Sitting there on the seat, making his mind one pointed,
controlling the activity of his mind and senses,
let him practice yoga for the purification of the self.
Holding the body, head and neck erect and motionless,
looking steadily at the tip of his nose,
not looking in any direction…
Yoga is not for him who eats too much,
or does not eat at all.
It is not for him who sleeps too much
or keeps too much awake…
When the controlled thought is fixed on the Self alone,
then he who is free from all desires is said to be disciplined.
As a lamp in a windless place does not flicker,
so the yogin of controlled thought,
practicing yoga of the self.
That in which thought comes to rest,
curbed by the practice of yoga;
that in which seeing the Self, by the self,
he is content in the Self.
That in which supreme happiness,
which is beyond the senses, is grasped by intelligence;
that wherein established,
he knows this and does not fall away from the truth;
That on obtaining which, he thinks no other gain is greater;
that wherein established, by no sorrow, however heavy,
is he moved:
Let that disconnection from union with pain
be known as yoga.
This yoga should be practiced with determination,
with mind undismayed.
Abandoning, without exception,
all the desires born of egoism,
restraining all the senses on every side by the mind,
Let him come to rest, little by little,
by intelligence held firmly;
and fixing the mind on the Self,
let him not think of anything else.
Whatsoever thing
makes the fickle and unsteady mind wander,
let him restrain it and lead it back
to the control of the self alone.
This highest happiness comes to the yogin
whose mind is peaceful,
whose passions are subdued,
who… has become one with Brahman.
The yogin who thus always disciplines his self…,
easily attains the ultimate bliss of unity with Brahman.
(ch. 6, 10-29)
The Sankhya view of the transcendent, free, inactive Atman
In the Gita, all reality is divided into two separate realms, the realm of the unmanifest atman on the one hand, and the entire manifest world on the other, called prakriti. The “gunas of prakriti” are the impersonal forces the govern all phenomena appearing in the manifest world, including a person’s own reactions to the world, insofar as these are involuntary knee-jerk reactions to stimuli from external objects, governed by desire and attachment. These compulsive, unfree reactions are what the text here describes as “gunas acting on gunas.” These are contrasted with the atman, pictured as completely free, not really engaging in any action at all. In the Gita, this view of things is called Sankya.
The man whose pleasure is in the Atman alone,
who is pleased with the Atman,
who is content only in atman
for him there is no work that needs to be done.
He has no interest in action done in this world,
nor any with action not done.
He is not dependent on all these creatures
for any goal he has. (Ch. 3, 17-18)
All actions are performed by the gunas of prakriti alone.
But he who is deluded by egoism thinks, “I am the doer.”
He who knows the true essence
of the separation [of the atman]
from both the gunas and actions,
and that it is the gunas which act upon the gunas,
he is not attached [to action].
Those who are deluded by the gunas of prakriti
are attached to the action of the gunas. (ch. 3. 27-29)
The disciplined one who knows the truth thinks
“I am doing nothing at all.”
In seeing, hearing, touching, smelling,
tasting, walking, sleeping, breathing,
In speaking, giving, grasping, opening and closing the eyes,
he maintains that only the senses are active
among the objects of the senses.
Renouncing all actions of the mind,
the sovereign embodied [soul]
sits happily in the city of nine gates,
neither acting nor causing action. (ch. 5, 8-13)
The immortal atman
Never was there a time when I did on exist, nor you…
nor will there ever be a time hereafter
when we will all cease to be.
As the atman in this body passes through childhood,
youth and old age,
so [after departure from this body]
it passes on to another body…
Contacts with the objects of the senses
give rise to cold and heat, pleasure and pain.
They come and go, they are impermanent; endure them.
The man who is not troubled by these [contacts],
who treats alike pleasure and pain,
who is wise; he is fit for immortality.
Of non-being there is no coming to be;
of being there is no ceasing to be.
The truth about both is seen by the seers of truth.
Know that that by which all this is pervaded
is indestructible,
and that no one can cause the destruction
of this immutable being.
Only these bodies of the eternal embodied soul
which is itself indestructible and incomprehensible,
are perishable….
Just as a man casts off worn-out clothes
and takes others that are new,
so the embodied soul casts worn-out bodies
and takes on others that are new.
Weapons do not cut it, nor does fire burn it;
waters do not make it wet, nor does wind make it dry.
It cannot be cut up, burnt, wetted nor dried.
It is eternal, omnipresent, unchanging and immovable.
It is everlasting.
It is called unmanifest, unthinkable and immutable…
All beings are unmanifest in their beginnings,
they are manifest in their middles
and are unmanifest again in their ends… (ch. 2, 12-28)
Karma Yoga (doing one’s social duties)
Krishna said: In this world,
a twofold path has been taught before by Me;
the path of knowledge [jñana yoga]
for men of discrimination [sankhyas]
and the path of works [karma yoga]
for men of action [yogins].
Not by abstention from actions does a man gain freedom,
and not by mere renunciation does he attain perfection.
No one can remain, even for a moment,
without performing some action.
Everyone is made to act helplessly
by the gunas born of prakriti.
Perform your allotted work, for action is superior to inaction;
even the maintenance of your body
cannot be accomplished without action…
The man whose pleasure is in the Self alone,
who is pleased with the Self, who is content only in self,
for him there is no work that needs to be done.
He has no interest in action done in this world,
nor any with action not done.
He is not dependent on all these creatures
for any goal he has
Therefore, always perform the work that has to be done
without attachment,
for man attains the Supreme
by performing work without attachment…
You should perform action…
with regard for the maintenance of the world.
Whatsoever the best man does, other men do too.
Whatever standard he sets, that the world follows.
There is nothing in the three worlds to be done by Me,
nor anything unobtained that needs to be obtained;
yet I continue in action.
For if I, unwearied, were not always in action,
men everywhere would follow my path.
If I did not perform action, these worlds would be destroyed,
and I should be the author of confusion
and would destroy these people.
As the ignorant act with attachment to their work,
so the wise man should act [but] without attachment,
desiring to maintain the order of the world.
Let no wise man unsettle the minds of the ignorant
who are attached to action.
Acting with discipline, he should make all action attractive.
All actions are performed by the gunas of prakriti alone.
But he who is deluded by egoism thinks, “I am the doer.”
He who knows the true essence of the separation
[of the atman] from both the gunas and actions,
and that it is the gunas which act upon the gunas,
he is not attached [to action].
Those who are deluded by the gunas of prakriti
are attached to the action of the gunas.
But the man who knows the whole
should not unsettle the ignorant who know only a part.
(Ch. 3, 3-34)
The long excerpt above addresses a difficulty that apparently arose among some thinker/meditators who held the doctrine of the separation of the inactive/free atman from the active “gunas of prakriti,” and conclude from this that a truly wise person would try to abstain from all “action.” “Action” is karma in Sanskrit, which referred more specifically to actions fulfilling one’s responsibilities to society (and to the merit stored up by such actions). “Renunciation” and “sankhya” in this passage refer to meditators who achieve a separation between their inactive atman and the actions that their worldly selves perform in the world, whereas, “yoga” and “yogin” refer only to karma yoga, performance of one’s duties to society. The author is concerned to show how internal spiritual “renunciation” is compatible with external performance of one’s social duties, if these are done without attachment to the “fruits” of such action (success or failure).
This excerpt assumes a social situation in which meditators and spiritual thinkers are a small minority, but a group which enjoys considerable prestige among the rest of the people If the world consisted only of those who had realized their higher Self, there would perhaps be no reason for the caste system and performing caste duties (karma). But this is not the case. And since the unenlightened hold the enlightened in high regard, the latter must set a good example, and perform their duties in society in order not to “unsettle the mind of the ignorant” and to “maintain the order of the world.”
Arjuna said:
You praise renunciation of karma/actions
and also [karma] yoga.
Tell me definitely which one of these is the better.
Krishna said: Renunciation [of karma/action]
and the unselfish performance
of [social] action [karma yoga]
both lead to the highest happiness.
But of these two the unselfish performance of action
is better than the renunciation of action…
In the next excerpt, the author shows that (contrary to some sankhya devotees) the kind of karma yoga he advocates is able to be fully integrated into the sankhya doctrine. For a fully enlightened person, the actions (karma) he is doing is really done only by the gunas (forces of the material world active in his body). His Self remains separate from these actions; this is manifest in the fact that he is not dependent on the success or failure of his endeavors. He does his social duties merely for the sake of doing them (“to maintain the order of the world), not for any benefit they bring to him.
Children, not the wise,
speak of [Sankhya] renunciation and [karma] yoga as separate;
for he who is well established in one
obtains the fruit of both.
That place which is obtained by the sankhyas
[who renounce karma/action]
is also gained by the yogins [who practice karma yoga].
He who sees that sankhya and [karma] yoga are one,
he truly sees.
He who is disciplined in yoga and is pure in soul,
who is ruler of his self, who has conquered his senses,
whose self becomes the Self of all beings,
he is not affected by acting.
The disciplined one who knows the truth thinks
“I am doing nothing at all.”
In seeing, hearing, touching, smelling, tasting,
walking, sleeping, breathing,
In speaking, giving, grasping, opening and closing the eyes,
he maintains that only the senses are active
among the objects of the senses.
Yogins perform action only with the body, the mind,
the intellect or the senses, without attachment,
for self purification.
The disciplined man, having abandoned the fruit of action,
obtains enduring peace;
the undisciplined man, impelled by desire,
is attached to the fruit and is bound.
Renouncing all actions of the mind,
the sovereign embodied [atman]
sits happily in the city of nine gates,
neither acting nor causing action. (Ch. 5, 1-14)
Bhakti yoga (devotion to Krishna).Krishna as the highest being , identical with the higher Self and with Brahman.
The following passage on meditation was already included above, but without the reference to Krishna at the end. This reference shows that in the concrete experience of meditators, Krishna, atman, and Brahman are more or less identical.
Meditative union with Krishna
Having set in a clean place a firm seat for himself
that is neither too high nor too low…
Sitting there on the seat, making his mind one pointed,
controlling the activity of his mind and senses,
let him practice yoga for the purification of the self…
Let him sit harmonized, his thoughts on Me [Krishna], absorbed in Me.
Thus…the yogin attains to peace,
the supreme bliss, that abides in Me.” (Ch. 6, 10-15)
******
Krishna said: Nothing exists higher than Me.
All this (universe) is strung on Me like jewels on a string.
I am the taste in the waters.
I am the light in the moon and the sun…
I am the pure fragrance in earth and the brilliance in fire;
I am the life in all beings.
Know Me to be the eternal seed of all beings.
I am the intellect of the intelligent,
the splendor of the splendid…
And of all beings that are…
know that these are from Me alone.
But I am not in them, they are in Me. (ch. 7, 7-12)
He who always thinks of Me and not of something else,
for him, who is a yogin ever disciplined, I am easy to obtain.
Having come to Me,
these great-souled men do not attain rebirth,
the place of sorrow and impermanence,
for they have reached the highest perfection.
From the world of Brahma downwards,
all worlds are reborn,
but having come to Me there is no rebirth.(ch. 8, 14-16)
By Me, in My unmanifested form, all this world is pervaded.
All beings rest in Me but I do not rest in them…
My Self, which is the source of beings,
sustains all beings but does not rest in them.
Just as the great wind, blowing everywhere,
abides in the ether, so all beings abide in Me. (ch. 9, 4-5)
Arjuna said:
Those devotees who are always disciplined and honor you,
and those who worship the Imperishable
and the Unmanifest –
which of these are more learned in yoga?
Krishna said:
Those who, fixing their mind on Me,
worship Me with complete discipline
and with supreme faith,
them I consider to be the most learned in yoga.
But those who worship the Imperishable,
the Undefinable, the Unmanifested,
the Omnipresent, the Unthinkable, the Immovable,
the Unchanging, the Constant,
And have restrained all their senses,
and are equal-minded and rejoice in the welfare of all beings
they also obtain Me.
The difficulty of those whose minds
are fixed on the Unmanifested is much greater;
the goal of the Unmanifested
is hard for the embodied to attain. (Ch. 12, 1-12)
This last verse gives part of the rationale for Krishna-bhakti: Embodied beings like ourselves find it difficult to focus on the unmanifest Brahman, and can relate more easily to an embodied divinity.
In the following passages, the authors who are followers of Krishna, put into Krishna’s mouth their own feelings about this god.
Although unborn, although My self is imperishable,
although I am Lord of all beings,
yet establishing Myself in My own [material] nature,
I come into being by My own mysterious power [maya].
Whenever there is a decay of righteousness
and a rising up of unrighteousness, I send myself.
For the preservation of good, for the destruction of evil,
for the establishment of righteousness,
I come into being in age after age. (ch. 4, 6-7)
Criticism of those who do not understand Krishna’s double nature as unmanifest Brahman and as manifest god
The foolish think of Me, the unmanifest,
as having [only] come into manifestation;
not knowing My higher nature
which is immutable and supreme.
I am not revealed to all,
being covered by My power of illusion.
This world is deluded and does not recognize Me,
the unborn and imperishable. (ch. 7, 24-25)
In this passage, “the foolish” seem to be other ordinary Krishna-worshipers, who do not realize that Krishna is a visible manifestation of the invisible Brahman.
The foolish despise Me when I assume a human form,
not knowing My higher nature
as the great Lord of all beings.
They abide in a fiendish and demoniac nature
which is deceitful;
their hopes are vain,
their actions are vain, their knowledge is vain,
and they are devoid of mind. (Ch. 9, 11-12)
Unlike the previous passage, “the foolish” who despise Krishna seem to represent the opposite case: sankhya thinkers who look down upon those who take part in worship (bhakti) involving statues of the “manifest” god Krishna appearing in human-like form. The author has harsh words for them, showing how important this Krishna-bhakti is to him.
Worshipers of other gods and goddesses are unknowingly worshiping Krishna
Even those who are devotees of other gods
and who worship them full of faith,
even they worship Me only,
although not according to the prescribed rules.
For I am the recipient and lord of all sacrifices.
But they do not know Me in my essence
and hence they fall.
All the gods and goddesss are manifestations of the one ultimate and unmanifest Brahman. Those who worship other gods and goddesses are unknowingly (and not quite properly) worshipping Krishna, since he is the privileged earthly representation of Brahman. This is an important idea throughout the history of Hinduism and Buddhism. In Hinduism, and in some later forms of Mahayana Buddhism, this allowed for an integration of the religion of meditators with popular worship of gods and goddesses. In modern times, many Hindu thinkers interpreted the Christian Jesus as just one more of the many “manifest” deities like Krishna. According to this same pattern, Shinto divinities in Japan (kami) were sometimes interpreted as manifestations of the one Ultimate Reality more directly experienced at meditation by Buddhist monks. Such ideas are entirely absent in the early Buddhism of the Pali Canon. Nibbana is not a higher being, but only a state achieved by some; and popular religion in India of the time (especially bhakti) is given no positive value at all.
The worshipers of the gods go to the gods;
the worshipers of the ancestors go to the ancestors;
sacrificers of the spirits go to the spirits;
and those who sacrifice to Me come to Me.
Whoever offers Me a leaf, a flower,
a fruit or water with devotion,
I accept that offering of devotion from the pure in heart…
Fix the mind on Me, be devoted to Me,
worship Me, salute Me;
thus having disciplined the self
and having Me as the supreme goal,
you will come to Me. (ch. 9, 23-34)
Those who are deprived of wisdom by their desires
resort to other gods…
But whatever form a devotee with faith wishes to worship,
I make steady that faith of his.
Disciplined with that faith, he seeks to propitiate that god;
and he obtains his desires,
for those (the benefits) are decreed by Me.
But temporary is the fruit (obtained by)
those that are of small intelligence.
Those who worship the gods go to the gods;
My devotees come to me. (ch. 7, 20-22)
e who abstain from food” are individuals who strive for self-control by fasting . The author contrasts these individuals with meditators who lose their attachment to food because they have experienced a higher reality (“The Supreme”) in their meditation.
Brahman is the Supreme Being of contemporary Hinduism. Like the Christian God, except it is not a person. In the Gita, blissful union with Brahman is the goal of meditation. It is also equated with union with one’s true Self (atman), and with the god Krishna. When a person achieves this union with Brahman in her lifetime, she merges back into Brahman at death, instead of being reincarnated. (Brahman is not the same as Brahmin, the name for priests in Hinduism.)
I’ve omitted a few verses here, quoting only those that are pure meditation instruction that might be given by sankhya devotees. The omitted verses identify the supreme Self of Sankhya with the god Krishna: “Firm in the vow of celibacy…let him sit harmonized, his thoughts on Me [Krishna], absorbed in Me. Thus…the yogin attains to peace, the supreme bliss, that abides in Me.”(6/14-15)
In the Gita, all reality is divided into two separate realms, the realm of the unmanifest atman on the one hand, and the entire manifest world on the other, called prakriti. The “gunas of prakriti” are the impersonal forces the govern all phenomena appearing in the manifest world, including a person’s own reactions to the world, insofar as these are knee-jerk reactions to stimuli from external objects, governed by desire and attachment. These compulsive, unfree reactions are what the text here describes as “gunas acting on gunas.” These are contrasted with the atman, pictured as completely free, not really engaging in any action at all.
This passage addresses a difficulty that apparently arose among some thinker/meditators who held the doctrine of the separation of the inactive/free atman from the active “gunas of prakriti,” and conclude from this that a truly wise person would try to abstain from all “action.” “Action” is karma in Sanskrit, which referred more specifically to actions fulfilling one’s responsibilities to society (and to the merit stored up by such actions). “Renunciation” and “sankhya” in this passage refer to meditators who achieve a separation between their inactive atman and the actions that their worldly selves perform in the world, whereas, “yoga” and “yogin” refer only to karma yoga, performance of one’s duties to society. The author is concerned to show how internal spiritual “renunciation” is compatible with external performance of one’s social duties, if these are done without attachment to the “fruits” of such action (success or failure).
This passage assumes a social situation in which meditators and spiritual thinkers are a small minority, but a group which enjoys considerable prestige among the rest of the people If the world consisted only of those who had realized their higher Self, there would perhaps be no reason for the caste system and performing caste duties (karma). But this is not the case. And since the unenlightened hold the enlightened in high regard, the latter must set a good example, and perform their duties in society in order not to “unsettle the mind of the ignorant” and to “maintain the order of the world.”
Here the author shows that (contrary to some sankhya devotees) the kind of karma yoga he advocates is able to be fully integrated into the sankhya doctrine. For a fully enlightened person, the actions (karma) he is doing is really done only by the gunas (forces of the material world active in his body). His Self remains separate from these actions; this is manifest in the fact that he is not dependent on the success or failure of his endeavors. He does his social duties merely for the sake of doing them (“to maintain the order of the world), not for any benefit they bring to him.
This passage on meditation was already included above, but without the reference to Krishna at the end. This reference shows that in the concrete experience of meditators, Krishna, atman, and Brahman are more or less identical.
Remember that the Gita was written by devotees of Krishna, putting into Krishna’s mouth their own feelings about this god.
This verse gives part of the rationale for Krishna-bhakti: Embodied beings like ourselves find it difficult to focus on the unmanifest Brahman, and can relate more easily to an embodied divinity.
In this passage, “the foolish” seem to be other ordinary Krishna-worshipers, who do not realize that Krishna is a visible manifestation of the invisible Brahman.
Unlike the previous passage, “the foolish” who despise Krishna seem to represent the opposite case: sankhya thinkers who look down upon those who take part in worship (bhakti) involving statues of the “manifest” god Krishna appearing in human-like form. The author has harsh words for them, showing how important this Krishna-bhakti is to him
All the gods and goddesss are manifestations of the one ultimate and unmanifest Brahman. Those who worship other gods and goddesses are unknowingly (and not quite properly) worshipping Krishna, since he is the privileged earthly representation of Brahman. This is an important idea throughout the history of Hinduism and Buddhism, allowing an integration of the religion of meditators with popular worship of gods and goddesses. According to this same pattern, Shinto divinities in Japan (kami) were interpreted as manifestations of the one Ultimate Reality more directly experienced at meditation by Buddhist monks.
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