The Bhagavad-Gita.
The Harvard Classics. 1909–14.
Chapter V
ARJUNA:
YET, Krishna! at the one time thou dost laud |
|
Surcease of works, and, at another time, | |
Service through work. Of these twain plainly tell | |
Which is the better way? | |
KRISHNA:
To cease from works |
5 |
Is well, and to do works in holiness | |
Is well; and both conduct to bliss supreme; | |
But of these twain the better way is his | |
Who working piously refraineth not. | |
That is the true Renouncer, firm and fixed, | 10 |
Who—seeking nought, rejecting nought—dwells proof | |
Against the “opposites.” 1 O valiant Prince! | |
In doing, such breaks lightly from all deed: | |
’Tis the new scholar talks as they were two, | |
This Sânkhya and this Yôga: wise men know | 15 |
Who husbands one plucks golden fruit of both! | |
The region of high rest which Sânkhyans reach | |
Yogins attain. Who sees these twain as one | |
Sees with clear eyes! Yet such abstraction, Chief! | |
Is hard to win without much holiness. | 20 |
Whose is fixed in holiness, self-ruled, | |
Pure-hearted, lord of senses and of self, | |
Lost in the common life of all which lives— | |
A “Yôgayukt”—he is a Saint who wends | |
Straightway to Brahm. Such an one is not touched | 25 |
By taint of deeds. “Nought of myself I do!” | |
Thus will he think—who holds the truth of truths— | |
In seeing, hearing, touching, smelling; when | |
He eats, or goes, or breathes; slumbers or talks, | |
Holds fast or loosens, opes his eyes or shuts; | 30 |
Always assured “This is the sense-world plays | |
With senses.” He that acts in thought of Brahm, | |
Detaching end from act, with act content, | |
The world of sense can no more stain his soul | |
Than waters mar th’ enamelled lotus-leaf. | 35 |
With life, with heart, with mind,—nay, with the help | |
Of all five senses—letting selfood go— | |
Yogins toil ever towards their souls’ release. | |
Such votaries, renouncing fruit of deeds, | |
Gain endless peace: the unvowed, the passion-bound, | 40 |
Seeking a fruit from works, are fastened down. | |
The embodied sage, withdrawn within his soul, | |
At every act sits godlike in “the town | |
Which hath nine gateways,” 2 neither doing aught | |
Nor causing any deed. This world’s Lord makes | 45 |
Neither the work, nor passion for the work, | |
Nor lust for fruit of work; the man’s own self | |
Pushes to these! The Master of this World | |
Takes on himself the good or evil deeds | |
Of no man—dwelling beyond! Mankind errs here | 50 |
By folly, darkening knowledge. But, for whom | |
That darkness of the soul is chased by light, | |
Splendid and clear shines manifest the Truth | |
As if a Sun of Wisdom sprang to shed | |
Its beams of dawn. Him mediating still, | 55 |
Him seeking, with Him blended, stayed on Him, | |
The souls illuminated take that road | |
Which hath no turning back—their sins flung off | |
By strength of faith. [Who will may have this Light; | |
Who hath it sees.] To him who wisely sees, | 60 |
The Brahman with his scrolls and sanctities, | |
The cow, the elephant, the unclean dog, | |
The Outcast gorging dog’s meat, are all one. | |
The world is overcome—aye! even here! | |
By such as fix their faith on Unity. | 65 |
The sinless Brahma dwells in Unity, | |
And they in Brahma. Be not over-glad | |
Attaining joy, and be not over-sad | |
Encountering grief, but, stayed on Brahma, still | |
Constant let each abide! The sage whose soul | 70 |
Holds off from outer contacts, in himself | |
Finds bliss; to Brahma joined by piety, | |
His spirit tastes eternal peace. The joys | |
Springing from sense-life are but quickening wombs | |
Which breed sure griefs: those joys begin and end! | 75 |
The wise mind takes no pleasure, Kunti’s Son! | |
In such as those! But if a man shall learn, | |
Even while he lives and bears his body’s chain, | |
To master lust and anger, he is blest! | |
He is the Yukta; he hath happiness, | 80 |
Contentment, light, within: his life is merged | |
In Brahma’s life; he doth Nirvâna touch! | |
Thus go the Rishis unto rest, who dwell | |
With sins effaced, with doubts at end, with hearts | |
Governed and calm. Glad in all good they live, | 85 |
Nigh to the peace of God; and all those live | |
Who pass their days exempt from greed and wrath, | |
Subduing self and senses, knowing the Soul! | |
The Saint who shuts outside his placid soul | |
All touch of sense, letting no contact through; | 90 |
Whose quiet eyes gaze straight from fixëd brows, | |
Whose outward breath and inward breath are drawn | |
Equal and slow through nostrils still and close; | |
That one—with organs, heart, and mind constrained, | |
Bent on deliverance, having put away | 95 |
Passion, and fear, and rage;—hath, even now, | |
Obtained deliverance, ever and ever freed. | |
Yea; for he knows Me Who am He that heeds | |
The sacrifice and worship, God revealed; | |
And He who heeds not, being Lord of Worlds, | 100 |
Lover of all that lives, God unrevealed, | |
Wherein who will shall find surety and shield! | |
Here ends Chapter V. of the Bhagavad-Gîtâ, entitled |
|
“Karmasanyâsayog,” or “The Book of Religion |
|
by Renouncing Fruit of Works” |
105 |
Note 1. That is, “joy and sorrow, success and failure, heat and cold,”&c. [back] |
Note 2. i.e., the body. [back] |