CHAPTER 2A
Know about the human Soul
[Bodies are like bulbs and the principle of Atma is like the currentpassing through all the bulbs.]
2.01-2.03
Arjuna’s eyes were tearful and downcast. He was overwhelmed by compassion and despair. Then Lord Krishna spoke these words to Arjuna:
How has the dejection come to you at this juncture?
This is not fit for a person of noble mind and knowledge.
It is disgraceful, and it does not lead one to fame, O Arjuna.
Do not become a coward. Do not yield to this impotence. It does not befit you.
Shake off this trivial weakness of your heart and get up for the battle.
2.04-10
Arjuna said:
How shall I strike my grandfather, my guru, and all other relatives, who are worthy of my respect, with arrows in battle, O Krishna?
It would be better, indeed, to live on begging in this world than to win the kingdom by slaying these noble personalities. By killing them all I would get is the wealth and pleasures stained with their blood.
We should not even wish to live after killing our cousin brothers, who are standing in front of us.
I do not think that gaining an unrivaled and prosperous kingdom will remove the sin I would be committing in killing them.
I do not know which is better, i.e. to fight or to quit. My senses are overcome by confusion about duty (Dharma).
Please tell me what is better for me. I am Your disciple, and I take refuge in You.
2.11-15
Lord Krishna said:
You are grieving for what is not worthy of grief.
The wise people grieve neither for the living nor for the dead because there was never a time when these monarchs, you, or I did not exist; nor shall we ever cease to exist in the future.
Just as the soul acquires a childhood body, a youth body, and an old age body during this life; similarly, the soul acquires another body after death.
The contacts of the senses with the sense objects give rise to the feelings of pain and pleasure. They are transitory and impermanent like the winter and summer. They all arise from sense perception.
While performing one’s duty, one should learn to tolerate them without being disturbed. Only persons who are not disturbed by either happiness or distress and remain balanced are fit to become immortal.
2.16-21
The visible physical body is perishable and transitory.
Only the invisible Spirit, Atman is eternal. This Atman is indestructible. No one can destroy the imperishable the Atman.
In this way you and the others are mere Atman. The Atman neither slays nor is slain. If you think you are slaying the others, you are ignorant.
The Spirit is neither born nor does it die at any time. It does not come into being, or cease to exist. It is unborn, eternal and permanent. The Spirit is not destroyed when the body is destroyed.
O Arjuna, how can a person who knows that the Spirit is indestructible, eternal, unborn, and immutable, kill anyone or cause anyone to be killed?
Therefore fight, O Arjuna.
2.22-30
Just as a person puts on new garments after discarding the old ones; the living entity or the individual soul acquires new bodies after casting away the old bodies.
Weapons do not cut this Spirit, fire does not burn it, water does not make it wet, and the wind does not make it dry. It is eternal, all pervading and unchanging.
Knowing the permanence of Spirit as such you should not grieve.
Even if you think of the physical body, be aware that the death is certain for the one who is born, and birth is certain for the one who dies. Therefore, you should not lament over the inevitable.
All beings are unmanifest, or invisible to our physical eyes before birth and after death.
They manifest between the birth and the death only. What is there to grieve about?
O Arjuna, the Spirit that dwells in the body of all beings is eternally indestructible. Therefore, you should not mourn for anybody.
CHAPTER 2B
Do your duty selflessly
2.31-38
Considering also your duty as a warrior you should not waver like this. There is nothing more auspicious for a warrior than a righteous war. So there is no need for hesitation.
Only the fortunate warriors get such an opportunity for an unsought war that is like an open door to heaven.
If you will not fight this righteous war, then you will fail in your duty, lose your reputation, and incur sin. People will talk about your disgrace forever. To the honored, dishonor is worse than death. The great warriors will think that you have retreated from the battle out of fear. Those who have greatly esteemed you will lose respect for you.
Your enemies will speak many unmentionable words and scorn your ability. What could be more painful to you than this?
You will go to heaven if killed on the line of duty, or you will enjoy the kingdom on the earth if victorious. Therefore, get up with a determination to fight, O Arjuna.
Fight for the sake of fighting, without considering happiness or distress, loss or gain, victory or defeat--and by so doing you shall never incur sin.
2.39-41
So far we discussed about self realization by you. But beyond this lies the realm of selfless service (Seva) with no attachment to results. Such a self less service alone can free yourself from all Karmic bondage, or sin. A selfless service never incurs adverse effect. All selfless service protects one from repeated birth and death. Whereas, one who renders service keeping its results in mind does not get free from the birth and death.
CHAPTER 2C
Rise about worldliness in performance of your Duty
2.42-46
There are many people who consider Vedas as containing only rituals for obtaining heavenly enjoyment. They are the people who are misguided who merely chant Vedas without understanding their real purpose. They do get any self realization through ritualistic activities.
Vedas essentially deal with Satva, Rajas and Thamas, i.e. goodness, passion, and ignorance. But there is a realm even beyond Vedas making you lead a balanced life, helping you rise above thoughts of acquisition and preservation.
To a Self-realized person who has risen about the Vedas, the Vedas are as useful as a small reservoir of water when the water of a huge lake becomes available.
Become free from worldliness. Be free from all anxieties for gain and safety, and be established in the self.
2.47-54
You have a right to perform your prescribed duty, but you are not entitled to the fruits of action. Never consider yourself the cause of the results of your activities, and never be attached to not doing your duty.
You have control over doing your duty only, but no control over the results. While the fruits of work should not be your motive, yet you should never be inactive. Do your duty to the best of your ability, with your mind attached to the Lord, abandoning worry and selfish attachment to the results, and remaining calm in both success and failure. The selfless service is a yogic practice that brings peace and equanimity of mind.
A man engaged in devotional service rids himself of both good and bad actions even in this life. Work done with selfish motives is inferior by far to the selfless service. Therefore be a selfless worker. Those who work only to enjoy the fruits of their labor are verily unhappy, because one has no control over the results.
Strive for selfless service. Karma-yogis are freed from the bondage of rebirth due to renouncing the selfish attachment to the fruits of all work, and attain blissful divine state of salvation or Nirvana.
When your intellect will completely pierce the veil of confusion, then you will become indifferent to what has been heard and what is to be heard from the scriptures.
When your intellect, that is confused by the conflicting opinions and the ritualistic doctrine of the Vedas, shall stay steady and firm on concentration.
CHAPTER 2D
Control your senses and let go of attachments
Arjuna asked
O Krishna, whom do you call as a steady person?
How does a person of steady intellect think?
How does such a person behave with others, and live in this world?
2.55-59
Lord Krishna said:
When one can completely withdraw the senses from the sense objects as a tortoise withdraws its limbs into the shell, then the intellect of such a person is considered steady.
But generally, the desire for sensual pleasures could fade in a person, but his craving for sense enjoyment might remains in a very subtle form, dormant. This subtle craving also need completely disappear. Anyone, who restrains the senses but mentally dwells upon the sense objects, is called a pretender. (3.06)
When one is completely free from all desires of the mind and is satisfied with the Supreme Being, then one is called an enlightened person, O Arjuna.
Thus a person whose mind is unperturbed by sorrow, who does not crave pleasures, and who is completely free from attachment, fear, and anger, is a person of steady intellect. He should be a person who is neither elated by getting desired results, nor perturbed by undesired results.
2.60-63
The senses are so strong, impetuous and restless that they forcibly carry away the mind of even a wise person striving for perfection.
One develops attachment to sense objects by thinking about sense objects. Desire for sense objects comes from attachment to sense objects
Anger comes from unfulfilled desires.
Delusion or wild idea arises from anger.
The mind is bewildered by delusion.
Reasoning is destroyed when the mind is bewildered.
One falls down from the right path when reasoning is destroyed.
One's intellect becomes steady when one's senses are under complete control. One should therefore fix one's mind on God with loving contemplation after bringing the senses under control.
2.64-73
The mind, when controlled by the roving senses, steals away the intellect as a storm takes away a boat on the sea from its destination the spiritual shore of peace and happiness.
One who desires material objects is never peaceful. Only the one who abandons all desires, and becomes free from longing and the feeling of 'I' and 'my', attains peace.
Therefore, O Arjuna, one's intellect becomes steady whose senses are completely withdrawn from the sense objects.
A disciplined person with senses under control and free from attachments and aversions, attains tranquillity.
All sorrows are destroyed upon attainment of tranquillity.
The intellect of such a tranquil person soon becomes completely steady and united with the Supreme.
Therefore it is necessary for one to know who he is. He should have self knowledge and self perception.
Without Self-perception there is no peace, and without peace there can be no happiness.
A person of self knowledge and self perception is a Yogi. He remains alert and wakeful when every one is asleep. And when every one is awake, still there are asleep as far as the Yogi is concerned.
The Yogi attains peace because in his mind, all desires dissipate without creating any mental disturbance, as river waters enter the full ocean without creating any disturbance.
O Arjuna, this is the superconscious state of mind. Attaining this state, one is no longer deluded. Gaining this state, a person becomes one with the Absolute.
Know about the human Soul
[Bodies are like bulbs and the principle of Atma is like the currentpassing through all the bulbs.]
2.01-2.03
Arjuna’s eyes were tearful and downcast. He was overwhelmed by compassion and despair. Then Lord Krishna spoke these words to Arjuna:
How has the dejection come to you at this juncture?
This is not fit for a person of noble mind and knowledge.
It is disgraceful, and it does not lead one to fame, O Arjuna.
Do not become a coward. Do not yield to this impotence. It does not befit you.
Shake off this trivial weakness of your heart and get up for the battle.
2.04-10
Arjuna said:
How shall I strike my grandfather, my guru, and all other relatives, who are worthy of my respect, with arrows in battle, O Krishna?
It would be better, indeed, to live on begging in this world than to win the kingdom by slaying these noble personalities. By killing them all I would get is the wealth and pleasures stained with their blood.
We should not even wish to live after killing our cousin brothers, who are standing in front of us.
I do not think that gaining an unrivaled and prosperous kingdom will remove the sin I would be committing in killing them.
I do not know which is better, i.e. to fight or to quit. My senses are overcome by confusion about duty (Dharma).
Please tell me what is better for me. I am Your disciple, and I take refuge in You.
2.11-15
Lord Krishna said:
You are grieving for what is not worthy of grief.
The wise people grieve neither for the living nor for the dead because there was never a time when these monarchs, you, or I did not exist; nor shall we ever cease to exist in the future.
Just as the soul acquires a childhood body, a youth body, and an old age body during this life; similarly, the soul acquires another body after death.
The contacts of the senses with the sense objects give rise to the feelings of pain and pleasure. They are transitory and impermanent like the winter and summer. They all arise from sense perception.
While performing one’s duty, one should learn to tolerate them without being disturbed. Only persons who are not disturbed by either happiness or distress and remain balanced are fit to become immortal.
2.16-21
The visible physical body is perishable and transitory.
Only the invisible Spirit, Atman is eternal. This Atman is indestructible. No one can destroy the imperishable the Atman.
In this way you and the others are mere Atman. The Atman neither slays nor is slain. If you think you are slaying the others, you are ignorant.
The Spirit is neither born nor does it die at any time. It does not come into being, or cease to exist. It is unborn, eternal and permanent. The Spirit is not destroyed when the body is destroyed.
O Arjuna, how can a person who knows that the Spirit is indestructible, eternal, unborn, and immutable, kill anyone or cause anyone to be killed?
Therefore fight, O Arjuna.
2.22-30
Just as a person puts on new garments after discarding the old ones; the living entity or the individual soul acquires new bodies after casting away the old bodies.
Weapons do not cut this Spirit, fire does not burn it, water does not make it wet, and the wind does not make it dry. It is eternal, all pervading and unchanging.
Knowing the permanence of Spirit as such you should not grieve.
Even if you think of the physical body, be aware that the death is certain for the one who is born, and birth is certain for the one who dies. Therefore, you should not lament over the inevitable.
All beings are unmanifest, or invisible to our physical eyes before birth and after death.
They manifest between the birth and the death only. What is there to grieve about?
O Arjuna, the Spirit that dwells in the body of all beings is eternally indestructible. Therefore, you should not mourn for anybody.
CHAPTER 2B
Do your duty selflessly
2.31-38
Considering also your duty as a warrior you should not waver like this. There is nothing more auspicious for a warrior than a righteous war. So there is no need for hesitation.
Only the fortunate warriors get such an opportunity for an unsought war that is like an open door to heaven.
If you will not fight this righteous war, then you will fail in your duty, lose your reputation, and incur sin. People will talk about your disgrace forever. To the honored, dishonor is worse than death. The great warriors will think that you have retreated from the battle out of fear. Those who have greatly esteemed you will lose respect for you.
Your enemies will speak many unmentionable words and scorn your ability. What could be more painful to you than this?
You will go to heaven if killed on the line of duty, or you will enjoy the kingdom on the earth if victorious. Therefore, get up with a determination to fight, O Arjuna.
Fight for the sake of fighting, without considering happiness or distress, loss or gain, victory or defeat--and by so doing you shall never incur sin.
2.39-41
So far we discussed about self realization by you. But beyond this lies the realm of selfless service (Seva) with no attachment to results. Such a self less service alone can free yourself from all Karmic bondage, or sin. A selfless service never incurs adverse effect. All selfless service protects one from repeated birth and death. Whereas, one who renders service keeping its results in mind does not get free from the birth and death.
CHAPTER 2C
Rise about worldliness in performance of your Duty
2.42-46
There are many people who consider Vedas as containing only rituals for obtaining heavenly enjoyment. They are the people who are misguided who merely chant Vedas without understanding their real purpose. They do get any self realization through ritualistic activities.
Vedas essentially deal with Satva, Rajas and Thamas, i.e. goodness, passion, and ignorance. But there is a realm even beyond Vedas making you lead a balanced life, helping you rise above thoughts of acquisition and preservation.
To a Self-realized person who has risen about the Vedas, the Vedas are as useful as a small reservoir of water when the water of a huge lake becomes available.
Become free from worldliness. Be free from all anxieties for gain and safety, and be established in the self.
2.47-54
You have a right to perform your prescribed duty, but you are not entitled to the fruits of action. Never consider yourself the cause of the results of your activities, and never be attached to not doing your duty.
You have control over doing your duty only, but no control over the results. While the fruits of work should not be your motive, yet you should never be inactive. Do your duty to the best of your ability, with your mind attached to the Lord, abandoning worry and selfish attachment to the results, and remaining calm in both success and failure. The selfless service is a yogic practice that brings peace and equanimity of mind.
A man engaged in devotional service rids himself of both good and bad actions even in this life. Work done with selfish motives is inferior by far to the selfless service. Therefore be a selfless worker. Those who work only to enjoy the fruits of their labor are verily unhappy, because one has no control over the results.
Strive for selfless service. Karma-yogis are freed from the bondage of rebirth due to renouncing the selfish attachment to the fruits of all work, and attain blissful divine state of salvation or Nirvana.
When your intellect will completely pierce the veil of confusion, then you will become indifferent to what has been heard and what is to be heard from the scriptures.
When your intellect, that is confused by the conflicting opinions and the ritualistic doctrine of the Vedas, shall stay steady and firm on concentration.
CHAPTER 2D
Control your senses and let go of attachments
Arjuna asked
O Krishna, whom do you call as a steady person?
How does a person of steady intellect think?
How does such a person behave with others, and live in this world?
2.55-59
Lord Krishna said:
When one can completely withdraw the senses from the sense objects as a tortoise withdraws its limbs into the shell, then the intellect of such a person is considered steady.
But generally, the desire for sensual pleasures could fade in a person, but his craving for sense enjoyment might remains in a very subtle form, dormant. This subtle craving also need completely disappear. Anyone, who restrains the senses but mentally dwells upon the sense objects, is called a pretender. (3.06)
When one is completely free from all desires of the mind and is satisfied with the Supreme Being, then one is called an enlightened person, O Arjuna.
Thus a person whose mind is unperturbed by sorrow, who does not crave pleasures, and who is completely free from attachment, fear, and anger, is a person of steady intellect. He should be a person who is neither elated by getting desired results, nor perturbed by undesired results.
2.60-63
The senses are so strong, impetuous and restless that they forcibly carry away the mind of even a wise person striving for perfection.
One develops attachment to sense objects by thinking about sense objects. Desire for sense objects comes from attachment to sense objects
Anger comes from unfulfilled desires.
Delusion or wild idea arises from anger.
The mind is bewildered by delusion.
Reasoning is destroyed when the mind is bewildered.
One falls down from the right path when reasoning is destroyed.
One's intellect becomes steady when one's senses are under complete control. One should therefore fix one's mind on God with loving contemplation after bringing the senses under control.
2.64-73
The mind, when controlled by the roving senses, steals away the intellect as a storm takes away a boat on the sea from its destination the spiritual shore of peace and happiness.
One who desires material objects is never peaceful. Only the one who abandons all desires, and becomes free from longing and the feeling of 'I' and 'my', attains peace.
Therefore, O Arjuna, one's intellect becomes steady whose senses are completely withdrawn from the sense objects.
A disciplined person with senses under control and free from attachments and aversions, attains tranquillity.
All sorrows are destroyed upon attainment of tranquillity.
The intellect of such a tranquil person soon becomes completely steady and united with the Supreme.
Therefore it is necessary for one to know who he is. He should have self knowledge and self perception.
Without Self-perception there is no peace, and without peace there can be no happiness.
A person of self knowledge and self perception is a Yogi. He remains alert and wakeful when every one is asleep. And when every one is awake, still there are asleep as far as the Yogi is concerned.
The Yogi attains peace because in his mind, all desires dissipate without creating any mental disturbance, as river waters enter the full ocean without creating any disturbance.
O Arjuna, this is the superconscious state of mind. Attaining this state, one is no longer deluded. Gaining this state, a person becomes one with the Absolute.
8 comments:
Gita has always enticed me, being the most pragmatic philosophy………….especially the 2nd chapter...But Taking everything in array, I DIFFER on one point and this point has always interpreted Gita differently for me...- Is it humanly (simply) possible to do action without anticipating its result as one would "wish it to be" like, if not "want it to be"?
There is a purpose even in seeking the Unknown, the Divine.
And this purpose itself is anticipation/result/action ..... as one may term it….
Seeking the divine, is a pure desire born out of the central channel of energy. This desire if made from the heart does not have any material or worldy satisfaction. No other action or desire in this world can be compared to this. Lord Krishna has spoken the Gita in such a way that it contradicts itself in a beautiful way, however he knew that once the pearls of wisdom and self knowledge took roots the words would unravel their real meanings to a person. Hence the Gita is interpreted differently by everybody but to know its absolute truth is the real joy.
I want to ask that it is given that one should be away from detachment but when we marry then we get attached to our wife and our children. Is this not attachment? Will this not take away from salvation?
No Sir. Lord Krishna says that one should engage in activity/karma with putting the mind on Lord. As such if any person with feeling of devotion does his work be it be marriage or children will not be affected by creation of Karma. Little bit of attachment is alright but it should not be so overpowering as to make you it's slave.
"He should be a person who is neither elated by getting desired results, nor perturbed by undesired results" - In this sentence there is a significance given to desires. So desire as such is not a bad thing. Only getting affected by end result of the desire is a concern and should be avoided. The readings and preaching mentioned needs at a minimum 50 times read to even understand what Krishna tries to convey can be very well applied to any day to day life problems!
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Nice blog
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मनसा देवी मंदिर हरिद्वार का इतिहास
It is okay to desire results..what it says is to not get affected by results..hope you get it.
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