User:Vuara/CHAPTER III (MMY Gita)

CHAPTER III

1. Arjuna said: If Thou considerest knowledge superior to action, O Janardana, why dost Thou spur me to this terrible deed, O Keshava?
2. With these apparently opposed statements Thou dost, as it were, bewilder my intelligence. So, having made Thy decision, tell me the one by which I may reach the highest good.
3. The Blessed Lord said: As expounded by Me of old, O blameless one, there are in this world two paths: the Yoga of knowledge for men of contemplation and the Yoga of action for men of action.
4. Not by abstaining from action does a man achieve non-action; nor by mere renunciation does he attain to perfection.
5. No one, indeed, can exist even for an instant without performing action; for everyone is helplessly driven to activity by the gunas born of Nature.
6. He who sits, restraining the organs of action, and dwelling in his mind on the objects of sense, self-deluded, he is said to be a hypocrite.
7. But he who, controlling the senses by the mind, without attachment engages the organs of action in the Yoga of action, he excels, O Arjuna.
8. Do your allotted duty. Action is indeed superior to inaction. Even the survival of your body would not be possible without action.
9. Excepting actions performed for yagya, this world is in bondage to action. For the sake of yagya engage in action free from attachment.
10. In the beginning, having created men along with yagya, the Lord of Creation said: By this yagya shall ye prosper and this shall bring forth the fulfilment of desires.
11. Through yagya you sustain the gods and those gods will sustain you. By sustaining one another, you will attain the highest good.
12. Satisfied by the yagya, the gods will certainly bestow the enjoyments you desire. But he who enjoys their gifts without offering to them is merely a thief.
13. The righteous, who eat the remains of the yagya, are freed from all sins. But the unrighteous, who prepare food for themselves alone, truly, they eat sin.
14. From food creatures come into being; from rain is produced food; from yagya comes forth rain and yagya is born of action.
15. Know action to be born of Brahma (the Veda). Brahma springs from the Imperishable. Therefore the all-pervading Brahma is ever established in yagya.
16. He who in this life does not follow the wheel thus set revolving, whose life is sinful, whose contentment lies in the senses, he lives in vain, O Partha.
17. But the man whose delight is in the Self alone, who is content in the Self, who rejoices only in the Self, for him there is no action that he need do.
18. Neither has he any profit to gain in this life from the actions he has done or from the actions he has not done; nor is there any living creature on whom he need rely for any purpose.
19. Therefore, remaining unattached, always do the action worthy of performance. Engaging in action truly unattached, man attains to the Supreme.
20. By action alone, indeed, Janaka and others gained perfection. Moreover, even looking to the welfare of the world, you should perform action.
21. Whatsoever a great man does, the very same is aIso done by other men. Whatever the standard he sets, the world follows it.
22. ln the three worlds there is no action which I need do, O Partha; nor is there for Me anything worth achieving unattained; even so I am engaged in action.
23. What if I did not continue unwearyingly in activity, O Partha? Men in every way follow My example.
24. If I did not engage in action, these worlds would perish and I would be the cause of confusion and of the destruction of these people.
25. As the unwise act out of their attachment to action, O Bharata, so should the wise act, but without any attachment, desiring the welfare of the world.
26. Let not the wise man create a division in the minds of the ignorant, who are attached to action. Established in Being, he should direct them to perform all actions, duly engaging in them himself.
27. Actions are in every case performed by the gunas of Nature. He whose mind is deluded by the sense of 'I' holds 'l am the doer'.
28. But he who knows the truth about the divisions of the gunas and their actions, O mighty-armed, knowing that it is the gunas which act upon the gunas, remains unattached.
29. Those deluded by the gunas of Nature are attached to the actions of the gunas. Let not him who knows the whole disturb the ignorant who know only the part.
30. Surrendering all actions to Me by maintaining your consciousness in the Self, freed from longing and the sense of 'mine', fight, delivered from the fever (of delusion).
31. Those men who are possessed of faith, who do not find fault and always follow this teaching of Mine, they too are liberated from action.
32. But those who find fault and do not follow My teaching: know them to be deluded about all knowledge, doomed and senseless.
33. Creatures follow their own nature. Even the enlightened man acts according to his own nature. What can restraint accomplish?
34. The attachment and aversion of each sense are located in the object of that sense; let no man come under their sway, for both indeed are enemies besetting his path.
35. Because one can perform it, one's own dharma (though) lesser in merit, is better than the dharma of another. Better is death in one's own dharma: the dharma of another brings danger.
36. Arjuna said: What is it that impels a man to commit sin, even involuntarily, as if driven by force, O Varshneya?
37. The Blessed Lord said: It is desire, it is anger, born of rajo-guna, all-consuming and most evil. Know this to be the enemy here on earth.
38. As fire is covered by smoke, as a mirror by dust, as an embryo is covered by the amnion, so is This covered by that.
39. Wisdom is veiled by this insatiable flame of desire which is the constant enemy of the wise, O son of Kunti.
40. The senses, the mind and the intellect are said to be its seat. Overshadowing wisdom by means of these, it deludes the dweller in the body.
41. Therefore, having first organized the senses, O best of Bharatas, shake off this evil, the destroyer of knowledge and realization.
42. The senses, they say, are subtle; more subtle than the senses is mind; yet finer than mind is intellect; that which is beyond even the intellect is he.
43. Thus, having known him who is beyond the intellect, having stilled the self by the Self, O mighty-armed, slay the enemy in the form of desire, difficult to subdue.