The Bhagavad-Gita, - [pocket ebook reader TXT] 📗
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But whereso any doeth all his deeds
Renouncing self for Me, full of Me, fixed To serve only the Highest, night and day Musing on Me—him will I swiftly lift
Forth from life’s ocean of distress and death, Whose soul clings fast to Me. Cling thou to Me!
Clasp Me with heart and mind! so shalt thou dwell Surely with Me on high. But if thy thought Droops from such height; if thou be’st weak to set Body and soul upon Me constantly,
Despair not! give Me lower service! seek To reach Me, worshipping with steadfast will; And, if thou canst not worship steadfastly, Work for Me, toil in works pleasing to Me!
For he that laboureth right for love of Me Shall finally attain! But, if in this
Thy faint heart fails, bring Me thy failure! find Refuge in Me! let fruits of labour go,
Renouncing hope for Me, with lowliest heart, So shalt thou come; for, though to know is more Than diligence, yet worship better is
Than knowing, and renouncing better still.
Near to renunciation—very near—
Dwelleth Eternal Peace!
Who hateth nought
Of all which lives, living himself benign, Compassionate, from arrogance exempt,
Exempt from love of self, unchangeable
By good or ill; patient, contented, firm In faith, mastering himself, true to his word, Seeking Me, heart and soul; vowed unto Me,—
That man I love! Who troubleth not his kind, And is not troubled by them; clear of wrath, Living too high for gladness, grief, or fear, That man I love! Who, dwelling quiet-eyed,[FN#25]
Stainless, serene, well-balanced, unperplexed, Working with Me, yet from all works detached, That man I love! Who, fixed in faith on Me, Dotes upon none, scorns none; rejoices not, And grieves not, letting good or evil hap Light when it will, and when it will depart, That man I love! Who, unto friend and foe Keeping an equal heart, with equal mind
Bears shame and glory; with an equal peace Takes heat and cold, pleasure and pain; abides Quit of desires, hears praise or calumny In passionless restraint, unmoved by each; Linked by no ties to earth, steadfast in Me, That man I love! But most of all I love
Those happy ones to whom ‘tis life to live In single fervid faith and love unseeing, Drinking the blessed Amrit of my Being!
HERE ENDETH CHAPTER XII. OF THE BHAGAVAD-GITA, Entitled “Bhaktiyog,”
Or”The Book of the Religion of Faith.”
Arjuna.
Now would I hear, O gracious Kesava![FN#26]
Of Life which seems, and Soul beyond, which sees, And what it is we know-or think to know.
Krishna.
Yea! Son of Kunti! for this flesh ye see Is Kshetra, is the field where Life disports; And that which views and knows it is the Soul, Kshetrajna. In all “fields,” thou Indian prince!
I am Kshetrajna. I am what surveys!
Only that knowledge knows which knows the known By the knower![FN#27] What it is, that “field” of life, What qualities it hath, and whence it is, And why it changeth, and the faculty
That wotteth it, the mightiness of this, And how it wotteth-hear these things from Me!
… … … …[FN#28]
The elements, the conscious life, the mind, The unseen vital force, the nine strange gates Of the body, and the five domains of sense; Desire, dislike, pleasure and pain, and thought Deep-woven, and persistency of being;
These all are wrought on Matter by the Soul!
Humbleness, truthfulness, and harmlessness, Patience and honour, reverence for the wise.
Purity, constancy, control of self,
Contempt of sense-delights, self-sacrifice, Perception of the certitude of ill
In birth, death, age, disease, suffering, and sin; Detachment, lightly holding unto home,
Children, and wife, and all that bindeth men; An ever-tranquil heart in fortunes good
And fortunes evil, with a will set firm
To worship Me—Me only! ceasing not;
Loving all solitudes, and shunning noise Of foolish crowds; endeavours resolute
To reach perception of the Utmost Soul,
And grace to understand what gain it were So to attain,—this is true Wisdom, Prince!
And what is otherwise is ignorance!
Now will I speak of knowledge best to know-That Truth which giveth man Amrit to drink, The Truth of HIM, the ParaBrahm, the All, The Uncreated;; not Asat, not Sat,
Not Form, nor the Unformed; yet both, and more;—
Whose hands are everywhere, and everywhere Planted His feet, and everywhere His eyes Beholding, and His ears in every place
Hearing, and all His faces everywhere
Enlightening and encompassing His worlds.
Glorified in the senses He hath given,
Yet beyond sense He is; sustaining all,
Yet dwells He unattached: of forms and modes Master, yet neither form nor mode hath He; He is within all beings—and without—
Motionless, yet still moving; not discerned For subtlety of instant presence; close
To all, to each; yet measurelessly far!
Not manifold, and yet subsisting still
In all which lives; for ever to be known As the Sustainer, yet, at the End of Times, He maketh all to end—and re-creates.
The Light of Lights He is, in the heart of the Dark Shining eternally. Wisdom He is
And Wisdom’s way, and Guide of all the wise, Planted in every heart.
So have I told
Of Life’s stuff, and the moulding, and the lore To comprehend. Whoso, adoring Me,
Perceiveth this, shall surely come to Me!
Know thou that Nature and the Spirit both Have no beginning! Know that qualities
And changes of them are by Nature wrought; That Nature puts to work the acting frame, But Spirit doth inform it, and so cause
Feeling of pain and pleasure. Spirit, linked To moulded matter, entereth into bond
With qualities by Nature framed, and, thus Married to matter, breeds the birth again In good or evil yonis.[FN#29]
Yet is this
Yea! in its bodily prison!—Spirit pure, Spirit supreme; surveying, governing,
Guarding, possessing; Lord and Master still PURUSHA, Ultimate, One Soul with Me.
Whoso thus knows himself, and knows his soul PURUSHA, working through the qualities
With Nature’s modes, the light hath come for him!
Whatever flesh he bears, never again
Shall he take on its load. Some few there be By meditation find the Soul in Self
Self-schooled; and some by long philosophy And holy life reach thither; some by works: Some, never so attaining, hear of light
From other lips, and seize, and cleave to it Worshipping; yea! and those—to teaching true—
Overpass Death!
Wherever, Indian Prince!
Life is—of moving things, or things unmoved, Plant or still seed—know, what is there hath grown By bond of Matter and of Spirit: Know
He sees indeed who sees in all alike
The living, lordly Soul; the Soul Supreme, Imperishable amid the Perishing:
For, whoso thus beholds, in every place, In every form, the same, one, Living Life, Doth no more wrongfulness unto himself,
But goes the highest road which brings to bliss.
Seeing, he sees, indeed, who sees that works Are Nature’s wont, for Soul to practise by Acting, yet not the agent; sees the mass Of separate living things—each of its kind—
Issue from One, and blend again to One:
Then hath he BRAHMA, he attains!
O Prince!
That Ultimate, High Spirit, Uncreate,
Unqualified, even when it entereth flesh Taketh no stain of acts, worketh in nought!
Like to th” ethereal air, pervading all, Which, for sheer subtlety, avoideth taint, The subtle Soul sits everywhere, unstained: Like to the light of the all-piercing sun [Which is not changed by aught it shines upon,]
The Soul’s light shineth pure in every place; And they who, by such eye of wisdom, see How Matter, and what deals with it, divide; And how the Spirit and the flesh have strife, Those wise ones go the way which leads to Life!
HERE ENDS CHAPTER XIII. OF THE BHAGAVAD-GITA, Entitled “Kshetrakshetrajnavibhagayog,”
Or “The Book of Religion by Separation of Matter and Spirit.”
Krishna.
Yet farther will I open unto thee
This wisdom of all wisdoms, uttermost,
The which possessing, all My saints have passed To perfectness. On such high verities
Reliant, rising into fellowship
With Me, they are not born again at birth Of Kalpas, nor at Pralyas suffer change!
This Universe the womb is where I plant
Seed of all lives! Thence, Prince of India, comes Birth to all beings! Whoso, Kunti’s Son!
Mothers each mortal form, Brahma conceives, And I am He that fathers, sending seed!
Sattwan, Rajas, and Tamas, so are named
The qualities of Nature, “Soothfastness,”
“Passion,” and “Ignorance.” These three bind down The changeless Spirit in the changeful flesh.
Whereof sweet “Soothfastness,” by purity Living unsullied and enlightened, binds
The sinless Soul to happiness and truth; And Passion, being kin to appetite,
And breeding impulse and propensity,
Binds the embodied Soul, O Kunti’s Son!
By tie of works. But Ignorance, begot
Of Darkness, blinding mortal men, binds down Their souls to stupor, sloth, and drowsiness.
Yea, Prince of India! Soothfastness binds souls In pleasant wise to flesh; and Passion binds By toilsome strain; but Ignorance, which blots The beams of wisdom, binds the soul to sloth.
Passion and Ignorance, once overcome,
Leave Soothfastness, O Bharata! Where this With Ignorance are absent, Passion rules; And Ignorance in hearts not good nor quick.
When at all gateways of the Body shines
The Lamp of Knowledge, then may one see well Soothfastness settled in that city reigns; Where longing is, and ardour, and unrest, Impulse to strive and gain, and avarice, Those spring from Passion—Prince!—engrained; and where Darkness and dulness, sloth and stupor are, ‘Tis Ignorance hath caused them, Kuru Chief!
Moreover, when a soul departeth, fixed
In Soothfastness, it goeth to the place—
Perfect and pure—of those that know all Truth.
If it departeth in set habitude
Of Impulse, it shall pass into the world Of spirits tied to works; and, if it dies In hardened Ignorance, that blinded soul Is born anew in some unlighted womb.
The fruit of Soothfastness is true and sweet; The fruit of lusts is pain and toil; the fruit Of Ignorance is deeper darkness. Yea!
For Light brings light, and Passion ache to have; And gloom, bewilderments, and ignorance
Grow forth from Ignorance. Those of the first Rise ever higher; those of the second mode Take a mid place; the darkened souls sink back To lower deeps, loaded with witlessness!
When, watching life, the living man perceives The only actors are the Qualities,
And knows what rules beyond the Qualities, Then is he come nigh unto Me!
The Soul,
Thus passing forth from the Three Qualities—
Whereby arise all bodies—overcomes
Birth, Death, Sorrow, and Age; and drinketh deep The undying wine of Amrit.
Arjuna.
Oh, my Lord!
Which be the signs to know him that hath gone Past the Three Modes? How liveth he? What way Leadeth him safe beyond the threefold Modes?
Krishna.
He who with equanimity surveys
Lustre of goodness, strife of passion, sloth Of ignorance, not angry if they are,
Not wishful when they are not: he who sits A sojourner and stranger in their midst
Unruffled, standing off, saying—serene—
When troubles break, “These be the Qualities!”
He unto whom—self-centred—grief and joy Sound as one word; to whose deep-seeing eyes The clod, the marble, and the gold are one; Whose equal heart holds the same gentleness For lovely and unlovely things, firm-set, Well-pleased in praise and dispraise; satisfied With honour or dishonour; unto friends
And unto foes alike in tolerance;
Detached from undertakings,—he is named Surmounter of the Qualities!
And such—
With single, fervent faith adoring Me,
Passing beyond the Qualities, conforms
To Brahma, and attains Me!
For I am
That whereof Brahma is the likeness! Mine The Amrit is; and Immortality
Is mine; and mine perfect Felicity!
HERE ENDS CHAPTER XIV. OF THE BHAGAVAD-GITA Entitled “Gunatrayavibhagayog,”
Or “The Book of Religion by Separation
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