Chapter 3:
CONTENTS |
Chapter 3:
The Yoga of Action:
On mastering the intelligence.Verses 1 to 9, 20 & 21, 25 & 26, 30, and 35 to 43.
Text 1 Arjuna said: 'If being intelligent is considered better than doing fruitive work, as You said o Janârdana, then why are You engaging me in this ghastly action Kesava?
Surely you are confusing my intelligence with your equivocal words, therefore please make sure you tell me of one only so that I may really benefit from it.
The Supreme Lord said: 'In this world there are two kinds of faith, as I told you before o sinless one, it is the linking of oneself in the knowledge of the analytic mind [to attain to stability of intelligence] and the connectedness in action [forsaking the desire for the fruits] as practiced by the mystical [the volition of yoga].
Nor by forsaking work does a man attain to liberation nor does he attain to success by simply renouncing [the fruits].
Surely no one is but for a moment without action and certainly everyone is irresistably drawn to fruitive work [undergo karma] according the qualities born from the modes of nature.
Anyone who, controlling the senses, in his mind keeps to thinking on the sense-objects is a foolish soul called a pretender.
But one who, regulating the senses with his mind, o Arjuna, makes a beginning with connecting his senses in working without the attachment of desiring the fruits [karma-yoga] - he is by far the better.
Do your precribed duties, as working for certain is better than not to work - even your bodily maintenance is never without the effect of work.
Work for the purpose of sacrifice, otherwise work in this world will bind you. Work done for that sake, o son of Kuntî, will liberate you perfectly from that [material] association.
For sure even kings like Janaka [father of Sîtâ, the wife of Râma, ] and others attained to perfection through this work and also in consideration of what the world needs you should act.
Whatever that a respectable leader does is surely and solely done for other people and whatever the example he gives the whole world will do in following.
As the ignorant do their work in attachment, o descendant of Bharata, so the learned must act without attachment in desiring to be the example for the common people.
He should not disturb the minds of the ignorant attached to the fruits of labor; a wise man should, engaged in his duty, fit all in with his work.
Therefore dedicate all sorts of work to Me, giving up in the full knowledge of your soul, with a consciousness free from desiring profit and property and being thus: fight without hesitation!
It is better [to that] to follow one's own nature making mistakes than to be perfect in following an estranged course of action; to find destruction with following one's own duty is [thus] better than to run with an estranged sense of duty into danger.
Ajuna said:'Then by what is a man impelled to sin even if he doesn't want to, o descendant of Vrishni [Krishna's family name], as if engaged by force?
The Supreme Lord said:' It is lust, it is anger born from the mode of passion which is the all-devouring greatly sinful; know this here to be your greatest enemy.
Just like smoke covering a fire, a mirror covered with dust and a womb enclosing an embryo, so similarly by this lust this [knowing] is covered.
The knowing of the knower, covered by this eternal enemy in the form of [the unregulated] desire , o son of Kuntî, is just like fire never satisfied.
The senses, the mind and the intelligence are called the stronghold of this lust which by all these clouds the knowledge in covering the embodied [soul].
Therefore you must, regulating the senses from the beginning, o best among the Bharata's, curb this drive of sin that is the destroyer of knowledge and wisdom.
The senses are above things one says and more than the senses is the superior [directing] mind. Also above that is the [planning] intelligence - but more than the intelligence is He who is the [controlling transcendent soul] beyond.
Thus superior to the intelligence knowing from the steadying of the mind deliberately conquer this enemy which , o mighty armed one, is so formidable in the form of lust.
Bhagavad Gîtâ of Order, chapter 3
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