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Chapter-2
Sankhya
Yog
1: Sanjaya said: Seeing Arjuna
full of compassion, his mind depressed, his eyes full of
tears, Madhusudana, Krsna, spoke the following words.
2: The Supreme Personality of Godhead said: My dear Arjuna, how have these impurities come upon you? They
are not at all befitting a man who knows the value of
life. They lead not to higher planets but to infamy.
3: O son of Parta, do not yield to this degrading
impotence. It does not become you. Give up such petty
weakness of heart and arise, O chastiser of the enemy.
4: Arjuna said: O killer of enemies, O killer of
Madhu, how can I counterattack with arrows in battle men
like Bhisma and Drona, who are worthy of my worship?
5: It would be better to live in this world by
begging than to live at the cost of the lives of great
souls who are my teachers. Even though desiring worldly
gain, they are superiors. If they are killed, everything
we enjoy will be tainted with blood.
6: Nor do we know which is better – conquering them
or being conquered by them. If we killed the sons of Dhrtarastra, we should not care to live. Yet they are
now standing before us on the battlefield.
7: Now I am confused about my duty and have lost
all composure because of miserly weakness. In this
condition I am asking You to tell me for certain what is
best for me. Now I am Your disciple, and a soul
surrendered unto You. Please instruct me.
8: I can find no means to drive away this grief
which is drying up my sense. I willl not be able to
dispel it even it even it I win a prosperous, unrivaled
kingdom on earth will sovereignty like the demigods in
heaven.
9: Sanjaya said: O descendant of Bharata, at that
time Krsna, smiling, in the midst of both the armies,
spoke the following words to the grief-stricken Arjuna.
10: O descendant of Bharata, at that time Krsna,
smiling, in the midst of both the armies, spoke the
following words to the grief-stricken Arjuna
11: The Supreme Personality of Godhead said: While
speaking learned words, you are mourning for what is not
worthy of grief. Those who are wise lament neither for
the living nor for the dead.
12: Never was there a time when I did not exist,
nor you all these kings; nor in the future shall any of
us cease to be.
13: As the embodied soul continuously passes, I
this body, form boyhood to youth to old age, the soul
similarly passes into another body at death. A sober
person is not bewildered by such a change.
14: O son of Kunti, the nonpermanent appearance of
happiness and distress, and their disappearance in due
course, are like the appearance and disappearance of
winter and summer seasons. They arise form sense
perception, O scion of Bharata, and must learn to
tolerate them without being disturbed.
15-17: O best among men [Arjuna], the person who is
not disturbed by happiness and distress and is steady in
both is certainly eligible for liberation.
18: The material body of the indestructible,
immeasurable and eternal living entity is sure to come
to an end; therefore , fight, O descendant of Bharatas.
19: Neither he who thinks the living entity the
slayer nor he who thinks it slain is in knowledge, for
the self slays not nor is slain.
20: For the soul there is neither birth nor death
at any time. He has not come into being, does not come
into being, and will not come into being. He is unborn,
eternal, ever-existing and primeval. He is not slain
when the body is slain.
21: O Partha, how can a person who knows that the
soul is indestructible, eternal, unborn and immutable
kill anyone or cause anyone to kill?
22: O Partha, how can a person who knows that the
soul is indestructible, eternal, unborn and immutable
kill anyone or cause anyone to kill?
23: The soul can never be cut pieces by any weapon,
nor burned by fire, nor moistened by water, nor withered
by the wind.
24: This individual soul is unbreakable and
insoluble, and can be neither burned nor dried. He is
everlasting, present everywhere, unchangeable, immovable
and eternally the same.
25: It is said that the soul is invisible,
inconceivable and immutable. Knowing this, you should
not grieve for the body.
26: If, however, you think that the soul [or the
symptoms of life] is always born and dies forever, you
still have no reason to lament, O mighty-armed.
27: One who has taken his birth is sure to die, and
after death one is sure to take birth again. Therefore,
in the unavoidable discharge of your duty, you should
not lament.
28: All created beings are unmanifested in their
beginning, manifest in their interim state, and
unmanifest again when annihilated. So what need is there
for lamentation?
29: Some look on the soul as amazing, some describe
him as amazing, and some hear of him as amazing, while
others, even after hearing about him, cannot understand
him at all.
30: O descendant of Bharata, he who dwells in the
body can never be slain. Therefore you need not grieve
for any living being.
31: Considering your specific duty as a ksatriya,
you should know that there is no better engagement for
you than fighting on religious principles; and so there
is no need for hesitation.
32: O Partha, happy are the ksatriyas to whom such
fighting opportunity come unsought, opening for them the
doors of the heavenly planets.
33: If, however, you do not perform your religious
duty of fighting, then you will certainly incur sins for
neglecting your duties and thus lose your reputation as
a fighter.
34: People will always speak of your infamy, and
for a respectable person, dishonor is worse than death.
35: The great generals who have highly esteemed
your name and fame will think that you have left the
battlefield out of fear only, and thus they will
consider you insignificant.
36: Your enemies will describe you in many unkind
words and scorn your ability. What could be more painful
for you?
37: O son of Kunti, either you will be killed on
the battlefield and attain the heavenly planets, or you
will conquer and enjoy the earthly kingdom. Therefore,
get up with determination and fight.
38: Do thou 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.
39: Thus far I have described this knowledge to you
through analytical study. Now listen as I explain it in
terms of working without fruitive results. O son of
Prtha, when you act in such knowledge you can free
yourself from the bondage of works.
40: In this endeavor there is no loss or
diminution, and a little advancement on this path can
protect one from the most dangerous type of fear.
41: Those who are on this path are resolute in
purpose, and their aim is one. O beloved child of the Kurus, the intelligence of those who are irresolute in
many-branched.
42-43: Men of small knowledge are very much
attached to the flowery words of the Vedas, which
recommend various fruitive activies for elevation to
heavenly planets, resultant good birth, power, and so
forth. Being desirous of sense gratification and opulent
life, they say that there is nothing more than this.
44: In the minds of those who are too attached to
sense enjoyment and material opulence, and who are
bewildered by such things, the resolute determination
for devotional service to the Supreme Lord does not take
place.
45: The Vedas deal mainly with the subject of the
three modes of material nature. O Arjuna, transcendental
to these three modes. Be free from all dualities and
from all anxieties for gain and safety, and be
established in the self.
46: All purposes served by a small well can at once
be served by a great reservoir of water. Similarly, all
the purposes of the Vedas can be served to one who knows
the purpose behind them.
47: 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.
48: Perform your duty equipoised, O Arjuna,
abandoning all attachment to success or failure. Such
equanimity is called yoga.
49: O Dhananjaya, keep all abominable activities
for distant by devotional service, and in that
consciousness surrender unto the Lord. Those who want to
enjoy the fruits of their work are misers.
50: A man engaged in devotional service rids
himself of both good and bad actions even in this life.
Therefore strive for yoga, which is the art of all work.
51: By thus engaging in devotional service to the
Lord, great sages or devotees free themselves from the
results of work in the material world. In this way they
become free from the cycle of birth and death and attain
the state beyond all miseries [by going back to
Godhead].
52: When your intelligence has passed out of the
dense forest of delusion, you shall become indifferent
to all that has been heard and all that is to be heard.
53: When your mind is no longer disturbed by the
flowery language of the Vedas, and when it remains fixed
in the trance of self-realization, then you will have
attained the divine consciousness.
54: Arjuna said: O Krsna, what are the symptoms of
one whose consciousness is thus merged in transcendence?
How does he speak, and what in his language? How does he
sit, and how does he walk?
55: The Supreme Personality of Godhead said: O
Partha, when a man gives up all varieties of desire for
sense gratification, which arise from mental concoction,
and when his mind, thus purified, finds satisfaction in
the self alone, then he said to be in pure
transcendental consciousness.
56: One who is not disturbed in mind even amidst
the threefold miseries or elated when there is
happiness, and who is free from attachment, fear and
anger, is called a sage of steady mind.
57: In the material world, one who is unaffected by
whatever good or evil he may obtain, neither praising it
nor despising it, is firmly fixed in perfect knowledge.
58: One who is able to withdraw his senses from
sense objects, as the tortoise its limbs within the
shell, is firmly fixed in perfect consciousness.
59: The embodied soul may be restricted from sense
enjoyment, though the taste for sense objects remains.
But, ceasing such engagements by experiencing a higher
taste, he is fixed in consciousness.
60: The senses are so strong and impetuous, O
Arjuna, That they forcibly carry away the mind even of a
man of discrimination who is endeavoring to control
them.
61: One who restrains his senses, keeping them
under full control, and fixes his consciousness upon Me,
is known as a man of steady intelligence.
62: While contemplating the objects of the senses,
a person develops attachment for them, and from such
attachment lusts develops, and from lust anger arises.
63: From anger, complete delusion arises, and from
delusion bewilderment of memory. When memory is
bewildered, intelligence is lost, and when intelligence
is lost one falls down again into the material pool.
64: But a person free all from all attachment and
aversion and to control his senses through regulative
principles of freedom can obtain the complete mercy of
the Lord.
65: For one thus satisfied [in Krsna
consciousness], the threefold miseries of material
existence exist no longer; in such satisfied
consciousness, one’s intelligence is soon well
established.
66: One who is not connected with the Supreme [in
Krsna consciousness] can have neither transcendental
intelligence nor a steady mind, without which there is
no peace. And how can there be any happiness without
peace?
67: As a strong wind sweeps away a boat on the
water, even one of the roaming senses on which the mind
focuses can carry away a man’s intelligence.
68: Therefore, O mighty-armed, one whose senses are
restrained from their objects is certainly of steady
intelligence.
69: What is night for all beings is the time of
awakening for the self-controlled; and the time of
awakening for all beings is night for the introspective
sage.
70: A person who is not disturbed by the incessant
flow of desires-that enter like rivers into the ocean,
which is ever being filled but always still-can alone
achieve peace, and not the man who strives to satisfy
such desires.
71: A person who has given up all desires for sense
gratification, who lives free from desires, who has
given up all sense of proprietorship and is devoid of
false ego-he alone can attain real peace.
72: That is the way of the spiritual and godly
life, after attaining which a man is not bewildered. If
one is thus situated even at the hour of death, one can
enter into the kingdom of God.
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