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Chapter-3
Karma Yog
1: Arjuna said: O Janardana, O
Kesava, why do You want to engage me in this ghastly
warfare, if You think that intelligence is better than
fruitive work?
2: My intelligence is bewildered by Your equivocal
instructions. Therefore, please tell me decisively which
will be most beneficial for me.
3: The Supreme Personality of Godhead said: O
sinless Arjuna, I have already explained that there are
two classes of men who try to realize the self. Some are
inclined to understand it by empirical, philosophical
speculation, and others by devotional service.
4: Not by merely abstaining from work can one
achieve freedom from reaction, nor by renunciation alone
can one attain perfection.
5: Everyone is forced to act helplessly according
to the qualities he has acquired from the modes of
material nature; therefore no one can refrain from doing
something, not even for a moment.
6: One who restrains the senses of action but whose
mind dwells on sense objects certainly deludes himself
and is called a pretender.
7: On the other hand, if a sincere person tries to
control the active senses by the mind and begins
karma-yoga [in Krsna consciousness] without attachment,
he is by far superior.
8: Perform your prescribed duty, for doing so is
better than not working. One cannot even maintain one’s
physical body without work.
9: Work done as a sacrifice for Visnu has to be
performed; otherwise work causes bondage in this
material world. Therefore, O son of Kunti, perform your
prescribed duties for His satisfaction, and in that way
you will always remain free from bondage.
10: In the beginning of creation, the Lord of all
creatures sent forth generations of men and demigods,
along with sacrifice for Visnu, and blessed them by
saying, “Be thou happy by this yajna [sacrifice] because
its performance will bestow upon you everything
desirable for living happily and achieving liberation.”
11: The demigods, being pleased by sacrifices, will
also please you, and thus, by cooperation between men
and demigods, prosperity will reign for all.
12: In charge of the various necessities of life,
the demigods, being satisfied by the performance of
yajna [sacrifice], will supply all necessities to you.
But he who enjoys such gifts without offering them to
the demigods in return is certainly a thief.
13: The devotees of the Lord are released from all
kinds of sins because they eat food which is offered
first for sacrifice. Others, who prepare food for
personal sense enjoyment, verily eat only sin.
14: All living bodies subsist on food grains, which
are produced from rains. Rains are produced by
performance of yajna [sacrifice], and yajna is born of
prescribed duties.
15: Regulated activities are prescribed in the
Vedas, and the Vedas are directly manifested from the
Supreme Personality of Godhead. Consequently the all-prevading
Transcendence is eternally situated in acts of
sacrifice.
16: My dear Arjuna, one who does not follow in
human life the cycle of sacrifice thus established by
the Vedas certainly leads a life full of sin. Living
only for the satisfaction of the senses, such a person
lives in vain.
17: But for one who takes pleasure in the self,
whose human life is one of self-realization, and who is
satisfied in the self only, fully satiated-for him there
is no duty.
18: A self-realization man has no purpose to
fulfill in the discharge of his prescribed duties, nor
has he any reason not to perform such work. Nor has he
any need to depend on any other living being.
19: Therefore, without being attached to the fruits
of activities, one should act as a matter of duty, for
by working without attachment one attains the Supreme.
20: Kings such as Janaka attained perfection solely
by performance of prescribed duties. Therefore, just for
the sake of educating the people in general, you should
perform your work.
21: Whatever action a great man performs, common
men follow. And whatever standards he sets by exemplary
acts, all the world pursues.
22: O son of Prtha, there is no work prescribed for
Me within all the three planetary systems. Nor am I in
want of anything, nor have I a need to obtain
anything-and yet I am engaged in prescribed duties.
23: For if I ever failed to engage in carefully
performing prescribed duties, O Partha, certainly all
men would follow My path.
24: If I did not perform prescribed duties, all
these worlds would be put to ruination. I would be the
cause of creating unwanted population, and I would
thereby destroy the peace of all living beings.
25: As the ignorant perform their duties with
attachment to results, the learned may similarly act,
but without attachment, for the sake of leading people
on the right path.
26: So as not to disrupt the minds of ignorant the
minds of ignorant men attached to the fruitive results
of prescribed duties, a learned person should not induce
them to stop work. Rather, by working in the spirit of
devotion, he should engage them in all sorts of
activities [for the gradual development of Krsna
consciousness]
27: The spirit soul bewildered by the influence of
false ego thinks himself the doer of activities that are
in actuality carried out by the three modes of material
nature.
28: One who is in knowledge of the Absolute Truth,
O mighty-armed, does not engage himself in the senses
and sense gratification, knowing well the differences
between work in devotion and work for fruitive results.
29: Bewildered by the modes of material nature, the
ignorant fully engage themselves in material activities
and become attached. But the wise should not unsettle
them, although duties inferior due to the performers’
lack of knowledge.
30: Therefore, O Arjuna, surrendering all your
works unto Me, with full knowledge of Me, without
desires for profit, with no claims to proprietorship,
and free from lethargy, fight.
31: Those persons who execute their duties
according to My injunctions and who follow this teaching
faithfully, without envy, become free from the bondage
of fruitive actions.
32: But those who, out of envy, disregard these
teachings and do not follow them are to be considered
bereft of all knowledge, befooled, and ruined in their
endeavors for perfection.
33: Even a man of knowledge acts according to his
own nature, for everyone follows the nature he has
acquired from the three modes. What can repression
accomplish?
34: There are principles to regulate attachment and
aversion pertaining to the senses and their objects. One
should not come under the control of such attachment and
aversion, because they are stumbling block on the path
of self-realization.
35: It is far better to discharge one’s prescribed
duties, even though faultily, than another’s duties
perfectly. Destruction in the course of performing one’s
own duty is better than engaging in another’s duties,
for to follow another’s path is dangerous.
36: Arjuna said: O descendant of Vrsni, by what is
one impelled to sinful acts, even unwillingly, as if
engaged by force?
37: The Supreme Personality of Godhead said : It is
lust only, Arjuna, which is born of contact with the
material mode of passion and later transformed into
wrath, and which is the all-devouring sinful enemy of
this world.
38: As fire is covered by smoke, as a mirror is
covered by dust, or as the embryo is covered by the
womb, the living entity is similarly covered by
different degrees of this lust.
39: Thus the wise living entity’s pure
consciousness becomes covered by his eternal enemy in
the form of lust, which is never satisfied and which
burns like fire.
40: The senses, the mind and the intelligence are
the sitting places of this lust. Through them lust
covers the real knowledge of the living entity and
bewilders him.
41: Therefore, O Arjuna, best of the Bharatas, in
the very beginning curb this great symbol of (lust) by
regulating the senses, and slay this destroyer of
knowledge and self-realization.
42: The working senses are superior to dull matter;
mind is The working senses are superior to dull matter;
mind is higher than the senses; intelligence is still
higher than the mind; and he (the soul) is even higher
than the intelligence.
43: Thus knowing oneself to be transcendental to
the material senses, mind and intelligence, O
mighty-armed Arjuna, one should steady the mind by
deliberate spiritual intelligence (Krsna consciousness)
and thus – by spiritual strength – conquer this
insatiable enemy known as lust.
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