Worshippers who throw out
Scripture’s rules, though full of faith—
What is their condition, Krishna?
Purity, Power, or Darkness?
{1}
The Blessed Lord said,
Faith can be of three kinds, each one
Born of an embodied being’s
Own nature: Pure, Power-crazed,
And Dark. Now hear of this.
{2}
Truth takes on the shape of
Each man’s faith, Arjuna.
Man is made of faith.
As his faith is, he is.
{3}
Purity worships Gods, while Power
Worships Rakshasas and Yakshas.
Others, in the Darkness, worship
Ghosts and crowds of spirits.
{4}
Men who sear themselves with awful
Austerities that scriptures don’t ordain—
Yoked to showiness and egotism,
To lust and force and passion—
{5}
Harrow thoughtlessly
The body’s vital organs.
It is me they harrow in their bodies.
Know them for determined demons.
{6}
Even the foods that people like divide
In three, as do their sacrifices,
Austerities, and gifts.
Hear out these distinctions.
{7}
Longevity, virtue, strength, health,
Happiness, satisfaction: Foods that
Promote these, juicy, hearty, smooth,
And firm, are foods the Pure prefer.
{8}
Pungent, sour, salty, scorchingly
Hot and harsh and spicy: Such are
Foods that Power-seekers wish for,
Causing pain, disease, and sorrow.
{9}
Spoiled, flavorless,
Putrid leftovers,
Unclean refuse: That’s
The fodder Darkness likes.
{10}
Sacrifice offered up observantly
Without expecting its fruition
By a mind that concentrates on
Offering the right thing: That is Pure.
{11}
But when it has the fruit in view
And offers with the aim of showing off—
Best of the Bharatas, beware,
That sacrifice is after Power.
{12}
Stripped of rules, no offerings of rice,
Stripped of mantras, no donations:
Sacrifice that’s destitute
Of faith is seen as Dark.
{13}
Worshipping Gods, the twice-born, gurus,
And wise men; cleanliness, uprightness,
Chastity, ahimsa: These
Are called the bodily austerities.
{14}
Words that cause no worry,
Truthful, pleasing, helpful,
Studied recitations to yourself:
These are called austerities of speech.
{15}
Serenity of mind, gentleness,
Silence, self-restraint,
Purification of emotions:
These are called austerities of mind.
{16}
Yoked, without expecting
Its fruition, men of utmost faith
Burn with this threefold austerity,
And it is seen as Pure.
{17}
Austerity that’s done for show
Or for the sake of getting favors, honors,
Reverence: Here we call that
Power-crazed and fleeting, fickle.
{18}
Austerity that’s done as torture
With a muddled grasp of atman
Or for the sake of someone’s ruin—
That’s described as Dark.
{19}
A gift for the sake of giftgiving
Given to return no favor, to a worthy
Person at the proper place and time:
That gift will be recalled as Pure.
{20}
A grudging gift that’s given
For the sake of getting favors
Back or aiming for results—that gift
Will be recalled as Power-seeking.
{21}
A gift without a sense of place and timing
Given to unworthy people
Disrespectfully or in contempt:
That is declared to be Dark.
{22}
Aum Tat Sat is Brahman’s
Threefold mnemonic gloss.
By this, the Brahmins, Vedas,
And sacrifices were ordained of old.
{23}
That’s why declaring Aum is always
How Brahman’s interpreters
Preface, as the precepts tell them,
Sacrifices, gifts, austerities.
{24}
Tat say those who yearn for freedom,
Doing varied acts of sacrifice,
Austerity, and giving,
Never aiming at their fruit.
{25}
Meaning “good,” or meaning “real”—
That’s how Sat is used.
For worthy work, too, Partha,
The syllable Sat is used.
{26}
Sat, they say, is staying steadfast
In sacrifice, austerity, and giving,
And any action with that purpose
Gets the designation Sat.
{27}
To pour an offering or undertake
Austerity without the faith
Is called Asat—and it is nothing to us,
Partha. Not here, not hereafter.
{28}
SESSION 18
Free Yourself Through Renunciation
Arjuna asks to know the difference between the two kinds of estrangement from worldly life: relinquishment and renunciation.
Krishna defines relinquishment as giving up the fruits of action, and he uses the gunas to classify it three ways. Agency itself, according to Krishna, has five different components. Because the atman is not one of these, a soldier like Arjuna, “even when he kills these people / Doesn’t kill.”
The gunas structure Krishna’s threefold classifications of several things: knowledge, work, will, resolve, intellect, and happiness. The gunas also guide the natural duties of different kinds of people—in Arjuna’s case, a warrior’s duties. That work, even if it’s done imperfectly, is still important and necessary.
Krishna describes again the ideal yogi, the one who knows him and becomes Brahman. He exhorts Arjuna to take refuge in him, insisting that Arjuna is going to fight this war anyway, even against his will.
For a moment he seems to finish, telling Arjuna to do what he wants to do—but then he keeps going to tell his friend he loves him. After all his teachings and visions, this love is “the secret of all secrets.”
Between the armies on Kurukshetra, Arjuna stands up again and resolves to fight.
Back in the throne room of King Dhritarashtra, Sanjaya speaks of his joy at overhearing this conversation. His last words assert the righteous splendor—and triumph—of Krishna and Arjuna.
Arjuna said,
Renunciation of the world, Krishna:
I want to know the truth
That separates th
is from
Relinquishment of the world.
{1}
The Blessed Lord said,
As poets see it, renunciation
Casts aside the act of craving.
The clear-eyed see relinquishment
As giving up the fruits of action.
{2}
Some wise men say, “Relinquish
All action,” since it’s sinful. Others say
Sacrifice, austerity, and giving
Are actions not to be relinquished.
{3}
Arjuna, you tiger of a man,
Hear out my conviction on
Relinquishment. Relinquishment
Is classified three ways.
{4}
Sacrifice, austerity, and giving
Are works far better done than given up.
Sacrifice, austerity, and giving
Purify the mindful.
{5}
These works, though, ought to be performed
Relinquishing attachment to their fruits.
This, Arjuna, without a doubt
Is my utmost belief.
{6}
It isn’t proper to renounce
The work demanded of you.
It’s said that such deluded
Relinquishment is Dark.
{7}
When someone gives up work because it’s hard,
Or else from fear he’ll hurt his body—that’s
His Power guna, giving up. Of such
“Relinquishment” he’ll never gain the fruit.
{8}
Dutifully doing work
Because it is demanded of you,
Attachment to its fruit relinquished—
That relinquishment is Pure.
{9}
Not hating an unpleasant action,
To pleasant action unattached,
The man of wisdom, cut free from doubt,
Gives action up and fills with truth.
{10}
No one borne inside a body
Can relinquish actions altogether,
So call someone who gives up action’s fruit
A man of true relinquishment.
{11}
Wanted, unwanted, mixed:
For those who give up nothing as they die,
Action bears three kinds of fruit.
Renouncing it bears none at all.
{12}
Five factors—so the Samkhya
Doctrine has concluded—
Execute all actions.
Learn these from me, Arjuna:
{13}
The bodily abode, the will,
Means of many kinds,
Many kinds of motion.
The God among these is the fifth.
{14}
Whatever act a man initiates
With body, mind, or language,
Either righteous or perverse,
These five originate it,
{15}
And that’s the truth. Whoever looks
With an imperfect intellect will see
The doer as himself alone.
His thick skull doesn’t see at all.
{16}
A man who isn’t egocentric,
His intelligence unsullied,
Even when he kills these people
Doesn’t kill and isn’t bound.
{17}
Knowledge, the known, the knower
Are action’s triple impetus.
The means, the work, the worker
Are action’s three components.
{18}
Samkhya’s guna theory
Distinguishes three kinds
Of knowledge, work, and worker.
It’s only right you hear of these, too.
{19}
To see, in all these species, one
Imperishable Being,
Diverse but indivisible:
Know that knowledge to be Pure.
{20}
The knowledge that knows all
These species one by one
As manifold and many: Know
That knowledge to be after Power.
{21}
To cling to one slight thing
As if it’s all there is,
No cause, no real purpose:
That knowledge, I declare, is Dark.
{22}
Detached, deliberate work
That’s done with no desire, no hate,
No wish to get its fruits—
I say that work is Pure.
{23}
Work that’s done to get some wish,
Self-seekingly, or else
You overwork yourself to do it:
I say that will is after Power.
{24}
No thought of upshot, damage, harm,
Much less your own ability—
I say that any such confused
Initiative is in the Dark.
{25}
Freed from attachments, never talking
Yourself up, full of grit and zest,
Undisturbed in failure or success:
I say that will is Pure.
{26}
Hectic for the fruit of action,
Dirty, greedy, savage,
Now sorrowful, now joyful: I
Declare that will is after Power.
{27}
Unyoked and vulgar, stubborn,
Wicked, lying, lazy,
Depressed, procrastinating:
I say that will is in the Dark.
{28}
The gunas split in three
Resolve and intellect.
Arjuna, hear me set them out
Distinctly and in full.
{29}
Extroversion, introversion,
Taboo and duty, threat and nonthreat,
Bondage and freedom—knowing these,
An intellect is Pure.
{30}
Dharma or adharma, Partha,
Duty or taboo—a Power-
Seeking intellect will make
Mistakes distinguishing the two.
{31}
But when it thinks adharma is
Its dharma, Partha, darkly
Enveloped, everything inverted,
An intellect is in the Dark.
{32}
Resolve that resolutely holds
The mind, the breath, the senses
In unswerving yoga:
Arjuna, that resolve is Pure.
{33}
But when, attached and hoping
For the fruit, resolve resolves
On wishes, riches, and roles it plays,
Arjuna, that resolve is Power-crazed.
{34}
Sleepiness, terror, sorrow,
Vanity, depression: When
A dimwit just will not renounce these,
Arjuna, his resolve is Dark.
{35}
Now hear about the threefold
Happiness, Bull of the Bharatas.
Studying how to enjoy it,
You reach the end of suffering.
{36}
What starts out as a poison, then
Evolves into something ambrosial: I
Proclaim that happiness is Pure,
{37}
What starts out like ambrosia
Where the senses touch it, then
Evolves into a poison—such,
I say, is Power’s happiness.
{38}
A happiness from start to finish
Self-deceiving, risen out
Of sleep and sloth and apathy:
I say that happiness is Dark.
{39}
No being born of nature,
On earth or yet in heaven
Among the Gods, is free
Of these three gunas.
{40}
According to the gunas
Arising from their inborn nature,
Brahmins, soldiers, peasants,
And sudras share out work.
{41}
Calm, restraint, austerity;
Cleanliness, patience, honesty;
Knowledge, judgment, faith:
This is the work innate to Brahmins.
{42}
Bravery, brilliance, staunchness, skill,
Never running from a battle,
Charity, authority:
This is the work innate to warriors.
{43}
Plowing, care of cattle, commerce:
This is the work innate to peasants.
Doing acts of service:
This is the work innate to sudras.
{44}
Each man pleased in his own work,
Each man gains fulfillment.
How can someone find fulfillment
In his own work? Hear me out:
{45}
Worshipping through his own work
The origin of beings,
The one pervading all this,
A man can find fulfillment.
{46}
Better your own dharma botched
Godsong Page 12