| |
KRISHNA:
FEARLESSNESS, singleness of soul, the will | |
| Always to strive for wisdom; opened hand | |
| And governed appetites; and piety | |
| And love of lonely study; humbleness, | |
| Uprightness, heed to injure nought which lives, | 5 |
| Truthfulness, slowness unto wrath, a mind | |
| That lightly letteth go what others prize; | |
| And equanimity, and charity | |
| Which spieth no man’s faults; and tenderness | |
| Towards all that suffer; a contented heart, | 10 |
| Fluttered by no desires; a bearing mild, | |
| Modest, and grave, with manhood nobly mixed | |
| With patience, fortitude, and purity; | |
| An unrevengeful spirit, never given | |
| To rate itself too high;—such be the signs, | 15 |
| O Indian Prince! of him whose feet are set | |
| On that fair path which leads to heavenly birth! | |
| |
| Deceitfulness, and arrogance, and pride, | |
| Quickness to anger, harsh and evil speech, | |
| And ignorance, to its own darkness blind,— | 20 |
| These be the signs, My Prince! of him whose birth | |
| Is fated for the regions of the vile. 1 | |
| |
| The Heavenly Birth brings to deliverance, | |
| So should’st thou know! The birth with Asuras | |
| Brings into bondage. Be thou joyous, Prince | 25 |
| Whose lot is set apart for heavenly Birth. | |
| |
| Two stamps there are marked on all living men, | |
| Divine and Undivine; I spake to thee | |
| By what marks thou shouldst know the Heavenly Man, | |
| Hear from me now of the Unheavenly! | 30 |
| |
| They comprehend not, the Unheavenly, | |
| How souls go forth from Me; nor how they come | |
| Back unto Me: nor is there Truth in these, | |
| Nor purity, nor rule of Life. “This world | |
| Hath not a Law, nor Order, nor a Lord,” | 35 |
| So say they: “nor hath risen up by Cause | |
| Following on Cause, in perfect purposing, | |
| But is none other than a House of Lust.” | |
| And, this thing thinking, all those ruined ones— | |
| Of little wit, dark-minded—give themselves | 40 |
| To evil deeds, the curses of their kind. | |
| Surrendered to desires insatiable, | |
| Full of deceitfulness, folly, and pride, | |
| In blindness cleaving to their errors, caught | |
| Into the sinful course, they trust this lie | 45 |
| As it were true—this lie which leads to death— | |
| Finding in Pleasure all the good which is, | |
| And crying “Here it finisheth!” | |
| |
| Ensnared | |
| In nooses of a hundred idle hopes, | 50 |
| Slaves to their passion and their wrath, they buy | |
| Wealth with base deeds, to glut hot appetites; | |
| “Thus much, to-day,” they say, “we gained! thereby | |
| Such and such wish of heart shall have its fill; | |
| And this is ours! and th’ other shall be ours! | 55 |
| To-day we slew a foe, and we will slay | |
| Our other enemy to-morrow! Look! | |
| Are we not lords? Make we not goodly cheer? | |
| Is not our fortune famous, brave, and great? | |
| Rich are we, proudly born! What other men | 60 |
| Live like to us? Kill, then, for sacrifice! | |
| Cast largesse, and be merry!” So they speak | |
| Darkened by ignorance; and so they fall— | |
| Tossed to and fro with projects, tricked, and bound | |
| In net of black delusion, lost in lusts— | 65 |
| Down to foul Naraka. Conceited, fond, | |
| Stubborn and proud, dead-drunken with the wine | |
| Of wealth, and reckless, all their offerings | |
| Have but a show of reverence, being not made | |
| In piety of ancient faith. Thus vowed | 70 |
| To self-hood, force, insolence, feasting, wrath, | |
| These My blasphemers, in the forms they wear | |
| And in the forms they breed, my foemen are, | |
| Hateful and hating; cruel, evil, vile, | |
| Lowest and least of men, whom I cast down | 75 |
| Again, and yet again, at end of lives, | |
| Into some devilish womb, whence—birth by birth— | |
| The devilish wombs re-spawn them, all beguiled; | |
| And, till they find and worship Me, sweet Prince! | |
| Tread they that Nether Road. | 80 |
| |
| The Doors of Hell | |
| Are threefold, whereby men to ruin pass,— | |
| The door of Lust, the door of Wrath, the door | |
| Of Avarice. Let a man shun those three! | |
| He who shall turn aside from entering | 85 |
| All those three gates of Narak, wendeth straight | |
| To find his peace, and comes to Swarga’s gate. 2 | |
| |
Here endeth Chapter XVI. of the Bhagavad-Gîtâ, | |
entitled “Daivasarasaupadwibhâgayôg,” or | |
“The Book of the Separateness of the | 90 |
Divine and Undivine” | |
