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KRISHNA: THEREFORE, who doeth work rightful to do, | |
| Not seeking gain from work, that man, O Prince! | |
| Is Sânyasi and Yôgi—both in one! | |
| And he is neither who lights not the flame | |
| Of sacrifice, nor setteth hand to task. | 5 |
| |
| Regard as true Renouncer him that makes | |
| Worship by work, for who renounceth not | |
| Works not as Yôgin. So is that well said | |
| “By works the votary doth rise to saint, | |
| And saintship is the ceasing from all works;” | 10 |
| Because the perfect Yôgin acts—but acts | |
| Unmoved by passions and unbound by deeds, | |
| Setting result aside. | |
| |
| Let each man raise | |
| The Self by Soul, not trample down his Self, | 15 |
| Since Soul that is Self’s friend may grow Self’s foe, | |
| Soul is Self’s friend when Self doth rule o’er Self | |
| But self turns enemy if Soul’s own self | |
| Hates Self as not itself. 1 | |
| The sovereign soul | 20 |
| Of him who lives self-governed and at peace | |
| Is centered in itself, taking alike | |
| Pleasure and pain; heat, cold; glory and shame. | |
| He is the Yôgi, he is Yûkta, glad | |
| With joy of light and truth; dwelling apart | 25 |
| Upon a peak, with senses subjugate | |
| Whereto the clod, the rock, the glistering gold | |
| Show all as one. By this sign is he known | |
| Being of equal grace to comrades, friends, | |
| Chance-comers, strangers, lovers, enemies, | 30 |
| Aliens and kinsmen; loving all alike, | |
| Evil or good. | |
| |
| Sequestered should he sit, | |
| Steadfastly meditating, solitary, | |
| His thoughts controlled, his passions laid away, | 35 |
| Quit of belongings. In a fair, still spot | |
| Having his fixed abode,—not too much raised, | |
| Nor yet too low,—let him abide, his goods | |
| A cloth, a deerskin, and the Kusa-grass. | |
| There, setting hard his mind upon The One, | 40 |
| Restraining heart and senses, silent, calm, | |
| Let him accomplish Yôga, and achieve | |
| Pureness of soul, holding immovable | |
| Body and neck and head, his gaze absorbed | |
| Upon his nose-end, 2 rapt from all around, | 45 |
| Tranquil in spirit, free of fear, intent | |
| Upon his Brahmacharya vow, devout, | |
| Musing on Me, lost in the thought of Me. | |
| That Yôjin, so devoted, so controlled, | |
| Comes to the peace beyond,—My peace, the peace | 50 |
| Of high Nirvana! | |
| |
| But for earthly needs | |
| Religion is not his who too much fasts | |
| Or too much feasts, nor his who sleeps away | |
| An idle mind; nor his who wears to waste | 55 |
| His strength in vigils. Nay, Arjuna! call | |
| That the true piety which most removes | |
| Earth-aches and ills, where one is moderate | |
| In eating and in resting, and in sport; | |
| Measured in wish and act; sleeping betimes, | 60 |
| Waking betimes for duty. | |
| When the man, | |
| So living, centres on his soul the thought | |
| Straitly restrained—untouched internally | |
| By stress of sense—then is he Yûkta. See! | 65 |
| Steadfast a lamp burns sheltered from the wind; | |
| Such is the likeness of the Yôgi’s mind | |
| Shut from sense-storms and burning bright to Heaven. | |
| When mind broods placid, soothed with holy wont; | |
| When Self contemplates self, and in itself | 70 |
| Hath comfort; when it knows the nameless joy | |
| Beyond all scope of sense, revealed to soul— | |
| Only to soul! and, knowing, wavers not, | |
| True to the farther Truth; when, holding this, | |
| It deems no other treasure comparable, | 75 |
| But, harbored there, cannot be stirred or shook | |
| By any gravest grief, call that state “peace,” | |
| That happy severance Yôga, call that man | |
| The perfect Yôgin! | |
| Steadfastly the will | 80 |
| Must toil thereto, till efforts end in ease, | |
| And thought has passed from thinking. Shaking off | |
| All longings bred by dreams of fame and gain, | |
| Shutting the doorways of the senses close | |
| With watchful ward; so, step by step, it comes | 85 |
| To gift of peace assured and heart assuaged, | |
| When the mind dwells self-wrapped, and the soul broods | |
| Cumberless. But, as often as the heart | |
| Breaks—wild and wavering—from control, so oft | |
| Let him re-curb it, let him rein it back | 90 |
| To the soul’s governance! for perfect bliss | |
| Grows only in the bosom tranquillized, | |
| The spirit passionless, purged from offence, | |
| Vowed to the Infinite. He who thus vows | |
| His soul to the Supreme Soul, quitting sin, | 95 |
| Passes unhindered to the endless bliss | |
| Of unity with Brahma. He so vowed, | |
| So blended, sees the Life-Soul resident | |
| In all things living, and all living things | |
| In that Life-Soul contained. And whoso thus | 100 |
| Discerneth Me in all, and all in Me, | |
| I never let him go; nor looseneth he | |
| Hold upon Me; but, dwell he where he may, | |
| Whate’er his life, in Me he dwells and lives | |
| Because he knows and worships Me, Who dwell | 105 |
| In all which lives, and cleaves to Me in all. | |
| Arjuna! if a man sees everywhere— | |
| Taught by his own similitude—one Life, | |
| One Essence in the Evil and the Good, | |
| Hold him a Yôgi, yea! well-perfected! | 110 |
| |
ARJUNA:
Slayer of Madhu! yet again, this Yôg, | |
| This Peace, derived from equanimity, | |
| Made known by thee—I see no fixity | |
| Therein, no rest, because the heart of men | |
| Is unfixed, Krishna! rash, tumultuous, | 115 |
| Wilful and strong. It were all one, I think, | |
| To hold the wayward wind, as tame man’s heart. | |
| |
KRISHNA:
Hero long-armed! beyond denial, hard | |
| Man’s heart is to restrain, and wavering; | |
| Yet may it grow restrained by habit, Prince! | 120 |
| By wont of self-command. This Yôgi, I say, | |
| Cometh not lightly to th’ ungoverned ones; | |
| But he who will be master of himself | |
| Shall win it, if he stoutly strive thereto. | |
| |
ARJUNA:
And what road goeth he who, having faith, | 125 |
| Fails, Krishna! in the striving; falling back | |
| From holiness, missing the perfect rule? | |
| Is he not lost, straying from Brahma’s light, | |
| Like the vain cloud, which floats ’twixt earth and Heaven | |
| When lightning splits it, and it vanisheth? | 130 |
| Fain would I hear thee answer me herein, | |
| Since, Krishna! none save thou can clear the doubt. | |
| |
KRISHNA:
He is not lost, thou Son of Prithâ! No! | |
| Nor earth, nor heaven is forfeit, even for him, | |
| Because no heart that holds one right desire | 135 |
| Treadeth the road of loss! He who should fail, | |
| Desiring righteousness, cometh at death | |
| Unto the Region of the Just; dwells there | |
| Measureless years, and being born anew, | |
| Beginneth life again in some fair home | 140 |
| Amid the mild and happy. It may chance | |
| He doth descend into a Yôgin house | |
| On Vitue’s breast; but that is rare! Such birth | |
| Is hard to be obtained on this earth, Chief! | |
| So hath he back again what heights of heart | 145 |
| He did achieve, and so he strives anew | |
| To perfectness, with better hope, dear Prince! | |
| For by the old desire he is drawn on | |
| Unwittingly; and only to desire | |
| The purity of Yôga is to pass | 150 |
| Beyond the Sabdabrahm, the spoken Ved. | |
| But, being Yôgi, striving strong and long, | |
| Purged from transgressions, perfected by births | |
| Following on births, he plants his feet at last | |
| Upon the farther path. Such an one ranks | 155 |
| Above ascetics, higher than the wise, | |
| Beyond achievers of vast deeds! Be thou | |
| Yôgi, Arjuna! And of such believe, | |
| Truest and best is he who worships Me | |
| With inmost soul, stayed on My Mystery! | 160 |
| |
Here endeth Chapter VI. of the Bhagavad-Gîtâ, | |
entitled “Atmasanyamayôg,” or “The | |
Book of Religion by Self-Restraint” | |
