Chapter 2
Contents of the Gītā Summarized
Text 1
Sañjaya said: Seeing Arjuna full of compassion, his
mind depressed, his eyes full of tears, Madhusūdana, Kṛṣṇa, spoke the following
words.
Text 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 infamy.
Text 3
O son of Pṛthā, 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.
Text 4
Arjuna said: O killer of enemies, O killer of Madhu, how can I
counterattack with arrows in battle men like Bhīṣma and Droṇa, who are worthy
of my worship?
Text 5
It would be better to live in this world by begging than to live at the
cost of the lives of the 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.
Text 6
Nor do we know which is better- conquering them or being conquered by
them. If we killed the sons of Dhṛtarāṣṭra, we should not care to live. Yet they
are now standing before us on the battlefield.
Text 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.
Text 8
I can find no means to drive away this grief which is drying up my
senses. I will not be able to dispel it even if I win a prosperous, unrivaled
kingdom on earth with sovereignty like the demigods in heaven.
Text 9
Sañjaya said: Having spoken thus, Arjuna, chastiser of enemies, told Kṛṣṇa,
“Govinda, I shall not fight,” and fell silent.
Text 10
O descendant of Bharata, at that time Kṛṣṇa, smiling, in the midst of
both the armies, spoke the following words to the grief-stricken Arjuna.
Text 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 the dead.
Text 12
Never there was a time when I did not exist, nor you, nor all these
kings; nor in the future shall any of us cease to be.
Text 13
As the embodied soul continuously passes, in this body, from boyhood to
youth to old age, the soul similarly passes in to another body at death. A
sober person is not bewildered by such a change.
Text 14
O son of Kuntī, the non permanent appearance of happiness and
distress, and their disappearance in due
course, are like the appearance and disappearance of winter and summer seasons. They arise from
sense perception, O scion of Bharata, and one must learn to tolerate them
without being disturbed.
Text 15
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.
Text 16
Those who are seers of the truth have concluded that of the non existent
[the material body] there is no endurance and of the eternal [the soul] there is no change.
This they have concluded by studying the nature of both.
Text 17
That which pervades the entire body you should know to be indestructible.
No one is able to destroy that imperishable soul.
Text 18
The material body of the indestructible, immeasurable and eternal entity
is sure to come to an end; therefore, fight, O descendant of Bharata.
Text 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.
Text 20
For the soul there is neither birth nor death at any time. He has not
come in to 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.
Text 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?
Text 22
As a person puts on new garments, giving up old ones, the soul similarly
accepts new material bodies, giving up the old and useless ones.
Text 23
The soul can never be cut to pieces by any weapon, nor burned by fire,
nor moistened by water, nor withered by the wind
Text 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.
Text 25
It is said that the soul is invisible, inconceivable and immutable.
Knowing this, you should not grieve for the body.
Text 26
If, however you think that the soul [or the symptoms of life] will always
be born and die forever, you still have no reason to lament, O mighty-armed.
Text 27
One who has taken 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.
Text 28
All created beings are unmanifest in their beginning, manifest in their
interim state, and unmanifest again when annihilated. So what need is there for
lamentation?
Text 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.
Text 30
O descendant of Bharata, he who dwells in the body can never be slain.
Therefore you need not grieve for any living being.
Text 31
Considering your specific duty as a kṣatriya, you should know that there
is no better engagement for you than fighting on religious principles; and so
there is no need for hesitation.
Text 32
O Pārtha, happy are the kṣatriyas to whom such fighting opportunities
come unsought, opening for them the doors of the heavenly planets.
Text 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.
Text 34
People will always speak of your infamy, and for a respectable person,
dishonor is worse than death.
Text 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.
Text 36
Your enemies will describe you in many unkind words and scorn your
ability. What could be more painful for you?
Text 37
O son of Kuntī, 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.
Text 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.
Text 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 Pṛthā, when you act in such knowledge you can free yourself from the bondage
of works.
Text 40
In this endeavor there is no loss or dimunition, and a little advancement
on this path can protect one from the most dangerous type of fear.
Text 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 is
many-branched.
Texts 42-43
Men of small knowledge are very much attached to the flowery words of the
Vedas, which recommend various fruitive activities 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.
Text 44
In the minds of those who are too attached to sense enjoyment and
material opluence, and who are bewildered by such things, the resolute
determination for devotional service to the Supreme Lord does not take place.
Text 45
The Vedas deal mainly with the subject of the three modes of material
nature. O Arjuna, become transcendental to three modes. Be free from all
dualities and from all anxieties for gain and safety, and be established in the
self.
Text 46
All purposes solved by a small well can 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.
Text 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 duty.
Text 48
Perform your duty equipoised, O Arjuna, abandoning all attachment to
success or failure. Such equanimity is called yoga.
Text 49
O Dhanañjaya, keep all abominable activities far distant by devotional
service, and in that consciousness surrender unto the Lord. Those who want to
enjoy the fruits of their work are misers.
Text 50
A man engaged in devotional service rids himself of both good and bad
reactions even in this life. Therefore strive for yoga, which is the art of all
work.
Text 51
By thus engaging in devotional service to the Lord, great sages or
devotees free themselves from the results of 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].
Text 52
When your intelligence has passed out of the dense forest of delusion,
you shall become indifferent to all that has been heard all that is to be
heard.
Text 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.
Text 54
Arjuna said: O Kṛṣṇa, what are the
symptoms of one whose consciousness is thus merged in transcendence? How does
he speak, and what is his language? How does he sit, and how does he walk?
Text 55
The Supreme Personality of Godhead said: O Pārtha, 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 is said to be in pure transcendental consciousness.
Text 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.
Text 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.
Text 58
One who is able to withdraw his senses from sense objects, as the
tortoise draws its limbs within the shell, is firmly fixed in perfect
consciousness.
Text 59
Though the embodied soul may be restricted from sense enjoyment, the
taste for sense objects remains. But, ceasing such engagements by experiencing
a higher taste, he is fixed in consciousness.
Text 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.
Text 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.
Text 62
While contemplating the objects of the senses, a person develops
attachment for them, and from such attachment lust develops, and from lust
anger arises.
Text 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.
Text 64
But a person free from all attachment and aversion and able to control
his senses through regulative principles of freedom can obtain the complete
mercy of the Lord.
Text 65
For once thus satisfied [in Kṛṣṇa consciousness], the threefold miseries
of material existence exist no longer; in such satisfied consciousness, one’s
intelligence is soon well established.
Text 66
One who is not connected with the Supreme [in Kṛṣṇa consciousness] can
have neither transcendental intelligence nor a steady mind, without which there
is no possibility of peace. And how can there be any happiness without peace?
Text 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.
Text 68
Therefore, O mighty-armed, one whose senses are restrained from their
objects is certainly of steady intelligence.
Text 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.
Text 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 is always still-can
alone achieve peace, and not the man who strives to satisfy such desires.
Text 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.
Text 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.
