Text 1
Sanjaya said: Seeing Arjuna full of compassion, his mind depressed, his eyes full of tears, Madhusudana, Krsna, spoked the following words.
Text 2
The Supreme Personality of Godhead said: My dear Arjuna, how have these impurities upon you? They are not at all befitting a man who knows the value of life, They lead not to highter planets but to infamy.
Text 3
O son of Prtha,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 Bhisma and Drona, 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 great souls who are my teachers, Even though desiring worldly gain, they are superiors, It they are killed, every-thing 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 Dhrtarastra, we should not care to live. Yet they are now standing before us on the battlefield.
Text 7
Now I am confused a bout 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. 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 soverignty like the demigods in heaven.
Text 9
Sanjaya said: Having spoken thus, Arjuna, chastiser of enemies told Krsna, "Govinda,I shall not fight," and fell silent.
Text 10
O descendant of Bharata,at that time Krsna, smiling, in 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 for the dead.
Text 12
Never was there 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 continusously passes, in this body, from boy hood youth to old age, the soul similarly passes into another body at death. A sober is not bewidered by such a change.
Text 14
O son of Kunti, the nonpermanent appearance of happiness and distress, and their disappearance in due course,are like the appear-ance and disappearance of winter and summer seasons. They arise from sense perception, O scion of Bharata,and on must learn to tolerate them without being distrubed.
Text 15
O best among men [Arjuna], the person who is not distrubed by happiness and distress and is stready in both is certainly elible for liberation.
Text 16
Those who are seers of the truth have conclueded that of the nonexstent [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 living 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 into being,does not come being, and will not come into being. He is unborn, eternal, ever-existing and primeval. He 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 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] is always, born and dies forever, you still have no reason to lament, O mighty-armed.
Text 27
One who has taken his birth is sure to die, and after death one is sure to take birth again. Therefore, in the unavaidable discharge of your duty, you should not lament.
Text 28
All created beings are unmanifest in their beginning, manifest in their interim state, and unumanifest 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, ever after hearing about him, cannot understand him at all.
Text 30
O descentant 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 ksatriya, 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 Partha happy are the ksatriyas to whom such fighting opportunities come unsought, opeing for them the doors of the heavenly planets.
Text 33
If, however, you do not perform your religious duty of fighting, them 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 persons, 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 Kunti, either you will be killed on the battlefield and attain the heavenly planets, or you will conquer and enjoy the earthy 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 Prtha, 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 diminution 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 thier aim is one. O beloved child of the Kurus, the intelligence of those who are irresolute is many-branched.
Text 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 opulence. and who are bewildered by such things. the resolute determination for devotional service to the Superme 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 these three modes. Be free from all dualities and from all anxieties for gain and safety, and be established in the self.
Text 46
All purposed served by a small well can at once be served by a great reservoir of water. Similarly, all the purpossed 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 attanched to not doing your duty.
Text 48
Perform your duty equiposed, O Arjuna, abandoing all attachment to success or failure. Such equanimity is called yoga.
Text 49
O Dhananajaya keep all abominable activities far distant by devotional service, and in that conscisness 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 humself of both good and bad actions 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 work in 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 and all that is to be heard.
Text 53
When your mind is no longer distrubed by the flowery language of the Vedas,and when it remaints fixed in the trance of self-realization. then you will have attained divine consciousness.
Text 54
Arjuna said: O Krsna what are the symptoms of one whose consciousness is thus merged in transcendendence? 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 Partha, when a man gives up all varieties of desire for sense gratification, which arise from mental concoction and when his mind, thus purified funds satisfaction in the self alone, then he is said to be in pure transcen dental consciousness.
Text 56
One who is not distrubed in mind even amidst the treefold miseries or elated when there is happiss, and who is free from attachment, fear an 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, its limbs within the shell, is firmly fixed in perfect consciousness.
Text 59
The embodied soul may be restricted from sense enjoyment, though the taste for sense objects remains. But, ceasing such engagements by experiencing a highter 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 discimination 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 one thus satisfied [in Krsna 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 now connected with the Supreme [in Krsna consciousness] can have neither transcendental intelligence nor a steady mind, whithout 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 on of the roaming senses on which the mind focuses can carry away a man's intelligence.
Text 68
Therefore, O mighty-armed, one whose sense are restrained from their objects is certainly of steady intellingence.
Text 69
What is night for all beings is the time of awakiening 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 distrubed 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 them 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 tha 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.