Chapter 2

To him thus with pity overcome, with smarting brimming eyes, despondent, Madhusûdana spake these words:

Whence hath this dejection befallen thee in this perilous strait, ignoble, heaven-closing, infamous, O Arjuna?

Yield not to impotence, O Partha! it doth not befit thee. Shake off this paltry faint-heartedness! Stand up, Parantapa!

How, O Madhusûdana, shall I attack Bhîshma and Drona with arrows in battle, they who are worthy of reverence, O slayer of foes?

Better in this world to eat even the beggar's crust than to slay these most noble Gurus. Slaying these Gurus, our well-wishers, I should taste of blood-besprinkled feasts.

Nor know I which for us be the better, that we conquer them or they conquer us—these, whom having slain we should not care to live, even these arrayed against us, the sons of Dhritarâshtra.

My heart is weighed down with the vice of faintness; my mind is confused as to duty. I ask thee which may be the better—that tell me decisively. I am thy disciple, suppliant to Thee; teach me.

For I see not that it would drive away this anguish that withers up my senses, if I should attain unrivalled monarchy on earth, or even the sovereignty of the Shining Ones.

Gudâkesha, conqueror of his foes, having thus addressed Hrishîkesha and said to Govinda, "I will not fight!", became silent.

Then Hrishîkesha, smiling, as it were, O Bhârata, spake these words to him, despondent, in the midst of the two armies:

Thou grievest for those that should not be grieved for, yet speakest words of wisdom. The wise grieve neither for the living nor for the dead.

Nor at any time verily was I not, nor thou, nor these princes of men, nor verily shall we ever cease to be, hereafter.

As the dweller in the body experienceth in the body childhood, youth, old age, so passeth he on to another body; the steadfast one grieveth not thereat.

The contacts of matter, O son of Kuntî, giving cold and heat, pleasure and pain, they come and go, impermanent; endure them bravely, O Bhârata.

The man whom these torment not, O chief of men, balanced in pain and pleasure, steadfast, he is fitted for immortality.

The unreal hath no being; the real never ceaseth to be; the truth about both hath been perceived by the seers of the essence of things.

Know That to be indestructible by whom all this is pervaded. Nor can any work the destruction of that imperishable One.

These bodies of the embodied One, who is eternal, indestructible and immeasurable, are known as finite. Therefore fight, O Bhârata.

He who regardeth this as a slayer, and he who thinketh he is slain, both of them are ignorant. He slayeth not, nor is he slain.

He is not born, nor doth he die; nor having been, ceaseth he any more to be; unborn, perpetual, eternal and ancient, he is not slain when the body is slaughtered.

Who knoweth him indestructible, perpetual, unborn, undiminishing, how can that man slay, O Pârtha, or cause to be slain?

As a man, casting off worn-out garments, taketh new ones, so the dweller in the body, casting off worn-out bodies, entereth into others that are new.

Weapons cleave him not, nor fire burneth him, nor waters wet him, nor wind drieth him away.

Uncleavable he, incombustible he, and indeed neither to be wetted nor dried away; perpetual, all-pervasive, stable, immovable, ancient.

Unmanifest, unthinkable, immutable, he is called; therefore knowing him as such, thou shouldst not grieve.

Or if thou thinkest of him as being constantly born and constantly dying, even then, O mighty-armed, thou shouldst not grieve.

For certain is death for the born, and certain is birth for the dead; therefore over the inevitable thou shouldst not grieve.

Beings are unmanifest in their origin, manifest in their midmost state, O Bhârata, unmanifest likewise are they in dissolution. What room then for lamentation?

As marvellous one regardeth him; as marvellous another speaketh thereof; as marvellous another heareth thereof; yet having heard none indeed understandeth.

This dweller in the body of everyone is ever invulnerable, O Bhârata; therefore thou shouldst not grieve for any creature.

Further, looking to thine own duty thou shouldst not tremble; for there is nothing more welcome to a Kshattriya than righteous war.

Happy the Kshattriyas, O Pârtha, who obtain such a fight, offered unsought as an open door to heaven.

But if thou wilt not carry on this righteous warfare, then casting away thine own duty and thine honour, thou wilt incur sin.

Men will recount thy perpetual dishonour, and, to one highly esteemed, dishonour exceedeth death.

The great car-warriors will think thee fled from the battle from fear, and thou, that wast highly thought of by them, wilt be lightly held.

Many unseemly words will be spoken by thine enemies, slandering thy strength; what more painful than that?

Slain, thou wilt obtain heaven; victorious, thou wilt enjoy the earth; therefore stand up, O son of Kuntî, resolute to fight.

Taking as equal pleasure and pain, gain and loss, victory and defeat, gird thee for the battle; thus thou shalt not incur sin.

This teaching set forth to thee is in accordance with the Sâñkhya; hear it now according to the Yoga, imbued with which teaching, O Pârtha, thou shalt cast away the bonds of action.

In this there is no loss of effort, nor is there transgression. Even a little of this knowledge protects from great fear.

The determinate Reason is but one-pointed, O joy of the Kurus; many-branched and endless are the thoughts of the irresolute.

Flowery speech is uttered by the foolish, rejoicing in the letter of the Vedas, O Pârtha, saying: "There is naught but this";

With desire for self, with heaven for goal, they offer birth as the fruit of action, and prescribe many and various ceremonies for the attainment of pleasure and lordship.

For them who cling to pleasure and lordship, whose minds are captivated by such teaching, is not designed this determinate Reason, on contemplation steadily bent.

The Vedas deal with the three attributes; be thou above these three attributes, O Arjuna; beyond the pairs of opposites, ever steadfast in purity, careless of possessions, full of the Self.

All the Vedas are as useful to an enlightened Brâhmana as is a tank in a place covered all over with water.

Thy business is with the action only, never with its fruits; so let not the fruit of action be thy motive, nor be thou to inaction attached.

Perform action, O Dhananjaya, dwelling in union with the divine, renouncing attachments and balanced evenly in success and failure: equilibrium is called yoga.

Far lower than the Yoga of Discrimination is action, O Dhananjaya. Take thou refuge in the Pure Reason; pitiable are they who work for fruit.

United to the Pure Reason one abandoneth here both good and evil deeds; therefore cleave thou to yoga; yoga is skill in action.

The Sages, united to the Pure Reason, renounce the fruit which action yieldeth, and, liberated from the bonds of birth, they go to the blissful seat.

When thy mind shall escape from this tangle of delusion, then thou shalt rise to indifference as to what has been heard and shall be heard.

When thy mind, bewildered by the Scriptures, shall stand immovable, fixed in contemplation, then shalt thou attain unto yoga.

What the mark, of him who is stable of mind, steadfast in contemplation, O Keshava? How doth the stable-minded talk, how doth he sit, how walk?

When a man abandoneth, O Pârtha, all the desires of the heart, and is satisfied in the Self by the Self, then is he called stable in mind.

He whose mind is free from anxiety amid pains, indifferent amid pleasures, loosed from passion, fear and anger, is called a sage of stable mind.

He who on every side is without attachments, whatever hap of fair and foul, who neither likes nor dislikes, of such a one the understanding is well poised.

When, again, as a tortoise draws in on all sides its limbs, he withdraws his senses from the objects of sense, then is his understanding well poised.

The objects of sense, but not the relish for them, turn away from an abstemious dweller in the body; and even relish turneth away from him after the Supreme is seen.

O son of Kuntî, the excited senses of even a wise man, though he be striving, impetuously carry away his mind.

Having restrained them all, he should sit harmonised, I his supreme goal; for, whose senses are mastered, of him the understanding is well poised.

Man, musing on the objects of sense, conceiveth an attachment to these; from attachment ariseth desire; from desire anger cometh forth;

From anger proceedeth delusion; from delusion confused memory; from confused memory the destruction of Reason; from destruction of Reason he perishes.

But the disciplined self, moving among sense-objects with senses free from attraction and repulsion, mastered by the Self, goeth to peace.

In that Peace the extinction of all pains ariseth for him, for of him whose heart is peaceful the Reason soon attaineth equilibrium.

There is no Pure Reason for the non-harmonised, nor for the non-harmonised is there concentration; for him without concentration there is no peace, and for the unpeaceful how can there be happiness?

Such of the roving senses as the mind yieldeth to, that hurries away the understanding, just as the gale hurries away a ship upon the waters.

Therefore, O mighty-armed, whose senses are all completely restrained from the objects of sense, of him the understanding is well poised.

That which is the night of all beings, for the disciplined man is the time of waking; when other beings are waking, then is it night for the sage who seeth.

He attaineth Peace, into whom all desires flow as rivers flow into the ocean, which is filled with water, but remaineth unmoved—not he who desireth desires.

Whoso forsaketh all desires and goeth onwards free from yearnings, selfless and without egoism—he goeth to Peace.

This is the Eternal state, O son of Prithâ. Having attained thereto, none is bewildered. Who, even at the death-hour, is established therein, he goeth to the Nirvâna of the Eternal.