ADMONITION OF ARJUNA.
Argument.--Abandonment of Egoism, knowledge of the Adorable one and its
different stages.
The Lord said:--Arjuna, you are not the killer (of any soul), it is a
false conceit of yours which you must shun; the soul is ever lasting
and free from death and decay.
2. He who has no egoism in him, and whose mind is not moved (by joy or
grief), is neither the killer of nor killed by any body, though he may
kill every one in the world. (This is an attribute of the supreme soul).
3. Whatever is known in our consciousness, the same is felt within us;
shun therefore your inward consciousness of egoism and meity, as this
is I and these are mine, and these are others and theirs.
4. The thought that you are connected with such and such persons and
things, and that of your being deprived of them, and the joy and grief
to which you are subjected thereby, must affect your soul in a great
measure.
5. He who does his works with the parts or members of his body, and
connects the least attention of his soul there with; becomes infatuated
by his egoism and believes himself as the doer of his action. (here is
a lesson of perfect indifference enjoined to any act or thought that a
man does by or entertains in himself).
6. Let the eyes see, the ears hear, and your touch feel their objects,
let your tongue also taste the relish of a thing, but why take them to
your soul and where is your egoism situated in these?
7. The minds of even the great, are verily employed in the works that
they have undertaken to perform, but where is your egoism or soul in
these, that you should be sorry for its pains. (The soul is aloof from
pain).
8. Your assumption to yourself to any action, which has been done by
the combination of many, amounts only to a conceit of your vanity,
and exposes you not only to ridicule, but to frustrate the merit of
your act. (So is the assuming of a joint action of all the organs and
members of the mind, and the achievement of a whole army to one's self.
So also many masters arrogate to themselves the merit of the deeds of
their servants).
9. The yogis and hermits do their ritual and ordinary actions with
attention of their minds and senses, and often times with the
application of the members and organs of their bodies only, in order to
acquire and preserve the purity of their souls.
10. Those who have not subdued their bodies with the morphia of
indifference, are employed in the repetition of their actions, without
ever being healed of their disease (of anxiety).
11. No person is graceful whose mind is tinged with his selfishness,
as no man however learned and wise is held in honour, whose conduct is
blemished with unpoliteness and misbehaviours.
12. He who is devoid of his selfishness and egotism, and is alike
patient both in prosperity and adversity, is neither affected nor
dejected, whether he does his business or not.
13. Know this, O son of Pandu as the best field for your martial
action; which is worthy of your great good, glory and ultimate
happiness. (War in a just cause is attended with glory).
14. Though you reckon it as heinous on the one hand and unrighteous
on the other; yet you must acknowledge the super excellence and
imperiousness of the duties required of your martial race, so do your
duty and immortalize yourself.
15. Seeing even the ignorant stick fast to the proper duties of their
race, no intelligent person can neglect or set them at naught; and the
mind that is devoid of vanity, cannot be ashamed or dejected, even if
one fails or falls in the discharge of his duty.
16. Do you duty, O Arjuna, with your yoga or fixed attention to it, and
avoid all company (in order to keep company with the object of your
pursuit only). If you do your works as they come to you by yourself
alone, you will never fail nor be foiled in any. _i.e._ thy object thou
canst never gain, unless from all others you refrain.
17. Be as quiet as the person of Brahma, and do your works as quietly
as Brahma does leave his result (whether good or bad) to Brahma
(because you can have no command over the consequence), and by doing
so, assimilate thyself into the nature of Brahma (who is all in all).
18. Commit yourself and all your actions and objects to God, remain
as unaltered as God himself, and know him as the soul of all, and be
thus the decoration of the world. (The gloss says, it is no blasphemy
to think one's self as God, when there is no other personality besides
that of Deity).
19. If you can lay down all your desires, and become as even and cool
mind as a muni--monk; if you can join your soul to the yoga of sannyasa
or contemplative coldness, you can do all your actions with a mind
unattached to any.
20. Arjuna said:--Please lord, explain to me fully, what is meant by
the renunciation of all connections, commitment of our actions to
Brahma; dedication of ourselves to God and abdication of all concerns.
21. Tell me also about the acquisition of true knowledge and divisions
of Yoga meditation, all which I require to know in their proper order,
for the removal of my gross ignorance on those subjects.
22. The Lord replied:--The learned know that as the true form of
Brahma, of which we can form no idea or conception, but which may be
known after the restraining of our imagination, and the pacification of
our desires.
23. Promptitude after these things constitutes our wisdom or knowledge,
and perseverance in these practices is what is called Yoga. Self
dedication to Brahma rests on the belief that, Brahma is all this world
and myself also.
24. As a stone statue is all hollow both in its inside and outside,
so is Brahma as empty, tranquil and transparent as the sky, which is
neither to be seen by us nor is it beyond our sight.
25. It then bulges out a little from itself, and appears as something,
other than what it is. It is this reflexion of the universe, but all as
empty as this inane vacuity.
26. What is again this idea of your egoism, when every thing is evolved
out of the Supreme Intellect, of what account is the personality of any
body, which is but an infinitesimal part of the universal soul.
27. The Egoism of the individual soul, is not apart from the universal
spirit, although it seems to be separate from the same; because there
is no possibility of exclusion or separation of anything from the
Omnipresent and all comprehensive soul of God, and therefore a distinct
egoism is a nullity.
28. As it is the case with our egoism, so is it with the individuality
of a pot and of a monkey also. (_i.e._ of all insensible and brute
creatures too), none of which is separate from the universal whole. All
existences being as drops of water in the sea, it is absurd to presume
an egoism to any body.
29. Things appearing as different to the conscious soul, are to be
considered as the various imageries represented in the self-same soul
(like the sundry scenes shown in the soul in a dream).
30. So also is the knowledge of the particulars and species, lost in
the idea of the general and the _summum genus_. Now by _sannyása_ or
renunciation of the world is meant, the resignation of the fruition
of the fruits of our actions. (The main teaching of Krishna to Arjuna
in the Bhagavadgítá, tends to the renunciation of the fruits of our
actions).
31. Unattachment signifies the renunciation of all our worldly desires,
and the intense application of the mind to the one sole God of the
multifarious creation, and the variety of his imaginary representations.
32. The want of all dualism in the belief of his self-existence as
distinct from that of God, constitutes his dedication of himself to
God; it is ignorance that creates the distinction, by applying various
names and attributes to the one intellectual soul.
33. The meaning of the word intelligent soul, is undoubtedly that it is
one with the universe; and that the Ego is the same with all space, and
its contents of the worlds and their motions.
34. The Ego is the unity of Eternity, and the Ego is duality
and plurality in the world, and the variety of its multifarious
productions. Therefore be devoted to the sole Ego, and drown your own
egoism in the universal Ego. (Here the purport is given instead of the
literal version of the too verbose tetrastich verse).
35. Arjuna said:--There being two forms of the Deity, the one
transcendent or spiritual and the other transpicuous or material; tell
me to which of these I shall resort for my ultimate perfection.
36. The lord replied:--There are verily two forms of the all pervading
Vishnu, the exoteric and the other esoteric; that having a body and
hands holding the conch-shell, the discus, and the mace and lotus, is
the common form for public worship.
37. The other is the esoteric or spiritual form, which is undefined and
without its beginning and end; and is usually expressed by the term
Brahma--great.
38. As long as you are unacquainted with the nature of the supreme
soul, and are not awakened to the light of the spirit; so long should
you continue to adore the form of the God with its four arms. (or the
form of the four armed God).
39. By this means you will be awakened to light, by your knowledge of
the supreme; and when you come to comprehend the Infinite in yourself,
you shall have no more to be born in any mortal form.
40. When you are acquainted with the knowledge of the knowable soul,
then will your soul find its refuge in eternal soul of Hari, who
absorbs all souls in him.
41. When I tell you that this is I and I am that, mind that I mean to
say that, this and that is the Ego of the supreme soul, which I assume
to myself for your instruction.
42. I understand you to be enlightened to truth, and to rest in the
state of supreme felicity; and now that you are freed from all your
temporal desires, I wish you to be one with the true and holy spirit.
43. View in yourself the soul of all beings and those beings
themselves; think your own self or soul as the microcosm of the great
universe, and be tolerant and broad sighted in your practice of Yoga.
(The word _Sama darsi_, here rendered broad sighted, means one who sees
every[one] in one and [the] same light; whence it is synonymous with
universal benevolence and fellow feeling).
44. He who worships the universal soul that resides in all beings, as
the one self-same and undivided spirit; is released from the doom of
repeated births, whether he leads a secular or holy life in this world.
45. The meaning of the word "all" is unity (in its collective sense),
and the meaning of the word "one" is the unity of the soul; as in the
phrase "All is one" it is meant to say that the whole universe is
collectively but one soul. (The soul also is neither a positive entity,
nor a negative non-entity, but it is as it is known in the spirit. (of
the form of ineffable light and delight).)
46. He who shines as light within the minds of all persons, and dwells
in the inward consciousness or percipience of every being, is no other
than the very soul that dwells within myself also.
47. That which is settled in shape of savour in the waters all over
the three worlds. (_i.e._ in the earth, heaven, and underneath the
ground); and what gives flavour to the milk, curd and the butter of the
bovine kind, and dwells as sapidity in the marine salt and other saline
substances, and imparts its sweetness to saccharine articles, the same
is this savoury soul, which gives a gust to our lives, and a good taste
to all the objects of our enjoyment.
48. Know your soul to be that percipience, which is situated in the
hearts of all corporeal beings, whose rarity eludes our perception of
it, and which is quite removed from all perceptibles; and is therefore
ubiquitous in every thing and omnipresent every where.
49. As the butter is inbred in all kinds of milk, and the sap of all
sappy substances is inborn in them, so the supreme soul is intrinsical
and immanent in every thing.
50. As all the gems and pearls of the sea, have a lustre inherent in
them, and which shines forth both in their inside and outside; so the
soul shines in and out of every body without being seated in any part
of it, whether in or out or where about it.
51. As the air pervades both in the inside and outside of all empty
pots, so the spirit of God is diffused in and about all bodies in all
the three worlds. (This is the meaning of omnipresence).
52. As hundreds of pearls are strung together by a thread in the
necklace, so the soul of God extends through and connects these
millions of beings, without its being known by any. (This all
connecting attribute of God, is known as sútrátmá in the Vedánta).
53. He who dwells in the hearts of every body in the world, commencing
from Brahma to the object grass that grows on the earth; the essence
which is common in all of them, is the Brahma the unborn and undying.
54. Brahmá is a slightly developed form of Brahma, and resides in the
spirit of the great Brahma, and the same dwelling in us, makes us
conceive of our egoism by mistake of the true Ego.
55. The divine soul being manifest in the form of the world, say what
can it be that destroys or is destroyed in it; and tell me, Arjuna,
what can it be that is subject to or involved in pleasure or pain.
56. The divine soul is as a large mirror, showing the images of things
upon its surface, like reflexions on the glass; and though these
reflexions disappear and vanish in time, yet the mirror of the soul is
never destroyed, but looks as it looked before.
57. When I say I am this and not the other (of my many reflexions in
a prismatic glass, or of my many images in many pots of water), I am
quite wrong and inconsistent with myself; so is it to say, that the
human soul is the spirit or image of God, and not that of any other
being, when the self-same Divine spirit is present and immanent in all.
(The catholic spirit of the Hindu religion, views all beings to partake
of the Divine spirit, which is in all as in a prismatic glass).
58. The revolutions of creation, sustentation and final dissolution,
take place in an unvaried and unceasing course in the spirit of God,
and so the feelings on surface of the waters of the sea. (Egoistic
feelings rising from the boisterous mind, subside in the calmness of
the soul).
59. As the stone is the constituent essence of rocks, the wood of trees
and the water of waves; so is the soul the constituent element of all
existence.
60. He who sees the soul (as inherent) in all substances, and every
substance (to be contained) in the soul; and views both as the
component of one another, sees the uncreating God as the reflector and
reflexion of Himself.
61. Know Arjuna, the soul to be the integrant part of every thing, and
the constituent element of the different forms and changes of things;
as the water is of the waves, and the gold is of jewelleries. (The
spirit of God is believed as the material cause of all).
62. As the boisterous waves are let loose in the waters, and the jewels
are made of gold; so are all things existent in and composed of the
spirit of God.
63. All material beings of every species, are forms of the Great Brahma
himself; know this one as all, and there is nothing apart or distinct
from him.
64. How can there be an independent existence, or voluntary change of
anything in the world; where can they or the world be, except in the
essence and omnipresence of God, and wherefore do you think of them in
vain?
65. By knowing all this as I have told you, the saints live fearless
in this world by reflecting on the supreme Being in themselves; they
move about as liberated in their lifetime, with the equanimity of their
souls.
66. The enlightened saints attain to their imperishable states, by
being invincible to the errors of fiction, and unsubdued by the evils
of worldly attachment; they remain always in their spiritual and holy
states, by being freed from temporal desires, and the conflicts of
jarring passions, doubts and dualities.