Bhagavad Ghita, translated by Steven Mitchell

Introduction

• Bhagavad Ghita means “The Song of the Blessed One”. In this song, Krishna acts as an elder kinsman that tells his people (through Arjuna) truths they already, though imperfectly, know.
• “The spiritually mature human being lets all things come and go without effort, without desire for any foreseen result, carried along by the current of a vast intelligence. As the great twentieth-century Hindu sage Ramana Maharshi said, ‘The idea that there is a goal . . . is wrong. We are the goal; we are always peace. To get rid of the idea that we are not peace is all that is required.’”
• “Nevertheless, whether or not Arjuna should fight is at most a secondary question for the Gita. The primary question is, How should we live?”
• Just as the essence of Judaism is ‘Love God with all your heart, and love your neighbour as yourself’, the essence of Hinduism is “Let go.” These two essences are different entrances to the same truth which offers beginning and end for all spiritual practice
• “You have a right to your actions, but never to your actions’ fruits.”
• “The Tao doesn’t take sides; it gives birth to both good and evil. The Master doesn’t take sides; she welcomes both saints and sinners.”
• “As unnecessary as a well is / to a village on the banks of a river, / so unnecessary are all scriptures / to someone who has seen the truth.” (2.46)
  • Once you’ve caught the fish, what need have you for the net?
  • The tao that can be told is not the eternal Tao.

Chapter 1: Arjuna’s despair

• “Because their minds are overpowered by greed, they see no harm in destroying the family, no crime in treachery to friends.”
  • Interesting. The battle between the Pandavas and the Kurus can also represent a battle against the forces that threaten to pull the family apart—even if those forces come from within the family. In this story it’s cousins battling, however this battle may arise from siblings, spouses, or even oneself (if I act selfishly I harm my family)

Chapter 2: The practice of yoga

• “If you think that this Self can kill / or think that it can be killed, / you do not well understand / reality’s subtle ways.
• “Foolish men talk of religion in cheap, sentimental words, leaning on the scriptures: “God speaks here, and speaks here alone.” Driven by desire for pleasure and power, caught up in ritual, they strive to gain heaven; but rebirth is the only result of their striving. They are lured by their own desires, besotted by the scriptures’ words; their minds have not been made clear by the practice of meditation.”
• “You have a right to your actions, but never to your actions’ fruits. Act for the action’s sake. And do not be attached to inaction.”
  • It is true that you perform actions. However, you are not what gave rise to those actions. You act, yet you are not the reason you act—you have no right to your actions’ fruits.
• “When the mind constantly runs after the wandering senses, it drives away wisdom, like the wind blowing a ship off course.”

Chapter 3: The yoga of action

• “The whole world becomes a slave to its own activity, Arjuna; if you want to be truly free, perform all actions as worship. The Lord of Creatures formed worship together with mankind, and said: ‘By worship you will always be fruitful and your wishes will be fulfilled. By worship you will nourish the gods and the gods will nourish you in turn; by nourishing one another you assure the well-being of all.’”
  • The recognition of something more important than oneself provokes worship. Action as worship is more generative and invigorated than mere activity for the self. Collective worship nourishes the whole that is worship.
• “Good men are released from their sins when they eat food offered in worship; but the wicked devour their own evil when they cook for themselves alone.”
• “Whatever a great man does ordinary people will do; whatever standard he sets, everyone will follow.”
  • I had a thought…with the world becoming more disconnected, relationships tending to be less embodied and shallow (due to technology), that greater standard is more difficult to follow. (e.g., with work from home, my colleagues really only see me 1 day a week. How much can I influence them, even if only by immersion, and make healthy behaviour more normal?)
• “A man deluded by the I-sense imagines, ‘I am the doer.’”
• “Performing all actions for [God’s] sake, desireless, absorbed in the Self, indifferent to “I” and “mine,” let go of your grief, and fight!”
  • Like the Buddha’s ‘Nothing is to be clung to as I, me, or mine.’
    • How does one act without desire? One could say the heart beats free from desire, but what keeps it beating is a desirous process that sustains its function by providing it with energy and material (food). I suppose this desirelessness is more of an ideal to strive towards.
• Arjuna asks what causes evil. Krishna answers desire and anger, which arise from the guna called rajas.
• “As a fire is obscured by smoke, as a mirror is covered by dust, as a fetus is wrapped in its membrane, so wisdom is obscured by desire.”

Chapter 4: The yoga of wisdom

• “Many times I have been born, and many times you have, also. All these lives I remember, you recall only this one.”
  • Life is like a perpetual reawakening, a reknowing, a remembering of the history that sustained life itself. When we are brought into this world, our memories are reset, yet the cultures that persist are those who don’t forget themselves and help individuals rediscover their self in that culture.
• “However men try to reach me, I return their love with my love; whatever path they may travel, it leads to me in the end.”
  • Truth isn’t restricted to one particular path. Different paths, whether Buddhist, Christian, or Islamic, point towards the same truth. And that truth is to radiate love and acquire wisdom (a higher perspective).
• “God is the offering, God is the offered, poured out by God; God is attained by all those who see God in every action.”
  • This book is an offering, I am what it is being offered to, and the process of my reading it and it being delivered to my mind is God.
  • This is why action must be done in worship, as worship implies an offering—at the very least an offering of one’s attention. The attended-to is offered attention, God is in both, and the process of attending is God.
• “Partaking of the essence of worship, forever they are freed of themselves; but non-worshipers cannot be happy in this world or any other.”

Chapter 5: The yoga of renunciation

• “The man who has seen the truth thinks, ‘I am not the doer’ at all times—when he sees, hears, touches […] at all times he thinks ‘This is merely sense-objects acting on the senses.’”
  • To claim that “you” are the doer is a manifestation of pride, which always stems from ignorance.
• “The resolute in yoga surrender results, and gain perfect peace; the irresolute, attached to results, are bound by everything they do.”
  • Playing to win vs. Playing to keep playing. Which is finite and bounded, which is infinite and free?
• “When knowledge of the Self is obscured by ignorance, men act badly. But when ignorance is completely destroyed, then the light of wisdom shines like the midday sun and illumines what is supreme.”
  • Here, Self refers to the unseparated Self, the Self that embodies the whole. To lose sight of that interdependence, unseparateness, is ignorance.
• “Pleasures from external objects are wombs of suffering, Arjuna. They have their beginnings and their ends; no wise man seeks joy among them.”
• “The wise man, cleansed of his sins, who has cut off all separation, who delights in the welfare of all beings, vanishes into God’s bliss.”

Chapter 6: The yoga of meditation

• Right action is itself renunciation. “In the yoga of action, you first renounce your selfish will.”
• “For the man who wishes to mature, the yoga of action is the path; for the man already mature, serenity is the path.”
  • Maturity is the renunciation of selfish will
• “He should lift up the self by the Self and not sink into the selfish; for the self is the only friend of the Self, and its only foe.”
  • To hoist up the finite self with the infinite self. The self, a kind of personal consciousness or awareness, is our only opening towards the higher Self. But, of course, the personal self can be the cruelest foe.
  • Later… “When his mind has become serene by the practice of meditation, he sees the Self through the self and rests in the Self, rejoicing.” To see the Self through the self.
• “[The mature man] looks impartially on all: those who love him or hate him, his kinsmen, his enemies, his friends, the good, and also the wicked.”
  • Impartiality is truth. However…one aspect of life is that it is necessarily impartial. That impartiality is what sustains life (“I” must reproduce and survive, not you). Again, an ideal that we strive towards.
• “For the man who is moderate in food and pleasure, moderate in action, moderate in sleep and waking, yoga destroys all sorrow.”
  • Temperance is a precondition to enlightenment.
• Arjuna asks what happens to the man who wanders from the path of yoga before he matures. Krishna answers that, given his initial faith, he will be reborn into a righteous family. He may even be born into one whose parents practice yoga and are wise. “There he regains the knowledge acquired in his former life.”
  • Engaging in the practice at minimum sustains it, and increases its likelihood of reproducing over time. This reproduction is its rebirth. The righteous discipline of one man is reborn in another. And because the Self of the first man is not separate from the second—there is but a continuous righteous transformation of the Self. “You” doesn’t profit from rebirth—at least, the “you” you’re thinking about. The rebirth process is selfless.

Chapter 7: Wisdom and realization

• “Others are deluded by [Krishna’s] power; they do not attempt to find me and, in their ignorance, sink into demonic evil.”
• “Men whose wisdom is darkened by desires, men who are hemmed in by the limits of their own natures, take refuge in other gods.” Krishna then grants them unswerving faith in those other gods, and those men are rewarded for their faith. “But fleeting is the reward that men of small minds are given.”

Chapter 8: Absolute freedom

Chapter 9: The secret of life

• “Any offering—a leaf, a flower or fruit, a cup of water—I will accept it if given with a loving heart. Whatever you do, Arjuna, do it as an offering to me—whatever you say or eat or pray or enjoy or suffer.”
• “I am the same to all beings; I favour none and reject none. But those who worship me live within me and I live in them.”
  • A true Creator is indiscriminate to all beings. The allure that humans are somehow more important than others is born of desire and ignorance—we see ourselves as special so we assume our God must see us as special. Incorrect. Ignorant. God favors none and rejects none. Those who think god should give them special treatment will be deeply troubled when bad things happen to go their group’s way, which they inevitably will.

Chapter 10: Divine manifestations

Chapter 11: The cosmic vision

• Krishna assumes his true cosmic form at the request of Arjuna, an enfolding and unfolding of all that is in the universe.
• “Crowned with fire, wrapped in pure light, with celestial fragrance, he stood forth as the infinite God, composed of all wonders.”
• “You gulp down all worlds, everywhere swallowing them in your flames and your rays, Lord Vishnu, fill all the universe with dreadful brilliance.”
• “I am death, shatterer of worlds, annihilating all things.”
• Krishna then, again at the request of Arjuna, resumes his human form.
  • To see the ultimate form of what we are worshipping would overwhelm us, as it did Arjuna. We are feeble, thus needing a tangible form in which to direct our attention and capture our veneration. This is what the human form of Krishna offers.

Chapter 12: The yoga of devotion

• “Knowledge is better than practice; meditation is better than knowledge; and best of all is surrender, which soon brings peace.”
  • One can practice without gaining knowledge, but one cannot gain knowledge without practice. One can have knowledge, yet if one’s attention is feeble and immature that knowledge will be fruitless and even destructive. Surrender is necessary to recognize the cosmic Self—that which is far beyond you.
• “He who has let go of hatred, who treats all beings with kindness and compassion, who is always serene, unmoved by pain or pleasure, free of the “I” and “mine,” self-controlled, firm and patient, his whole mind focused on me—that man is the one I love best.”
• “He who is pure, impartial, skilled, unworried, calm, selfless in all undertakings…”
• “Indifferent to praise and blame, quiet, filled with devotion, content with whatever happens, at home wherever he is—that man is the one I love best.”
  • To be at home wherever you are.

Chapter 13: The field and its knower

Chapter 14: The three gunas

• “Sattva causes attachment to joy, rajas to action, and tamas, obscuring knowledge, attaches beings to dullness.”
• “Sattva prevails when it masters rajas and tamas both; rajas or tamas prevails when it masters the other two.”
  • The luminosity of Sattva can’t be attained by sloth or unending action. Restless action can’t be attained by sloth or satisfaction with what already is. Stagnation can’t be attained without darkening the illuminating light of joy and knowledge and hindering activity.
• “When the light of knowledge shines forth through all the gates of the body, then it is apparent that Sattva is the ruling trait.”
  • Pure awareness through all the sense gates and the mind is sattva
• “Greed and constant activity, excessive projects, cravings, restlessness” arise when rajas is the ruling trait.
• “Darkness, dullness, stagnation, indolence, confusion, torpor, inertia” appear when tamas is the ruling trait.
• The fruit of Sattva is right action, the fruit of rajas is suffering, the fruit of tamas is ignorance.
• “If he dies when rajas prevails, he is born among those attached to action; if tamas prevails, he is born among the deluded.”
  • Again, this notion of what habits you live by will be reborn and sustained in your society. The ignorant will produce more delusion. The restless will produce more restlessness.
• “Men of Sattva go upward; men of rajas remain in between; men of tamas, lowest of all, sink downward.”

Chapter 15: The ultimate person

• “When the Lord takes on a body or leaves it, he carries these senses just as the wind carries fragrances from the places where it has been. Presiding over the senses of hearing and sight, of touch, taste, smell, and also of mind, he savours the senses’ objects.”
  • The Lord is awareness of thought and the five senses.
• “Whether he leaves or remains, enjoying his contact with the gunas, the deluded see nothing; but wise men see him with their inner eye.”
  • The deluded do not notice their senses or thoughts; their awareness is clouded—this is the delusion. They cannot see the grace that awareness gives us. How may we help them see?
• “In this world, there are two persons: the transient and the eternal; all beings are transient as bodies, but eternal within the Self.”

Chapter 16: Divine traits and demonic traits

• “Driven by insatiable lusts, drunk on the arrogance of power, hypocritical, deluded, their actions foul with self-seeking, tormented by a vast anxiety that continues until their death, convinced that the gratification of desire is life’s sole aim, bound by a hundred shackles of hope, enslaved by their greed, they squander their time dishonestly piling up mountains of wealth.”
• “‘Today I got this desire, and tomorrow I will get that one; all these riches are mine, and soon I will have even more. […] Bewildered by endless thinking, entangled in the net of delusion, addicted to desire, they plunge into the foulest of hells. Self-centered, stubborn, filled with all the insolence of wealth, they go through outward forms of worship, but their hearts are elsewhere. Clinging to the “I”-sense, to power, to arrogance, lust, and rage, they hate me, denying my presence in their own and in others’ bodies.”
  • I can’t help but think of America while reading this, who have just re-elected someone who embodies the qualities above. Who are bewildered by endless thinking in the form of a shallow and turbulent news cycle. Who re-elected a businessman so they can have more of what they desire—the businessman serves the business, that business is America

Chapter 17: Three kinds of faith

• “Men who mortify their flesh in ways not sanctioned by the scriptures, who are trapped in their sense of “I” and driven by warped desires, in their folly torturing parts that compose the body, and thus torturing me in the body—know that their aim is demonic.”
  • Back in these times would this have been referring to overly ascetic practices (e.g., starvation) that were a weird roundabout way of yearning for attention? Perhaps tattoos and piercings? In today’s world I can’t help but think of the sexual climate—not homosexuality, as there is no mutilation that occurs in it, but the more bizarre attempt to transform the body by removing sexual organs. Contraception is a grey area here as well, some women describe the side effects of birth control as feeling like a slow burn.
• Control of the body: nonviolence, chastity, uprightness; Control of speech: speaking truth with kindness, honesty that causes no pain, and the recitation of scripture; Control of mind: serenity, gentleness, silence, benevolence, self-restraint, purity of being, compassion.
• “Rajasic control—by its nature wavering and unstable—is performed out of pride or to gain repsect, admiration, and honor.”
• “Control is called tamasic when used by deluded men to mortify their flesh or to gain the power to cause harm to others.”

Chapter 18: Freedom through renunciation

• Renouncing: giving up desire bound actions
• Relinquishing: giving up the results of all actions
• “Some sages say all action is tainted and should be relinquished.”
  • This would be those who think that since all action is biased, it is in some sense deluded, and therefore relinquishing it all is closer to the truth.
• “Here is the truth: these acts of worship, control, and charity purify the heart and therefore should not be relinquished but performed.”
  • Right action expands love and so should be performed, despite being tainted.

• “An embodied being can never relinquish actions completely; to relinquish the results of actions is all that can be required.”

• One cannot live without acting. But one can live without being attached to outcome and inhabiting earnestly the present

• Knowledge
  • Sattvic: to see in all things a single, imperishable being, undivided among the divided
  • Rajasic: to perceive a multiplicity of beings, each one existing by itself, separate from all others.
  • Tamasic: a clinging to one thing as if it were the whole, and has no concern for the true cause and essence of things.
• Action
  • Sattvic: without craving or aversion, unattached to results
  • Rajasic: “with a wish to satisfy desires, with the thought “I am doing this,” and with an excessive effort.”
  • Tamasic: beginning in delusion and no concern that it may cause harm to oneself or others
• Agent
  • Sattvic: “free from attachement and the I-sense, courageous, steadfast, unmoved by success or failure.”
  • Rajasic: impulsive and results-driven, “greedy, violent, impure, and buffeted by joy and sorrow.”
  • Tamasic: “undisciplined, stupid, stubborn, mean, deceitful, lazy, and easily depressed.”
• Will
  • Sattvic: unswerving, control of mind, breath, senses by meditation
  • Rajasic: “attached to duty, sensual pleasures, power, and wealth, with anxiety and a constant desire for results.”
  • Tamasic: ignorantly “clinging to grief and fear, to torpor, depression, and conceit.

• Happiness

  • Sattvic: comes from long practice and at first is like poison, but at last like nectar, arises from serenity of mind
  • Rajasic: “comes from contact between senses and their objects, and is at first like nectar, but at last like poison.” (!!!)
  • Tamasic: self-deluding, arising from sleep, indolence, and dullness.
• “It is better to do your own duty badly than to perfectly do another’s.”
  • Hmmmm…
• “No one should relinquish his duty even though it is flawed; all actions are enveloped by flaws as fire is enveloped by smoke.”
  • Beautiful.
• “Focused on [God] at all times, you will overcome all obstructions; but if you persist in clinging to the I-sense, then you are lost.”
  • To free oneself from notions of “I”, “me”, and “mine” is critical. Those in rajasic and tamasic states will encourage others to cling to the I-sense, perhaps to exploit them or reinforce their own pleasure now, poison later mindsets.
• “These teachings must not be spoke. To men without self-control and piety, or to men whose hearts are closed to me.”
  • I feel this. So many people could benefit from these lessons but lack the discipline and humility… Do I?