CHAPTER TWO

To him thus besieged with pity and his eyes full bewildered with crowding tears, to him weak with sorrow, Madhusudan spake this word.

KRISHNA

“Whence hath this stain of darkness come upon thee in the very crisis and the stress, O Urjoona. this weakness unheavenly, inglorious, beloved of un-Aryan minds ? Fall not into coward impotence, O Partha; not on thee does that sit well; fling from thee the miserable weakness of thy heart, O scourge of thy foes.”

urjoona

“How shall I combat Bhishma in the fight and Drona, O Madhusudan. how shall I smite with arrows those venerable heads? Better were it, not piercing these great and worshipped hearts to eat even a beggar’s bread on this our earth. I slay our earthly wealth and bliss when I slay these; blood­stained will be the joys I shall taste. Therefore we know not which of these is better, that we should be victors or that we should be vanquished: for they whom slaying we should have no heart to live, lo, they Dhritarashtrians face us in the foeman’s van. Pain and unwillingness have swept me from my natural self, my heart is bewildered as to right and wrong: thee then I question. Tell me what would surely be my good, for I am thy dis­ciple ; teach me, for in thee I have sought my refuge. I see not what shall banish from me the grief that parcheth up the senses, though I win on earth rich kingship without rival and empire over the very gods in heaven.”

Thus Gudakesha to Hrishikesha: the scourger of his foe said unto Govinda, “I will not fight”, and ceased from words. On him thus overcome with weakness in the midmost of either battle,

Krishna smiled a little and said:

“Thou grievest for whom thou shouldst not grieve and yet speakest wise-seeming words, but the wise grieve not, whether for the dead or for the living. It is not that I was not before, nor thou nor these lords of the folk, nor yet that we shall not be again hereafter. Even as the embodied spirit passes in this body to boyhood and youth and age, so also it passes away from this body to another; the strong man suffers not his soul to be clouded by this. But the things of material touch, O son of Coonty, which bring cold and warmth, pleasure and pain, they come and they pass; transient 

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are they, these seek to abandon, O Bharata. The man whom these vex not, O lion of men, who is strong and receiveth sorrow and bliss as one, that man is ready for immortality. For that which is not, there is no coming into being, and for that which is, there is no ceasing to be; yea, of both of these the lookers into truth have seen an end. But That in which all this universe is extended, know to be imperishable; none hath force to bring to nought the One who decays not neither passes away. Finite and tran­sient are these bodies called, of the eternal, imperishable and immeasurable embodied Spirit; arise, therefore, and fight, O son of Bharata. Who know-eth the Spirit as slayer and who deemeth Him to be slain, both of these discern not. He slayeth not, neither is he slain. He is not born nor dieth ever, nor having once been shall not be again. He is unborn, for ever and perpetual. He is the Ancient One who is not slain with the slaying of the body. He who knoweth Him to be imperishable, eternal, unborn and un-decaying, whom doth that man, O Partha slay or cause to be slain ? As a man casteth from him his worn-out robes and taketh to him other and new raiment, so the embodied Spirit casteth away its worn-out bodies and goeth to other and new casings. Him the sword cleaveth not. Him the fire cannot burn, Him the water wetteth not and the hot wind withereth not away; indivisible, unconsumable, unmergible, unwitherable is He. He is for ever and everywhere, constant and moveth not. He is the One Sempiternal Being. If thou knowest him as such, thou hast no cause to grieve.

And now if yet thou deemest of the Spirit as everborn or everdying, even so thou hast no cause to grieve for him, O strong-armed. For of that which is born the death is certain, and of that which is dead, the birth is sure; therefore in a thing inevitable thou oughtest not to grieve. Un-manifested in their beginning are creatures, manifested in the middle, O Bharata; they become but unmanifest again at death; what room is here for lamentation? As a Mystery one seeth Him, as a Mystery another speaketh of Him, as a Mystery a third heareth of Him, but even with revelation not one knoweth Him. The embodied One is for ever unslayable in the body of every man, O Bharata; and from Him are all creatures; therefore thou hast no cause for grief. Moreover if thou considerest the law of thy own being, thou oughtest not to tremble, for than battling in a Just cause the Kshatriya knoweth no greater bliss. Happy are the Kshatriyas, O Partha, who win such a battle to their portion; it is as though one came past by chance and found the door of Paradise open. Now if thou wilt not wage this just and righteous battle, then hast thou cast from thee

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 thy glory and the law of thy being, and brought sin upon thy head; yea, thy shame shall be eternal in the mouth of all creatures; and for one who hath been honoured, shame is worse than death. The warriors will think that from fear thou hast ceased from battle, and in their eyes who thought highly of thee, thou shalt be belittled. And thine ill-wishers will speak of thee many unutterable words, disparaging thy might and thy greatness, than which there is no worse bitterness under heaven. Slain thou shalt conquer heaven, victorious thou shalt enjoy earth for thy kingdom; therefore arise, O son of Coonty, arise with a heart resolute for war. Make thou thy soul indifferent to pain and pleasure, to gain and loss, to defeat and victory, then gird thyself to the combat; sin shall not touch thee then.

Thus hath been declared to thee the mind that dwelleth in the way of Sankhya; hearken now to that which dwelleth in Yoga, to which being wedded, thou shalt cast from thee, O Partha, action’s binding chain. On this path no step once taken is lost, in this path thou shalt meet with no stumbling-block; even a little of this Law saveth the heart from its great fear. One is the mind of a man that holds fast to its aim, but infinite are their minds, and many-branching, who have no resolved goal. ‘Tis a flowery word they babble, men of little understanding who take delight in the creed of Veda, disputing, saying “There is nought else”, their souls full of desires, their hopes bent upon Heaven; but he who hearkeneth to their words that give but the fruit of life’s actions, and is crowded with mul­tifold rituals aiming only at splendour and enjoyment and lordship, — lo, it hurrieth away his heart and causeth it to cling to lordship and pleasures, and his mind is unfixed to God and cannot set itself on the rock of concen­tration. Of the three nature-moods are the stuff of the Vedas, but thou, O Urjoona, rise above the three, high beyond the dualities, steadfast on the plane of the Light, be careless of getting and having, be a man with a soul. As much use as there is in a well, when all the regions are flowing with water, so much is there in all the Vedas to the Brahman who hath the Knowledge. Thou hast right to action only, to the fruit of action thou hast no manner of right at all; be not motive by the fruits of action, neither to inaction sell thy soul; but put attachment far from thee, O Dhanunjoy, and do thy deeds with a mind awaiting success and failure with an equal heart, for ‘tis such equipoise of the soul they call Yoga indeed. For far lower is action than Yoga of the Supermind; in the Supermind seek thy refuge, for this is a mean and pitiful thing that a man should work for success and rewards. The man whose Supermind is in Yoga casteth from 

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him even in this world both righteousness and sin; therefore to Yoga gird thy soul; when thou dost works Yoga is the one auspicious way. For the wise whose understandings have reached God, cast from them the fruit that is born of their deeds, they are delivered from the fetters of birth, they pass into that sphere where suffering is not, neither any disease. When thy soul shall have voyaged to the other shore over the Chorus of the Great Bewilderment, then shalt thou become careless of the Scripture that is and the Scripture that shalt be, and when the mind that is perplexed and beaten about by the Scripture shall stand fast and motionless in Samadhi, then shalt thou attain Yoga.”

urjoona

“What is the speech of him in whom Wisdom hath taken its firm seat, O Keshena, of him who is in Samadhi, whose thought standeth on settled understanding ? What speaketh he, what are his sittings and what his goings?”

krishna

“When a man casteth far away from him, O son of Pritha, all the desires that cling to the mind, when he is self-content in the Self, then it is said of him that his Reason is fixed in its seat. He whose soul is not shaken in sorrows and in happinesses, hungers not after their delight, he to whom fear and liking and wrath are forgotten things, he is the sage thought in whom is settled. He who is in all things without affections, whether evil come to him or whether good, who delights not in the pleasure neither hateth the pain, he is the man of an established understanding. As the tortoise gathereth in its limbs from all sides, so when this understanding spirit gathereth in the senses away from the things in which the senses work, then is the Reason in a man safely seated. By fasting and refraining the objects of passion cease from a man, but the desire and the delight in them remain; but when the embodied spirit hath beheld the most High, the very desire and delight cease and are no more. For very furious and turbulent are the senses, O son of Coonty, and though a man be God-seeking, though he have the soul that discerneth, they seize upon even his mind and ravish it violently away. Let a man devoted to Me coerce all these and sit fast in Yoga utterly giving himself up to Me, for only when a man has his senses in his grip is the Reason of him firm in its seat. But when a man thinketh much and often of the things of sense, fondness for them groweth upon 

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 him, and from fondness desire and passion are born; and passion’s child is wrath; out of wrath cometh delusion and disturbance of the brain; and from delusion cometh confusion of the recording mind; and when memory faileth the overmind is destroyed, and by the ruin of the overmind the soul goeth to its perdition. When one moveth over the fields of the passions with his senses in the grip of the Self, delivered from likings and dislikings, and when the Spirit itself answers to the helm, a pure serenity becometh his. In that bright gladness of the soul there cometh to him a waning away of all grief; for when a man’s heart is like a calm and pure sky the Thought in him findeth very quickly its firm foundation. Who hath not Yoga hath not understanding, who hath not Yoga hath not infinite and inward con­templation, who thinketh not infinitely and inwardly hath not peace of soul, and how shall he be happy whose soul is not at peace ? For the mind that followeth the control and working of the senses when they range abroad hurleth alone with it the Thought in the Spirit as the wind hurleth along a ship upon the waters. Therefore it is, O strong-armed, that his Reason is firmly based whose senses are reined in on all sides from the things of their desire.

In the night which is darkness to all creatures, the governed soul is awake and liveth; that in which all creatures wake and live, is night to the eyes of the seer. The waters enter into the vast, full and unmoving ocean, and the ocean stirs not nor is troubled, and he into whom all desires even in such wise enter attaineth unto peace, and not the lover of passion. That man who casteth away all desires and doeth works without craving, not melting to aught because it is his, not seeing in aught his separate self, at­taineth his soul’s peace. This is that God-state, O son of Pritha, to which attaining man is not again bewildered, but standing fast in it even in the hour of his ending mounteth to Cessation in the Eternal.”  

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