Of killing my own people in battle!
{31}
I don’t want victory, Krishna,
Or a kingdom, or ‘happiness.’
What’s a kingdom to us, Cowherd?
What are pleasures, what is life?
{32}
The ones for whose sake we would want
Kingdoms, pleasures, happiness—
On a war footing here
They give up breath and wealth!
{33}
Teachers, fathers, sons,
Even grandfathers,
Uncles, fathers-in-law, grandsons,
Brothers-in-law…other relatives, too….
{34}
Though they are out to kill me, Krishna,
I don’t want to kill them—
Not for the kingship of three worlds!
How much less, then, for some ground?
{35}
Killing off Dhritarashtra’s sons….
What kind of joy would that be?
If we kill these hostile archers,
The evil’s going to stick to us!
{36}
We just don’t have the right to kill
Dhritarashtra’s sons. Our own relatives!
If we really were to kill them,
How could we be happy, Krishna?
{37}
Even if greed so overpowers
Their thoughts that they can’t see
How wrong it is to wreck a family,
How ruinous, to betray a friend,
{38}
Since when do we not know enough
To turn back from this sin?
Seeing clearly, Krishna, as we do
How wrong it is to wreck a family!
{39}
Wreck a family, the family’s
Ancient laws vanish. Once its laws
Have vanished, lawlessness
Overpowers the whole family.
{40}
Lawlessness in power, Krishna,
The family’s women grow corrupt.
The women once corrupted, Krishna,
The colors pour together.
{41}
Intermix, and it all goes to hell,
The family with the family’s wreckers.
Their forefathers get debased,
Robbed of their ritual rice and water.
{42}
The wrongs of these family wreckers
Make the colors pour together—
Codes of caste, eternal
Family laws—obliterated!
{43}
Men whose family laws
Have been obliterated, Krishna—
We’ve heard of this happening—
They dwell in hell forever!
{44}
Ah—ach—what a great sin
We’re hell-bent on committing!
So greedy for kingly pleasures
We’re ready to kill our own people!
{45}
If Dhritarashtra’s sons, weapons in hand,
Were to kill me in battle
Weaponless and unresisting—
That would be easier for me!
{46}
Having said this in the war zone,
Arjuna sat on the chariot seat,
Throwing down his bow and arrow,
His grief-stricken mind recoiling.
{47}
SESSION 2
Samkhya
Krishna berates Arjuna for cowardice, but Arjuna insists he doesn’t want to attack his relatives and gurus. He admits he can’t decide whether it’s better for him to kill them or for them to kill him. This is the conundrum central to the Gita—where and whether to delimit empathy in a time of war—and it triggers Arjuna’s first plea for instruction from Krishna. Immediately after begging for instruction, Arjuna says bluntly that he will not fight.
Krishna begins his teaching. He explains the indestructibility of the atman, its imperviousness to physical stimuli, and its transmigration from body to body. The logical conclusion of this is that Arjuna should not mourn anybody.
Krishna briefly takes up some more warrior-to-warrior arguments, pointing out how Arjuna, if he fights, will win either way—heaven if he dies, or worldly glory if he conquers. Differentiating deep understanding from showy ritualism, Krishna also throws in a few verses about hypocritical priests.
Returning to larger concepts, Krishna explains how Arjuna must focus only on the task at hand, not on the end results of it. The method for this is yoga, a multifaceted concept he will expand on over the course of the entire Gita. He speaks of how the intellect, “yoked” to yoga, can avoid the karma associated with action. This is another reason Arjuna should do his duty and fight.
Arjuna asks what such a person is like. Krishna spends much of the rest of the session describing the “steady mystic.” The steady mystic attains Brahman, that is, his atman resorbs into its source. This state is nirvana—etymologically, the state of being “blown out,” much as a candle might be.
Sanjaya said,
To him—seized this way with pity,
Tearful eyes cast down
And in despair—demonslaying
Krishna said these words.
{1}
The Blessed Lord said,
Where’s this gutlessness coming from?
In a time of danger!
This is goddamned unbecoming.
This disgraces you, Arjuna!
{2}
Don’t you be a coward, Partha—
It doesn’t suit you!
Quit this base faintheartedness.
Stand up! Blaze your enemies!
{3}
Arjuna said,
How can I battle Bhishma
And Drona? Slayer of Madhu,
How can I attack with arrows
A pair so worthy of worship?
{4}
Better to go eating handouts here on earth
Than kill these great-minded gurus.
Killing these gurus out of a lust for gain
Would smear the food I feast on red.
{5}
No way to know which, for us, is of heavier importance:
Whether we should conquer them, or they should conquer us.
There they stand, facing us down—Dhritarashtra’s sons.
If we were to kill them, we wouldn’t want to live!
{6}
A guilty misery overcomes my whole being.
I ask you with my duty muddled in my mind:
Which would be better? Tell me for sure—
Me, your pupil—instruct me, I am at your feet!
{7}
I just can’t see what will take away
This sorrow drying up my senses
Though I gain an unrivaled and prosperous kingdom
On earth, or even preeminence over the Gods.
{8}
Sanjaya said,
Having said this to Krishna,
Arjuna, the scorcher of foes,
Said, “I will not fight,”
And went silent.
{9}
To him in his dejection, King,
Midway between the armies,
Krishna—as if about to start
Laughing—said these words.
{10}
The Blessed Lord said,
You’ve mourned for those you shouldn’t mourn.
What words of w
isdom in your speech!
Scholars mourn no body,
Empty of breath or full of breath.
{11}
Never have I not existed,
Nor you, nor these human rulers.
Nor will any of us ever
Not exist from here on out.
{12}
What this body embodies
Just as it takes on boyhood, youth, and age
Takes on another body, too.
A sage is not confused by this.
{13}
Brushes with matter, Arjuna,
Causing cold or heat or pain or pleasure
Come and go, ephemeral.
Suffer to endure them, Arjuna.
{14}
A bull of a man like you
Who does not tremble at them,
A sage the same in pain and pleasure—
He is set for immortality.
{15}
What is unreal cannot come to be.
What is real cannot not be.
Two conclusions. Those who see true
See the truth in both.
{16}
Indestructibility: Be aware
It spreads through all this.
Destroying this imperishable part
Is something no one can accomplish.
{17}
They say these bodies that embody
Indestructible, immeasurable
Eternities must have an end.
So fight, Arjuna!
{18}
Someone who imagines this a killer,
Someone who believes that this is killed—
Neither of them knows
This cannot kill and cannot be killed.
{19}
It is not born and does not die at any time
And, having come to be, will never cease to be.
Birthless, undying, constant, before time, this
When killed inside the body is not killed.
{20}
A man who knows the indestructible,
Eternal, birthless, imperishable this—
In what way, Partha, does he
Cause the killing? Who is it he kills?
{21}
Casting off his worn-out clothes,
A man takes hold of others. That
Is how the self, embodied, casts off worn-out
Bodies, moving on with new ones.
{22}
This is what the weapons do not cut.
This is what the fire does not burn.
This is what the water does not wet,
Nor does the storm wind make it wither.
{23}
No way to cut or burn
Or wet or wither this.
This is undying, all-pervading, stable.
This is immovable and everlasting.
{24}
This is unmanifest, it’s said,
Unthinkable, immutable.
And so, in that way knowing this,
You should not mourn.
{25}
Mighty-armed Arjuna,
Even if you think this
Born forever or forever dead,
You should not mourn for this.
{26}
For what is born a death is sure
And sure a birth for what is dead.
Over this inevitable meaning
You are not to mourn.
{27}
Unmanifest at their beginnings, beings
Manifest midway, their ends
Unmanifest again.
Arjuna, why complain about it?
{28}
A wonder is what someone sees in this,
“Wonderful!” declares another,
“A wonder!” is what still another hears,
But even hearing of this, no one really knows this.
{29}
This, embodied, is invulnerable
In everyone forever, Arjuna.
And so for all these beings
You should not mourn.
{30}
Seeing the dharma proper to you,
You should not tremble.
A warrior finds nothing better
Than a dharmic battle!
{31}
If by accident they happen
On the open gate of heaven,
Happy the warriors, Partha,
Who get in on such a battle!
{32}
If you do not undertake this
Dharmic combat, then in
Dereliction of your duty,
In dishonor, you will take on sin.
{33}
People will forever tell
The tale of your dishonor.
For a high-born man, dishonor
Is worse than death.
{34}
Great chariot-fighters will believe
You shirked the skirmish, scared.
Among the ones who thought so much
Of you, you’ll come to seem a lightweight;
{35}
Foes who scorn your prowess
Will call you many
Unspeakable words.
What sorrow’s worse than that?
{36}
Either you’ll be killed, and get to heaven,
Or you will conquer, and enjoy the earth—
So stand up, son of Kunti,
Emboldened into battle!
{37}
Making pleasure and pain, loss and gain,
Victory and defeat the same,
Yoke yourself to battle: That
Is how you will not take on sin.
{38}
This, the Samkhya school described to you:
Hear it now, a yogic mindset.
Yoked to such a mindset, Partha,
You will throw off karmic bondage.
{39}
Here no effort goes to waste.
You never find yourself backsliding.
Even a little of this dharma
Guards against great danger.
{40}
The self-willed mindset
Is at one here, Arjuna.
Many-branched, and endless, really,
Are irresolution’s many minds.
{41}
Such flowery words they declaim, these
Ignoramuses! Delighting,
Partha, in the letter of the Veda,
Saying there is nothing else.
{42}
Desire in their natures, heaven-bent
And holding out rebirth as work’s fruition,
They act out many different rituals
With the goal of glut and grandeur.
{43}
Hooked on glut and grandeur,
Their thinking carried off
By that, they’re never granted
Meditation’s self-willed mindset.
{44}
Three gunas are the subject of the Vedas:
Of these three gunas, Arjuna, be free,
Beyond dichotomies, in truth forever fixed,
Never getting, never hoarding, self-possessed.
{45}
A well when water’s flooding
In from every side is
Worth as much as all the Vedas
To the knowing Brahmin.
{46}
The action alone is your mandate,
Never the fruits at any time.
Never let the fruits of action goad you.
Never get attached to your inertia.
{47}
Fixed in yoga, do your work
Relinquishing attachment, Wealthwinner.
In success or failure, stay the same.
It’s said that equilibrium is yoga.
{48}
Action is by far beneath
An intellectual yoga. Wealthwinner,
Seek refuge in the intellect.
Fruition’s a pitiful motive.
{49}
Yoked, the intellect can leave behind
Both good and evil karma here.
So yoke yourself to yoga!
Yoga is finesse in action.
{50}
Intellects, when yoked, relinquish
Fruits that come of action. Wise men,
Released from the bonds of rebirth,
Go to a place of no more pain.
{51}
When your intellect has passed on
Through delusion’s thicket,
What you’ve heard and what you haven’t
Heard yet will disgust you.
{52}
When your intellect, its interest
In holy hearsay fallen off,
Stands fixed in meditation—
That’s when you’ll attain to yoga.
{53}
Arjuna said,
How is the steady mystic spoken of?
Steady in meditation, Krishna,
Steady in vision—how does he speak?
How does he sit, how does he move?
{54}
The Blessed Lord said,
When he leaves behind all the desires,
Partha, passing through his mind,
Self-contained and self-contented,
Godsong Page 4
