Sankhya-Yog: Doctrines
Table of Contents
1 Sañjaya said:
Seeing Arjuna full of compassion yet depressed, his eyes full of tears, Madhusūdana, Kṛṣṇa, spoke the following.
2 My dear Arjuna, how did you get these impurities? They are not at all befitting a man who knows the value of life. They lead to infamy, not to higher planets.
3 O son of Pṛthā, do not yield to this degrading impotence. It does not become you. Give up such petty weakness of heart and arise, O chastiser of the enemy.
4 O killer of enemies, of Madhu, how can I counterattack with arrows men like Bhīṣma and Droṇa, who are worthy of my worship?
5 It would be better to live in this world by begging than to live at the cost of the lives of great souls who are my teachers. Even though desiring worldly gain, they are superiors. If they are killed, everything we enjoy will be tainted with blood.
6 Nor do we know which is better – conquering them or being conquered by them. If we killed the sons of Dhṛtarāṣṭra, we should not care to live. Yet they are now standing before us on the battlefield.
7 Now I am confused about my duty and have lost all composure because of miserly weakness. In this condition I am asking You to tell me for certain what is best for me. Now I am Your disciple, and a soul surrendered unto You. Please instruct me.
8 I can find no means to drive away this grief which is drying up my senses. I will not be able to dispel it even if I win a prosperous, unrivaled kingdom on earth with sovereignty like the demigods in heaven.
9 Govinda, I shall not fight
10 In the midst of both the armies, Krishna spoke the following words to the grief-stricken Arjuna.
[smiling] 11 Those who are wise lament neither for the living nor for the dead.
12 We exist forever.
13 As the embodied soul continuously passes, in this body, from boyhood to youth to old age, the soul similarly passes into another body at death. A sober person is not bewildered by such a change.
14 O son of Kuntī, the nonpermanent appearance of happiness and distress, and their disappearance in due course, are like the appearance and disappearance of winter and summer seasons.
They arise from sense perception. One must learn to tolerate them without being disturbed.
15 The person who is not disturbed by happiness and distress and is steady in both is eligible for liberation.
16 The seers of the truth have concluded that:
- the illusory material does not endure
- the eternal soul does not change
They have come to this conclusion by studying the nature of both.
17 That which pervades the entire body is indestructible. No one can destroy that imperishable soul.
18 The material body of the indestructible, immeasurable and eternal living entity is sure to come to an end. So fight!
19 Neither he who thinks the living entity the slayer nor he who thinks it slain is in knowledge, for the self slays not nor is slain.
20 For the soul there is neither birth nor death at any time. He has not come into being, does not come into being, and will not come into being. He is unborn, eternal, ever-existing and primeval. He is not slain when the body is slain.
21 O Pārtha, how can a person who knows that the soul is indestructible, eternal, unborn and immutable kill anyone or cause anyone to kill?
22 As a person puts on new garments, giving up old ones, the soul similarly accepts new material bodies, giving up the old and useless ones.
23 The soul can never be cut to pieces by any weapon, nor burned by fire, nor moistened by water, nor withered by the wind.
24 This individual soul is unbreakable and insoluble, and can be neither burned nor dried. He is everlasting, present everywhere, unchangeable, immovable and eternally the same.