Conversation 16
Discrimination of the Divine and Demonic
16:1. Fearlessness, purity of life, diligence in the yoga of wisdom, generosity, self-possession, sacrificing, studying of Holy Scriptures, spiritual efforts, simplicity,
16:2. harming no one, honesty, non-angriness, detachment, peacefulness, ingenuousness, compassion to living beings, absence of greed, gentleness, modesty, absence of fickleness,
16:3. courage, all-forgiveness, vigor, frankness, absence of envy and pride — the one of Divine nature possesses these qualities.
16:4. Dishonesty, haughtiness, pride, angriness, and also coarseness and ignorance are the features of the one of demonic qualities.
16:5. Divine qualities lead to the Liberation, demonic ones to slavery. Do not grieve: you was born for divine lot, O Pandava.
16:6. Beings in this world manifest themselves in two ways: as Divine and as demonic. The Divine was already expounded to you. Now hear from Me, O Partha, about the demonic manifestations.
16:7. Demonic people know neither true power, nor abstinence, nor purity, nor even scrupulosity. There is no truth in them.
16:8. They say: “There is neither truth in the world, nor sense, nor Ishvara. It came into being not for the Great Purpose, but merely as a result of sexual passion”.
16:9. People of such views, abnegated the Atman, possessing small consciousness, become evildoers and destroyers of the perishable world.
16:10. Yielding to insatiable worldly desires that lead to destruction, haughty and arrogant, attached to the transient, confident that there is nothing more to it than that,
16:11. indulging in unending baneful reasonings, aiming only at satisfaction of their cravings, they think: “There is only this”.
16:12. Bound by hundreds of fetters of anticipation, submitting to lust and anger, they accumulate wealth by unjust means for the sake of sensual enjoyments.
16:13. “Today I achieved this, and that purpose I will achieve tomorrow. This wealth is already mine, and that one will be mine in future”.
16:14. I have killed this foe, and will kill others. I am the lord. I am enjoying. I has attained perfection, power, happiness.
16:15. I am wealthy and noble, who can compare to me? I will make offerings, will give alms, will enjoy”. This is how the ignorant get deluded.
16:16. Lost in many intentions, entangled in the net of lie, yielded to satisfaction of their worldly passions they go the hell of the wicked.
16:17. Self-conceited, obstinate, full of pride, and intoxicated by wealth they perform hypocritical sacrifices in disregard of the spirit of the Scriptures.
16:18. Indulging in egoism, violence, arrogance, lust, and anger they hate Me in other bodies.
16:19. These haters, full of evil and cruelty, I always cast into adverse, demonic conditions in the next births.
16:20. Appearing in these demonic conditions, get enshrouded by ignorance life after life, aspiring not to Me, they go to the very bottom of the abyss.
16:21. Threefold are the gates to hell where man perishes: lust, anger, and greed. Therefore one has to renounce these three.
16:22. The one who has freed himself from these three gates of the darkness makes his own good, O Kaunteya, and attains the Supreme Goal.
16:23. But the one who abnegated the Holy Scriptures and yields to his whims attains neither the Perfection, nor happiness, not the Supreme Goal.
16:24. Therefore, let the Holy Scriptures be for you the instructions of what to do and what not to do. Having come to know what are the precepts of the Holy Scriptures you have to bring your actions in this world in accordance with them.
Thus in the upanishads of the blessed Bhagavad Gita, the Science of Eternal, the Scripture of yoga, says the sixteenth conversation between Shri Krishna and Arjuna, entitled:
Discrimination of the Divine and Demonic.
