Conversation 3
Karma Yoga
Arjuna said:
3:1. If you say, O Janardana, that the path of knowledge is superior to the path of action, then why do you encourage me to such terrible action?
3:2 Your unclear words confuse me. Tell me certainly: how can I attain bliss?
The Blessed Lord said:
3:3 There are two possibilities of development, as I said already, O sinless one: the yoga of consideration and the yoga of right action.
3:4. Man does not attain liberation from the chains of destiny by refusing action, by renunciation alone he does not ascend to the Perfection.
3:5. No one can stay truly actionless even for a moment, for the properties of prakriti compel all to act.
3:6. The one who has mastered control over his indriyas, but still dreams about worldly objects — such a one deludes oneself. He is called a hypocrite.
3:7. But he who has conquered his indriyas and freely performs karma yoga is worthy of respect.
3:8. Therefore, perform righteous action, for action is better than inaction; being idle one cannot support even own body.
3:9. If action is performed not as sacrifice than it is enslaving. Perform your action as sacrifice staying free from the attachment to the earthly, O Kaunteya.
3:10. God created the mankind together with the law of sacrifice. He said at that: “Prosper through sacrifice! Let it be desired by you!
3:11. By your sacrifice satisfy the Divine — and It will satisfy you! By satisfying each other you will achieve the highest good.
3:12. For the Divine satisfied by your sacrifice will grant you all what you need in life.” The one, who receives gifts and gives no gifts in return, is verily a thief.
3:13. The righteous who live on the remains of (their) sacrifice are liberated from sins. But those who are anxious only about their own food — they feed on sin.
3:14. Thanks to the food the bodies of creatures grow. The food arises from rain. The rain arises from sacrifice. The sacrifice is born in action.
3:15. Know, that realization of destinies originates from Brahman. And Brahman represents the Supreme. Omnipresent Brahman always supports sacrifice.
3:16. The one who on the Earth does not follow this law of sacrifice-requital, whose life is full of sin, who engages in sensual pleasures, — that one lives in vain, O Partha!
3:17. Only he, who has found joy and peace in the Atman and is happy in the Atman, is alone free from the earthly duties.
3:18. He has no duties of doing or non-doing something in this world anymore, and in no creature he seeks patronage for realizing his purpose.
3:19. Therefore, ceaselessly perform your duties without being attached (to the reward). Verily, performing action thus does man attain the Supreme.
3:20. Verily, it is through action that Janaka and others attained the Perfection. So, you too act remembering about oneness of the world.
3:21. (At that) what the best one is doing the other are doing as well: people follow his example.
3:22. There is nothing, O Partha, in the three worlds what I am required to do or what I has not achieved. Yet, I am constantly engaged in action.
3:23. For, if I would not be always acting, O Partha, then people everywhere would follow My example.
3:24. The world would be destroyed, if I would cease to act. I would be the cause of mixture of the varnas and destruction of the nations.
3:25. The unwise one acts out of attachment, O Bharata. The wise one acts without attachment, for the good of others.
3:26. The wise one should not confuse unwise people attached to action. But he should bring every their activity into harmony with Me.
3:27. All actions arise from the three gunas. But the one deluded by conceit thinks: “I am the doer”.
3:28. But he, who knows the essence of discrimination of actions according to the gunas and remembers that “gunas move around in gunas” — he gets liberated from attachment to action.
3:29. People deluded by the gunas are attached to the matters of these gunas. The wise one does not disturb such people whose knowledge is not complete yet and who are lazy.
3:30. Let Me to control all actions, and you be immersed into the Atman, calm, free from selfishness and conceit — fight, O Arjuna!
3:31 They who persistently follow My Teaching, who are full of devotion and free from envy, can never be bound by action.
3:32. And those insane who revile My Teaching and do not follow it, who are devoid of any knowledge — know that they are doomed.
3:33. Wise people seek to live in accordance with prakriti. All incarnate creatures are subject to it. What can give opposition to prakriti?
3:34. Attraction and distraction to (worldly) objects arise from indriyas. Yield neither to the first nor to the second: verily, they are obstacles on the Path.
3:35. Performing own duties, even very modest ones, is better than performing the other’s duties, even the grandest ones. It is better to die performing own dharma: the dharma of others is full of danger.
Arjuna said:
3:36 But what drives one against his will to commit sin, O Varshneya? Truly, it is like he being exerted by some unknown force.
The Blessed Lord said:
3:37. It is lust, it is anger — scions of the insatiable, sinful guna rajas. Study them — the greatest enemies on the Earth.
As a flame is veiled by smoke, as a mirror is covered by dust, as an embryo is enveloped in amnion, so is everything in the world enshrouded by lust.
3:39. The wisdom too is enshrouded by this eternal enemy of the wise — the desire of the worldly, which is insatiable as a flame.
3:40. Indriyas, mind, and consciousness are the field of its action. Through them, having enshrouded the wisdom, it deludes the indweller of the body.
3:41. Therefore, controlling your indriyas, O best of the Bharatas, restrain this source of sin — the foe of knowledge and the destroyer of wisdom.
3:42. They say that indriyas are good. The highest of the indriyas are the indriyas of mind. But a developed consciousness is superior to mind. And superior to developed consciousness is He.
3:43. Knowing that He is superior to a developed (human) consciousness, and being established in the Atman, destroy, O mighty-armed, the enemy in the form of the hardly conquerable desire of earthly boons.
Thus in the upanishads of the blessed Bhagavad Gita, the Science of Eternal, the Scripture of yoga, says the third conversation between Shri Krishna and Arjuna, entitled:
Karma Yoga.
