BHAGAVAD GITA FOR BUSY PEOPLE - SWAMI SIVANANDA

[Guest guest]

My Dear Bhagavat Banduvullara,

 

BHAGAVAD GITA FOR BUSY PEOPLE - SWAMI SIVANANDA

 

CHAPTER FIVE -- THE YOGA OF RENUNCIATION OF ACTION

(KARMA SANNYASA YOGA)

 

Arjuna said, " Renunciation of actions, O Krishna, Thou praisest,

and then also Yoga. Tell me conclusively that which is the better of

the two (1).

 

The Blessed Lord said, " Renunciation and Yoga of action both

lead to the highest bliss; but out of the two, Yoga of action is

superior to the renunciation of action (2). Children, not the wise,

speak of Sankhya (Knowledge) and Yoga (Yoga of action) as distinct;

he who is truly established in one obtains the fruits of both (4).

That place which is reached by the Sankhyas (Jnanis) is reached by

the Yogis (Karma Yogis). He sees, who sees Sankhya and Yoga are one

(5).

 

" I do nothing at all " , thus would the knower of the Truth think--

seeing, hearing, touching, smelling, eating, going, sleeping,

breathing, speaking, letting go, seizing, opening and closing the

eyes--convinced that the senses move among the sense-objects (8-9).

Neither agency nor action does the Lord create for the world, nor

union with the fruits of actions. But it is Nature that acts (14).

 

" Thinking of That, merged in That, established in That, solely

devoted to That, they go whence there is no return, their sins

dispelled by knowledge (17).

 

" Sages look with an equal eye in a Brahmin endowed with learning

and humility, in a cow, in an elephant, and even in a dog and in an

outcaste (13). With the self unattached to external contacts he

finds bliss in the Self: with the self engaged in the meditation of

Brahman he attains endless blliss (21). The enjoyments that are born

of contacts are only generators of pain, for they have a beginning

and an end, O Son of Kunti (O Kaunteya); the wise do not rejoice in

them (22).

 

" He who is able, while still in the world, to withstand before

the liberation from the body the impulse born out of desire and

anger, he is Yogi, he is a happy man (23).

 

" Eternal peace lies near to those controlled ascetics who are

free from desire and anger, who have controlled their thoughts and

who have realised the Self (26).

 

" Shutting out all external contacts and fixing the gaze between

the eyebrows, equalising the outgoing and incoming breaths moving

within the nostrils, with senses, mind and intellect ever controlled,

having liberation as his supreme goal, free from desire, fear and

anger--the sage is verily liberated for ever " (27-28).