Bhagavad gita english translation pdf

Which is the path of right and which is the turning for wrong, when a step might lead to ascent or descent and each little step implies a struggle? The crisis in the Bhagavad Gita is placed in a broad battlefield so that the lesson of the struggle may be brought home clearly. He is on the brink of a precipice when action is inevitable. He does not do the obvious. To do or not to do, to fight or not to fight is his question.

At this moment, in the din and roar of battle, he has to find peace and strength. Gita, therefore, is a gospel of action primarily. Sri Krishna is not concerned with running away from life through the gateway of asceticism or contemplation or ecstatic devotion.

He does not want us to flee from worldly career or the haunts of man to the solitude of the forests. He does not bid us hide in a cave to seek peace in the loneliness of the mountain-top; nor Eioes he urge us to accept cowardly renouncement. I have not been able to follow the schools to read in the Gita, a mere gospel of knowledge, of renunciation, or devotion, or of activism.

Arjuna of the Gita is a composite man like any one of us. Love for knowledge and renunciation, emotion and ambition, love for activity and peace are all indissolubly mixed in him. Circumstances no doubt play lead to the predominance of one attribute or activity in a given individual.

But the Gita would not be the universal mother, did she not give to every man the sustenance he needs? Ordinarily a man of knowledge can never cease to be a man of action in some form or other. A man of action is inconceivable unless his deeds are fired by emotion. Knowledge, action and devotion are not alternative pathways.

According to Sri Krishna all the three have to converge into one Arjuna has to express himself through action leading him to become one with the Blessed Lord. Yuddha, struggle, ceaseless resistance, is the only means to ascend to godhood. This ceaseless attempt at scaling unattainable heights is what the Gita teaches. It alone leads to the realisation of human aspirations.

No escape from life, no petty contentment, no cushioned journey for the Arjuna who is prepared to listen to it. This urge to action is the predominant note of the gospel, as it is the inalienable feature of human existence. Even those who attain godhood by having reached perfection, nay, God himself, everyone, must express through action.

No doubt, for the man who delights in Self, who is satisfied with Self, who is content with Self, there is nothing that he needs do. What is done, or left undone, concerns him not. He has no ambition to serve. And yet he must ceaselessly work detached from desire. They worked that the world may be guided. What such best among men do, others imitate. Theirs is the standard which the world doth follow.

And yet I act. If I, even I, do not engage in untiring work, if I withdraw from action, My ways being followed by men, this world would fall to pieces. I will be the architect of chaos. The creation will then perish. Arjuna had doubts. He was given the message. At the end of it Sri Krishna asks him whether his doubts have been removed. Arjuna replies that his ignorance has fled, that he has recollected his duties.

The fight to which Sri Krishna called Arjuna is not mere energism, nor the restless output of energy. Arjuna has to act and again to act; but not like an ordinary man, impelled by diverse impulses or anger. The action has to proceed from a higher source. Sri Krishna tells him to act as a yogi. Not breathlessly, not in uncoordinated feat of energy has he to act. But he must act as a yogi. One has to do many things before being oneself.

It means a life and death struggle with the great enemies, the desire and wrath. The fight as a yogi, therefore, begins at resistance of non-self-by Self. In being what he is — he has to resist what he is not. Resist non-self with self, wherever it is, by whatever means; resist it with all the might of your body and soul, not as a matter of calculation, but as a matter of offering unto Him.

That is the message of the Gita. But the words yoga and yogi are much abused terms in Indian languages. The sense in which Sri Krishna used the word must be first understood. In the Second Canto the word is first used, as also the verb yuj, and its different forms. Gnana yoga, one of the different types of yoga as a doctrine is contrasted with Samkhya. If yoga is union it is union with buddhi, not with Sri Krishna; it is a step which finally leads to attainment of Him.

Arjuna has first to unite himself with buddhi; become buddhiyukta ; In doing so the first step is to relate his mental activities to a controlling higher or purer perception; to endure the dvandas, the pairs of happiness and misery, cold and heat, success and failure.

This leads him to rise superior to Purity, Energy and Darkness. Then he is atmavan-himself. This is Yoga. When he becomes steadfast in this Yoga, his will is onepointed, unified, unwavering. His powers get fused into a dynamic unity. Then his concentration becomes creative.

He becomes steadfast in Samiidhi, creatin concentration. Then he attains a balance of mind. His composure is unrutlleu. Desires lose themselves in his steadfastness as the waters of the rivers get lost in the ocean. When this condition is attained, he obtains Yoga.

Such a man must act. No one can stay actionless even for a moment. But the yogi acts in a detached manner; the motive spring of his actions is the dictate of the higher perception. Attachment, fear and anger cease to deflect their course. His acts, therefore, attract no sin. This kind of action is perfect. Perfection in action is Yoga. The man who attains it.

I possess faculties, impulses, emotions and intellect. My feet are guided by these. When I begin to pursue the path of Yoga, I have to rise superior to the elixir of happiness and misery. In order to attain this I must learn to die and wrath I must resist. Light, energy and sloth must cease to distract me.

I must therefore evolve a concentrated control of my mind and all mental processes. This implies that I must co-ordinate all my mental activities and relate them to a superior perception.

That is Buddhi. When I surrender myself to buddhi, bnddhi comes into operation as a controlling element. The whole power is fused into a unity.

Then I am what I really am; more of myself. I acquire a personality. The next aspect of yoga is to make this unity dynamic by forging a one-pointed will. Such a will is forged by. This is creative concentration. The whole being then becomes a dynamic unity of co-ordinated faculties. When having attained such dynamic unity I express myself through acts, the acts are not dictated by impulses or desires; they are directed by the higher perception. The acts follow Dharma. They are perfect.

All these three stages go to form Yoga. When they are achieved a man becomes a Yogi. Training, concentration and action therefore are the threefold, aspects of Yoga as the Gila teaches. But these three processes are not separate, nor separable. Training implies concentration as well as exercise of all the powers through acts under the guidance of buddhi.

Concentration implies rising superior to the pairs, the qualities, and fear, attachment and wrath by doing acts of which mental resistance forms a great part. It also carries with it the poet of effective action. This can only be acquired by the one pointed will being brought into play. Perfect action is detached from the pairs. Thus Yoga is the one comprehensive process by which man ascends in the scale of life by performing acts which are the expression of a dynamic personality based on the complete co-ordination of all his powers.

It is not a rajasic act. It must mean an act which is a spontaneous expression of a dynamic personality. A trivial experience will show the meaning of yoga.

My wife says something which I feel as an insult. I am angry. My vanity is wounded. My buddhi is not in control. I might have slapped her. But training or temperament has given the control of my impulses to my buddhi.

I am buddhiyukta. My buddhi, which is a little trained to endurance, may be for selfish reasons, overcomes the feeling roused by wounded vanity. If my buddhi is clear, I will feel the offence to be a mere passing weakness, due to Anger, the Enemy.

My will, instead of taking an impulsive plunge of chastising my wife, will be concentrated on the rage of her anger, or her life-long loyalty, or the weakness of being shaken by such impulses. If I chastise or rebuke her, it is an act; but it may or may not be related to the higher perception. If I keep quiet or forgive her, it is equally an art. I may remain silent. Silence itself is then an act. If I find that her words result from hysteria or delirium I will soothingly put her to bed.

I will speak the gentle word which turneth away wrath. That is, my buddhi gets the control of myself. By it, I become more of myself. When I resist anger, my will is concentrated beyond anger, on the cause. My personality thus attuned expresses itself through the gentle word. I have fought and fought as a yogi — may be in the crude and the most elementary sense. To fight, therefore, is to do-to express one-self in acts in the very process of being oneself as also when one has become himself.

The acts of a great personality flow naturally, spontaneously as its radiation. It may take the shape of an actual battle, an act of resistance, or a piece of courtesy; of a speech or a book; or of a feat of organisation. Or, it may mean an effort of conquering the desire or controlling anger in all cases. But it is a potent expression of the dynamic will. To be a yogi and to fight is therefore one and the same act.

But the original message which later found a place in the Gita in its present form, was given by Sri Krishna long before the schools came into existence.

Samkhya and Yoga are two distinct doctrines had been clearly then in vogue. The words Concentration, Knowledge, Devotion and Action are only used with Yoga to emphasize the particular aspect of the unity under discussion for the sake of clarity. When again Arjuna is told. In the same way Action is not used in any sense other than self-expression through deeds after becoming steadfast in the dynamic unity of the co-ordinate faculties.

In that sense, Sri Krishna refers to the whole of his message as Yoga, Arjuna calls it so, and so does Sanjaya. To restrict Yoga to any particular aspect of this comprehensive unity of man will be tantamount to denying the essential unity which underlies man himself. Action, Knowledge and Devotion have for their object not three kinds of Yoga but one Yoga in which right action, right knowledge and right devotion are made use of in order that Arjuna may attain Godhood.

Man is essentially and fundamentally one. But his mind radiates in a thousand directions. It develops varying predominant aspects. EMBED for wordpress. Want more? Advanced embedding details, examples, and help! Publication date Usage Public Domain Mark 1.

Addeddate Foldoutcount 0 Identifier Bhagavad-Gita. Highly recommended. Pranam Sastri ji, Thanks for the initiative. I would love to see - 4 Veda translated as well. Many thanks for the translation. I am using the kindle version and it's highly recommended. Dhanyawad, Amit Sharma.