एषा तेऽभिहिता सांख्ये बुद्धिर्योगे त्विमां शृणु ।बुद्ध्या युक्तो यया पार्थ कर्मबन्धं प्रहास्यसि ॥
eṣā te’bhihitā sāṁkhye buddhiryoge tvimāṁ śṛṇubuddhyā yukto yayā pārtha karmabandhaṁ prahāsyasi
Such is the intelligence (the intelligent knowledge of things and will) declared to thee in the Sankhya, hear now this in the Yoga, for if thou art in Yoga by this intelligence, O son of Pritha, thou shalt cast away the bondage of works.
Compiled rendering · Anilbaran Roy
His translation
Thus hath been declared to thee the mind that dwells in the way of Sankhya, hearken now to that which dwells in Yoga, to which being wedded thou shalt cast from thee, O Partha, action’s binding chain. In this path no step once taken is lost, in this path thou shalt meet with no stumblingblock; even a little of this Law saveth the heart from its great fear. One is the mind of a man that holds fast to its aim, but infinite are their minds and manybranching who have no resolved goal. ‘Tis a flowery word they babble, men of little understanding who take delight in the creed of Veda, disputing, saying “There is nought else”, their souls full of desires, their hopes bent upon Heaven; but he who hearkeneth to their word that giveth but the fruit of life’s actions and is crowded with multifold ritual, aiming only at splendour & enjoyment & lordship, lo it hurrieth away his heart and causeth it to cling to lordship and pleasure and his mind is unfixed to God and cannot set itself on the rock of concentration. The three nature-moods are the stuff of the Vedas, but thou, O Urjoona, rise above the three, high beyond the dualities, steadfast on the plane of the Light; be careless of getting and having, be a man with a soul. As much use as there is in a well, when all the regions are flowing with water, so much is there in all the Vedas to the Brahman who hath the Knowledge. Thou hast a right to action only, to the fruit of action thou hast no manner of right at all; be not motived by the fruits of action, neither to inaction sell thy soul; but put attachment far from thee, O Dhanunjoy, and do thy deeds with a mind in Yoga, awaiting success and failure with an equal heart; for ‘tis such equipoise of the soul that is Yoga indeed. For far lower is action than Yoga of the Super-Mind; in the Super-Mind desire thy refuge; for this is a mean and pitiful thing that a man should work for success and rewards. The man whose Super-Mind is in Yoga casteth from him even in this world both righteousness and sin; therefore to Yoga gird thy soul; when thou doest works, Yoga is the one auspicious way. For the wise whose understandings have reached God, cast from them the fruit that is born of their deeds, they are delivered from the fetters of birth, they pass into the sphere where suffering is not, neither any disease. When thy soul shall have voyaged to the other shore over the Chaos of the Great Bewilderment, then shalt thou become careless of the Scripture that is and the Scripture that shalt be, and when the mind that is perplexed and beaten about by the Scripture shall stand fast and motionless in Samadhi, then shalt thou attain Yoga.
Essays on the Gita
In the moment of his turning from this first and summary answer to Arjuna’s difficulties and in the very first words which strike the keynote of a spiritual solution, the Teacher makes at once a distinction which is of the utmost importance for the understanding of the Gita,—the distinction of Sankhya and Yoga. “Such is the intelligence2·39 (the intelligent knowledge of things and will) declared to thee in the Sankhya, hear now this in the Yoga, for if thou art in Yoga by this intelligence, O son of Pritha, thou shalt cast away the bondage of works.” That is the literal translation of the words in which the Gita announces the distinction it intends to make.
I have declared to you the poise of a self-liberating intelligence in Sankhya, says the divine Teacher to Arjuna. I will now declare to you another poise in Yoga. You are shrinking from the results of your works, you desire other results and turn from your right path in life because it does not lead you to them. But this idea of works and their result, desire of result as the motive, the work as a means for the satisfaction of desire, is the bondage of the ignorant who know not what works are, nor their true source, nor their real operation, nor their high utility. My Yoga will free you from all bondage of the soul to its works, karmabandhaṁ prahāsyasi. You are afraid of many things, afraid of sin, afraid of suffering, afraid of hell and punishment, afraid of God, afraid of this world, afraid of the hereafter, afraid of yourself. What is it that you are not afraid of at this moment, you the Aryan fighter, the world’s chief hero? But this is the great fear which besieges humanity, its fear of sin and suffering now and hereafter, its fear in a world of whose true nature it is ignorant, of a God whose true being also it has not seen and whose cosmic purpose it does not understand. My Yoga will deliver2·40 you from the great fear and even a little of it will bring deliverance. When you have once set out on this path, you will find that no step is lost; every least movement will be a gain; you will find there no obstacle that can baulk you of your advance. A bold and absolute promise and one to which the fearful and hesitating mind beset and stumbling in all its paths cannot easily lend an assured trust; nor is the large and full truth of it apparent unless with these first words of the message of the Gita we read also the last, “Abandon all laws of conduct and18·66 take refuge in Me alone; I will deliver you from all sin and evil; do not grieve.”
The kinetic man is not satisfied with any ideal which does not depend upon the fulfilment of this cosmic nature, this play of the three qualities of that nature, this human activity of mind and heart and body. The highest fulfilment of that activity, he might say, is my idea of human perfection, of the divine possibility in man; some ideal that satisfies the intellect, the heart, the moral being, some ideal of our human nature in its action can alone satisfy the human being; he must have something that he can seek in the workings of his mind and life and body. For that is his nature, his dharma, and how can he be fulfilled in something outside his nature? For to his nature each being is bound and within it he must seek for his perfection. According to our human nature must be our human perfection; and each man must strive for it according to the line of his personality, his svadharma, but in life, in action, not outside life and action. Yes, there is a truth in that, replies the Gita; the fulfilment of God in man, the play of the Divine in life is part of the ideal perfection. But if you seek it only in the external, in life, in the principle of action, you will never find it; for you will then not only act according to your nature, which is in itself a rule of perfection, but you will be—and this is a rule of the imperfection—eternally subject to its modes, its dualities of liking and dislike, pain and pleasure and especially to the rajasic mode with its principle of desire and its snare of wrath and grief and longing,—the restless, all-devouring principle of desire, the insatiable2·37–40 fire which besieges your worldly action, the eternal enemy of knowledge by which it is covered over here in your nature as is a fire by smoke or a mirror by dust and which you must slay in order to live in the calm, clear, luminous truth of the spirit. The senses, mind and intellect are the seat of this eternal cause of imperfection and yet it is within this sense, mind and intellect, this play of the lower nature that you would limit your search for perfection! The effort is vain. The kinetic side of your nature must first seek to add to itself the quietistic; you must uplift yourself beyond this lower nature to that which is above the three gunas, that which is founded in the highest principle, in the soul. Only when you have attained to peace of soul, can you become capable of a free and divine action.
