श्रीमद्भगवद्गीताBhagavad Gītā · in the light of Sri Aurobindo, home

← Chapter IV

VerseThe Gita in Sri Aurobindo’s Words

Verse 4·21

The Blessed Lord

Verse

निराशीर्यतचित्तात्मा त्यक्तसर्वपरिग्रहः ।शारीरं केवलं कर्म कुर्वन्नाप्नोति किल्विषम् ॥

nirāśīryatacittātmā tyaktasarvaparigrahaḥśārīraṁ kevalaṁ karma kurvannāpnoti kilviṣam

Gītā 4·21

He has no personal hopes, does not seize on things as his personal possessions; his heart and self are under perfect control; performing action by the body alone, he does not commit sin.

Compiled rendering · Anilbaran Roy

AI translationAI-synthesised translation — not Sri Aurobindo’s text

His translation

KRISHNA Many are my births that are past and gone and thine also, Urjoona; all of them I know but thou knowest not, O scourge of thy foemen. Yea, though I be unborn and imperishable Spirit, though I be the Lord of all creatures, yet I resort to my own nature and am born by the power of my Self-Illusion. For whenever…Read the whole passage · 585 wordsClose the passage

KRISHNA Many are my births that are past and gone and thine also, Urjoona; all of them I know but thou knowest not, O scourge of thy foemen. Yea, though I be unborn and imperishable Spirit, though I be the Lord of all creatures, yet I resort to my own nature and am born by the power of my Self-Illusion. For whenever and whenever righteousness and justice decline & faint upon the earth, O Bharata, and unrighteousness and injustice arise and flourish, then do I put forth myself; for the salvation of the pure and the destruction of evildoers, to raise up justice and righteousness I am born again from age to age. He who in this sort knoweth aright my divine birth and works, cometh not to rebirth when he leaveth the body, to Me he cometh, Urjoona. Many have sought refuge with me and made themselves full of me, who have risen beyond love and wrath and fear, and they made themselves holy by the austere energisms of knowledge, and became even as Myself. In whatsoever way men come to me, in their own way I accept and love them; utterly do men, O son of Pritha, follow in the path in which I tread. Desiring good success of their works men sacrifice to the gods on earth, for very quickly in the world of men cometh the success that is born of works. By me were the four orders created according unto the division of the workings of the stuff of their nature, know me for their maker and yet neither for doer nor maker who am imperishable. On Me actions leave no stain for I have no craving for their fruit; he who really knows this of me, is not bound by his works. Knowing that in this wise works were done by the ancient seekers after salvation, do thou also do works that were done in old time by the men of old. What is action and what is inaction, as to this the very sages are bewildered; therefore I will declare action unto thee by the knowledge whereof thou shalt be delivered out of evil. For of works thou must understand, of miswork thou must understand, and thou must understand also of inaction; very difficult is the way of works and their mystery. He who in action can see inaction and action in inaction, he is the understanding mind among men; he doeth all works, yet is in Yoga. When the imaginations of desire are shut out from all that a man beginneth & undertaketh, and his works have been burned up in the fires of Knowledge, then it is he that the wise call the truly learned. He hath relinquished attachment to the fruit of his works, is ever satisfied of soul and dependeth not on any outward things; such a man though he engage himself deep in works, yet really doeth nothing:—pure of lusts, he is governed in heart and spirit, he has surrendered all sense of belonging, doing actions only with his body he receives no stain of sin:—well-content with the gains that chance & time may bring him, lifted above the plane of the dualities, void of jealousy, receiving success & failure alike as friends, though he do works, yet is he not bound by them:—leaving all heart clingings behind him, a spirit released, a mind safe in its tower of knowledge, performing works for a sacrifice, all his works are swallowed up & vanish.

CWSA 5 · Translations · The Bhagavad Gita: The First Six Chapters · pp. 89–90

Essays on the Gita

The liberated man has no personal hopes; he does not seize on things as his personal possessions; he receives what the divine Will brings him, covets nothing, is jealous of none: what comes to him he takes without repulsion and without attachment; what goes from him he allows to depart into the whirl of things without repining or grief or sense of loss. His heart and self are under perfect control; they are free from reaction and passion, they make no turbulent response to the touches of outward things. His action is indeed a purely physical action, śārīraṁ kevalaṁ karma; for all else comes from above, is not4·21 generated on the human plane, is only a reflection of the will, knowledge, joy of the divine Purushottama. Therefore he does not by a stress on doing and its objects bring about in his mind and heart any of those reactions which we call passion and sin. For sin consists not at all in the outward deed, but in an impure reaction of the personal will, mind and heart which accompanies it or causes it; the impersonal, the spiritual is always pure, apāpaviddham, and gives to all that it does its own inalienable purity. This spiritual impersonality is a third sign of the divine worker. All human souls, indeed, who have attained to a certain greatness and largeness are conscious of an impersonal Force or Love or Will and Knowledge working through them, but they are not free from egoistic reactions, sometimes violent enough, of their human personality. But this freedom the liberated soul has attained; for he has cast his personality into the impersonal, where it is no longer his, but is taken up by the divine Person, the Purushottama, who uses all finite qualities infinitely and freely and is bound by none. He has become a soul and ceased to be a sum of natural qualities; and such appearance of personality as remains for the operations of Nature, is something unbound, large, flexible, universal; it is a free mould for the Infinite, it is a living mask of the Purushottama.

CWSA 19 · Essays on the Gita · The Divine Worker · pp. 180–181Gītā 4·21

From The Gita in Sri Aurobindo’s Words · Sri Aurobindo · The Bhagavad Gita · incarnateword.in