Menu
Arjuna said:
1. So between those who are ever-disciplined, who are devoted to you and attend on you, and those who pursue the imperishable unmanifest, who are the most expert in yoga?
The Lord said:
2. I consider the most expert in yoga to be those who, ever-disciplined, having fixed their minds on me, attend on me filled with the highest faith.
3. Yet those who attend on the indefinable, imperishable unmanifest, ubiquitous and inconceivable, unchanging, unmoving, embedded.
4. Who, controlling all their senses, are equably minded in all circumstances, and take pleasure in the welfare of all creatures, they too attain to me.
5. The barrier for those whose thoughts are attached to the unmanifest is greater, for it is not easy for the embodied to attain an unmanifest goal.
6. But for those who resign every action to me, who, intent on me and meditating on me, with exclusive discipline worship me,
7. I am the one who rapidly hauls them out of the ocean of death and continual rebirth, Partha, for their thoughts are engrossed in me.
8. Fix your mind on me alone, let your intelligence enter me: you will live in me thereafter, there is no doubt of that.
9. Or if you cannot manage to fix your thought unwaveringly on me, then you must try to attain me through persistent yogic practice, Dhananjaya.
10. Yet even if you are incapable of persistent practice, you should concentrate on acting for me; simply by acting for my sake you will attain success.
11. And if even this is beyond your powers, then, taking refuge in my yogic discipline, restrain yourself and abandon the fruit of all your actions.
12. For knowledge is better than study, meditation is superior to knowledge, the abandonment of the fruit of actions is better than meditation, and after abandonment peace immediately follows.
13. Without hatred for any creature, friendly and compassionate, free from possessiveness and egoism, indifferent to pleasure and pain, enduring,
14. Contented, ever the self-controlled yogin, certain of purpose, his mind and intelligence concentrated on me, he who is devoted to me is dear to me.
15. He is dear to me who does not afflict the world and is not afflicted by it – who is free from excitement, impatience, fear, and anxiety.
16. He is dear to me who, devoted to me, is disinterested, pure, able, non-partisan, unworried, and does not initiate any actions.
17. He is dear to me who, filled with devotion, is neither excited nor repelled by things, neither grieves nor gives way to longing, and who abandons both the auspicious and the inauspicious.
18-19. The man is dear to me who, filled with devotion, is the same with regard to enemies and friends, in honour and dishonour, the same in heat and cold, pleasure and suffering, who, freed from attachment, weighs blame and praise the same, who is silent, satisfied in all circumstances, homeless, and firm-minded.
20. And above all, those devotees are dear to me who, full of faith, with me as their highest object, attend to this immortal nectar of truth, which I have just delivered to you.