KathaVarta.com: for Short and Moral stories

ARJUNA SAID:
1. Renunciation of actions, O Krishna, Thou praisest and again Yoga. Tell me conclusively that which is the better of the two.

LORD KRISHNA SAID:
2. Renunciation and yoga through action both lead to the highest bliss: but, of the two, Yoga through action is esteemed more than renunciation of action.
3. He should be known as a perpetual renouncer whoneither hates nor desires: for, free from the pairs of opposites, Omighty-armed, he is easily set free from bondage.
4. Children, not the wise, speak of Sankhya and Yoga as distinct. He who is rightly devoted to even one obtains the fruits of both.
5. That state which is reached by Sankhyas is reached by Yogins also. He sees, who sees Sankhya and Yoga as one.
6. But renunciation, O mighty-armed, is hard to attain except by Yoga; a sage equipped with Yoga before long reaches Brahman.
7. He who is equipped with Yoga, whose mind is quite pure, by whom theself has been conquered, whose senses have been subdued, whose Self has become the Self of all beings – though doing, he is not tainted.
8-9. ‘I do nothing at all’ – thus would the truth-knower think, steadfast – though seeing, hearing, touching, smelling, eating, going, sleeping, breathing, speaking, letting go, seizing, opening and closingthe eyes – remembering that the senses move among sense-objects.
10. He who does actions, offering them to Brahman, abandoning attachment, is not tainted by sin, as a lotus leaf by water.
11. By the body, by the mind, by the intellect, by mere senses also,Yogins perform action, without attachment, for the purification of theself.
12. The steady-minded one, abandoning the fruit of action,attains the peace born of devotion. The unsteady one, attached to thefruit through the action of desire, is firmly bound.
13. Renouncing all actions by thought and Self-controlled, the embodied one rests happily in the nine-gated city, neither at all acting nor causing toact.
14. Neither agency nor objects does the Lord create for theworld, nor union with the fruits of actions. But it is the nature thatacts.
15. The Lord takes neither the evil nor even the good deed of any; wisdom is enveloped by un-wisdom; thereby mortals are deluded.
16. But to those whose un-wisdom is destroyed by wisdom of the Self, like the sun wisdom illuminates that Supreme.
17. With their consciousness in That, their Self being That, intent on That, with That for their supreme goal, they go never again to return,their sins shaken off by means of wisdom.
18. In a Brahmana endued with wisdom and humility, in a cow, in an elephant, as also in a dogand in a dog-eater, the wise see the same.
19. Even here birth is overcome by them whose mind rests on equality. Spotless, indeed andequal is Brahman; wherefore in Brahman they rest.
20. He who knows Brahman can neither rejoice on obtaining the pleasant, nor grieve onobtaining the unpleasant – steady-minded, un-deluded, resting inBrahman.
21. With the self unattached to external contacts, he finds the joy which is in the Self; with the Self engaged in the contemplation of Brahman he attains the endless joy.
22. For, those delights which are born of contacts are only generators of pain, having a beginning and an end, O son of Kunti; a wise man rejoices not in them.
23. He that is able, while still here, to with-stand, before liberation from the body, the impulse of desire and anger, he is a Yogin, he is a happy man.
24. Who so has his joy within and his pastime within and who so has his light within only, that Yogin attains Brahman’s bliss, himself becoming Brahman.
25. The sages attain Brahman’s bliss – they whose sins have been destroyed and doubts removed, who are self-controlled and intent on the welfare of all beings.
26. To the devotees who are free from desire and anger, who have controlled their thought and who have known the self, Brahman’s bliss exists everywhere.
27-28. Shutting out all external contracts and fixing the sight between the eye-brows, equalising the out-going and the in-going breaths which pass through the nostrils, controlling the senses, mind and intellect, having moksha as his highest goal, free from desire, fear and anger – the sage who ever (remains thus) is verily liberated.
29. On knowing Me – the Lord of all sacrifices and austerities, the Great Lord of all Worlds, the Friend of all beings – he goes to Peace.

Translated by Alladi Mahadeva Sastry; Published by Samata Books, Chennai for www.celextel.org.
Visit www.eTirth.com for more religious Kathas.