Sharing a poem : April 2024

A single law of harmony

"For if poetry is not, as has been said, absolute reality, it comes very close to it, for poetry has a strong longing for, and a deep perception of, reality, situated as it is at that extreme limit of cooperation where the real seems to assume shape in the poem. Through analogy and symbolism, through the remote illuminations of mediating imagery, through the interplay of their correspondences in a thousand chains of reactions and strange associations, and finally, through the grace of a langugae into which the very rhythm of Being has been translated, the poet invests himself with a surreality that cannot be that of science. Is there among men a more striking dialectic, one that engages them more completely? Since even the philosophers are deserting the threshold of metaphysics, it is the poet's task to retrieve metaphysics; thus poetry, not philosophy, reveals itself as the true daughter of wonder, according to the words of that ancient philosopher to whom it was most suspect.

But more than a mode of perception, poetry is above all a way of life, of intergal life. The poet existed among the cave men; he will exist among men of the atomic age, for he is an inherent part of man. Even religions have been born from the need for poetry, which is a spiritual need, and it is through the grace of poetry that the divine spark lives forever in the human flint. When mythologies vanish, the divine finds refuge and perhaps even continuation in poetry."

"Thus by his total adherence to that which is, the poet maintains for us a relationship with the permanence and unity of Being. And his lesson is one of optimism. For him the entire world of things is governed by a single law of harmony. Nothing can happen that by nature could exceed the measure of man. The worst upheavals of history are nothing but seasonal rhythms in a much vaster cycle of repetitions and renewals. And the Furies that cross the scene with lifted torches light only a fragment of the long historical process. Ripening civilizations do not die in the throes of one autumn: they merely change. Inertia is the only menace. The poet is the one who breaks through our habits. And in this way the poet finds himself tied to history despite himself. No aspect of the drama of his times is foreign to him. May he give all of us a clear taste of life in this great age. For this is a great and new time calling for a new self-appraisal. And, after all, to whom would we yield the honour of belonging to our age?"

-- Saint-John Perse (from Nobel Acceptance Speech)

Choose to be changed

Sonnets to Orpheus (II - 12)

Choose to be changed. Be inspired by the flame

Where everything shines as it disappears.

The artist, when sketching, loves nothing so much

as the curve of the body as it turns away.

What locks itself in sameness has congealed

Is it safer to be gray and numb?

What turns hard becomes rigid

and is easily shattered.

Who pours out like a fountain, knowing knows him:

And leads him delighted through the bright creation,

That often ends with the start, and begins with the end.

Every fortunate space is a child or grandchild of parting,

for that which is stored up, drains away. And Daphne, altered, becoming a laurel,

dares you to become the wind.

-- Rainer Maria Rilke (translated from multiple sources, a mix)

Existence is still enchanting

Sonnets to Orpheus: II - x

All achievement is threatened by the machine, as long

as it dares to take its place in the mind, instead of obeying.

That the master's hand no longer shines forth in fine lingerings,

now it cuts to the determined design more rigidly the stone

Not for an hour will it stay, so that for once we may flee it,

oiling itself in a quiet factory, fitly employed.

Now it is life, no less, and feels best able to be it,

having, with equal resolve, ordered, constructed, destroyed.

Even to-day, though, existence is magical, pouring

freshly from hundreds of well-springs, -- a playing of purest

forces, which none can surprise without humbly adoring.

Words still melt into something beyond their embrace. . .

Music, too, keeps building anew with the insecurest

stones her celestial house in unusable space.

-- Rainer Maria Rilke (Translated from different sources - a mix)

Earthed lightning of a flock of swans

Postscript

And some time make the time to drive out west

Into County Clare, along the Flaggy Shore,

In September or October, when the wind

And the light are working off each other

So that the ocean on one side is wild

With foam and glitter, and inland among stones

The surface of a slate-grey lake is lit

By the earthed lightning of a flock of swans,

Their feathers roughed and ruffling, white on white,

Their fully grown headstrong-looking heads

Tucked or cresting or busy underwater.

Useless to think you'll park and capture it

More thoroughly. You are neither here nor there,

A hurry through which known and strange things pass

As big soft buffetings come at the car sideways

And catch the heart off guard and blow it open.

-- Seamus Heaney

Lightenings VIII

from Squarings

Lightenings VIII

The annals say: when the monks of Clonmacnoise

Were all at prayers inside the oratory

A ship appeared above them in the air.

The anchor dragged along behind so deep

It hooked itself into the altar rails

And then, as the big hull rocked to a standstill,

A crewman shinned and grappled down the rope

And struggled to release it. But in vain.

'This man can't bear our life here and will drown,'

The abbot said, 'unless we help him,' So

They did, the freed ship sailed, and the man climbed back

Out of the marvellous as he had known it.

-- Seamus Heaney

We wax for waning

XXII (Sonnets to Orpheus - First part)

We wax for waning.

Count, though, Time's journeying

as but a little thing

in the Remaining.

End of unmeasured

hasting will soon begin;

only what's leisured

leads us within.

Boys, don't be drawn too far

into attempts at flight,

into mere swiftness. -- Look

how rested all things are:

shadow and fall of light,

blossom and book.

-- Rainer Maria Rilke (translated by J.B. Leishman)

Good writing and good reading

" ...Let me define this admirable reader. he does not belong to any specific nation or class. No director of conscience and no book club can manage his soul...The good, the admirable reader identifies himself not with the boy or girl in the book, but with the mind that conceived and composed that book....

The Russian reader in old cultured Russia was certainly proud of Pushkin and of Gogol, but he was just as proud of Shakespeare or Dante, of Baudelaire or of Edgar Allan Poe, of Flaubert or of Homer, and this was the Russian reader's strength. I have a certain personal interest in the question, for if my fathers had not been good readers, I would hardly be here today, speaking of these matters in this tongue. I am aware of many things being quite as important as good writing and good reading; but in all things it is wiser to go directly to the quiddity, to the text, to the source, to the essence -- and only then evolve whatever theories may tempt the philosopher, or the historian, or merely please the spirit of the day. Readers are born free; and the following little poem by Pushkin, with which I shall close my talk, applies not only to poets, but also to those who love the poets."

- Vladimir Nabokov (Lectures on Russian Literature)

I value little those much vaunted rights

that have for some the lure of dizzy heights;

I do not fret because the gods refuse

to let me wrangle over revenues,

or thwart the wars of kings; and 'tis to me

of no concern whether the press be free

to dupe poor oafs or whether censors cramp

the current fancies of some scribbling scamp.

These things are words, words, words. My spirit fights

for deeper Liberty, for better rights.

Whom shall we serve -- the people or the State?

The poet does not care -- so let them wait.

To give account to none, to be one's own

vassal and lord, to please oneself alone,

to bend neither one's neck, nor inner schemes,

nor conscience to obtain some thing that seems

power but is flunkey's coat; to stroll

in one's own wake, admiring the divine

beauties of Nature and to feel one's soul

melt in the glow of man's inspired design

-- that is the blessing, those are the rights!

-- Alexander Pushkin (From Pindemonte) - translated by Vladimir Nabokov

from that pure abundance in you

What birds plunge through is not the intimate space
in which you see all forms intensified.
(Out in the Open, you would be denied
your self, would disappear into that vastness.)

Space reaches from us and construes the world:

to know a tree, in its true element,

throw inner space around it, from that pure

abundance in you. Surround it with restraint.

It has no limits. Not till it is held

in your renouncing is it truly there.

-- Rainer Maria Rilke (Translated by Stephen Mitchell)

Birthday

So much world all at once -- how it rustles and bustles!
Moraines and morays and morasses and mussels,

the flame, the flamingo, the flounder, the feather --

how to line them all up, how to put them together?

All the thickets and crickets and creepers and creeks.

The beeches and leeches alone could take weeks.

Chinchillas, gorillas, and sarsaparillas --

thanks so much, but this excess of kindness could kill us.

Wehre's the jar for this burgeoning burdock, brooks' babble,

rooks' squabble, snakes' squiggle, abundance, and trouble?

How to plug up the gold mines and pin down the fox,

how to cope with the lynx, bobolinks, streptococs!

Take dioxide: a lightweight, but mighty in deeds;

what about octopodes, what about centipedes?

I could look into prices, but don't have the nerve:

these are products I just can't afford, don't deserve.

Isn't sunset a little too much for two eyes

that, who knows, may not open to see the sun rise?

I am just passing through, it's a five-minute stop.

I won't catch what is distant; what's too close, I'll mix up.

While trying to plumb what the void's inner sense is,

I'm bound to pass by all these poppies and pansies.

What a loss when you think how much effort was spent

perfecting this petal, this pistil, this scent

for the one-time appearance, which is all they're allowd,

so aloofly precise and so fargilely proud.

-- Wislawa Szymborska (translated by Stanislaw Baranczak and Clare Cavanagh)

We're Extremely Fortunate

We're extremely fotunate
not to know precisely
the kind of world we live in.

One would have

to live a long, long time,

unquestionably longer

than the world itself.

Get to know other worlds,

if only for comparison.

Rise above the flesh,

which only really knows

how to obstruct

and make trouble.

For the sake of reserach,

the big picture,

and definitive conclusions,

one would have to transcend time,

in which everything scurries and whirls.

From that perspective,

one might as well bid farewell

to incidents and details.

The counting of weekdays

would inevitably seem to be

a senseless activity;

dropping letters in the mailbox

a whim of foolish youth;

the sign "No Walking On The Grass"

a symptom of lunacy.

-- Wislawa Szymborska (translated by Stanislaw Baranczak and Clare Cavanagh)

Maybe all this

Maybe all this
is happening in some lab?

Under one lamp by day

and billions by night?

Maybe we're experimental generations?

Poured from one vial to the next,

shaken in test tubes,

not scrutinized by eyes alone,

each of us seprately

plucked up by tweeezers in the end?

Or maybe it's more like this:

No interference?

The changes occur on their own

according to plan?

The graph's needle slowly etches

its predictable zigzags?

Maybe thus far we aren't of much interest?

The control monitors aren't usually plugged in?

Only for wars, prefereably large ones,

for the odd ascent above our clump of Earth,

for major migrations from point A to B?

Maybe just the opposite:

They've got a taste for trivia up there?

Look! on the big screen a little girl

is sewing a button on her sleeve.

The radar shrieks,

the staff comes at a run.

What a darling little being

with its tiny heart beating inside it!

How sweet, its solemn

threading of the needle!

Someone cries enraptured:

Get the Boss,

tell him he's got to see this for himself!

-- Wislawa Szymborska (translated by Stanislaw Baranczak and Clare Cavanagh)

The End and the the Beginning

After every war
someone has to tidy up.

Things won't pick

themselves up, after all.

Someone has to shove

the rubble to the roadsides

so the carts loaded with corpses

can get by.

Someone has to trudge

through sludge and ashes,

through the sofa springs,

the shards of glass,

the bloody rags.

Someone has to lug the post

to prop the wall,

someone has to glaze the window,

set the door in its frame.

No sound bites, no photo opportunities,

and it takes years.

All the cameras have gone

to other wars.

The bridges need to be rebuilt,

the railroad stations, too.

Shirtsleeves will be rolled

to shreds.

Someone, broom in hand,

still remembers how it was.

Someone else listens, nodding

his unshattered head.

But others are bound to be bustling nearby

who'll find all that

a little boring.

From time to time someone still must

dig up a rusted argument

from underneath a bush

and haul it off to the dump.

Those who knew

what this was all about

must make way for those

who know little.

And less than that.

And at last nothing less than nothing.

Someone has to lie there

in the grass that covers up

the causes and effects

with a cornstalk in his teeth,

gawking at clouds.

-- Wislawa Szymborska (translated by Stanislaw Baranczak and Clare Cavanagh)

Parting with a View

I don't reproach the spring
for starting up again.

I can't blame it

for doing what it must

year after year.

I know that my gried

will not stop the green.

The grass blade may bend

but only in the wind.

It doesn't pain me to see

that clumps of alders above the water

have something to rustle with again.

I take note of the fact

that the shore of a certain lake

is still -- as if you were living --

as lovely as before.

I don't resent

the view for its vista

of a sun-dazzles bay.

I am even able to imagine

some non-us

sitting at this minute

on a fallen birch trunk.

I respect their right

to whisper, laugh,

and lapse into happy silence.

I can even allow

that they are bound by love

and that he holds her

with a living arm.

Something freshly birdish

starts rustling in the reeds.

I sincerely want them

to hear it.

I don't require changes

from the surf,

now diligent, now sluggish,

obeying not me.

I expect nothing

from the depths near the woods,

first emerald,

then sapphire,

then black.

There's one thing I won't agree to:

my own return.

The privilege of presence --

I give it up.

I survived you by enough,

and only by enough,

to contemplate from afar.

-- Wislawa Szymborska (translated by Stanislaw Baranczak and Clare Cavanagh)

View with a grain of sand

We call it a grain of sand,
but it calls itself neither grain nor sand.

It does just fine without a name,

whether general, particular,

permanent, passing,

incorrect, or apt.

Our glance, our touch mean nothing to it.

It doesn't feel itself seen and touched.

And that it fell on the windowsill

is only our experience, not its.

For it, it is no different from falling on anything else

with no assurance that it has finished falling

or that it is falling still.

The window has a wonderful view of a lake,

but the view doesn't view itself.

It exists in this world

colorless, shapeless,

soundless, odorless, and painless.

Tha lake's floor exists floorlessly,

and its shore exists shorelessly.

its water feels itself neither wet nor dry

and its waves to themselves are neither singular nor plural.

They splash deaf to their own noise

on pebbles neither large nor small.

And all this beneath a sky by nature skyless

in which the sun sets without setting at all

and hides without hiding behind an unminding cloud.

The wind ruffles it, its only reason being

that it blows.

A second passes.

A second second.

A third.

But they're three seconds only for us.

Time has passed like a courier with urgent news.

But that's just our similie.

The character is invented, his haste is make-believe,

his news inhuman.

-- Wislawa Szymborska (translated by Stanislaw Baranczak and Clare Cavanagh)

Notes from a Nonexistent Himalayan Expedition

Notes from a Nonexistent Himalayan Expedition

So these are the Himalayas.

Mountains racing to the moon.

The moment of their start recorded

on the startling, ripped canvas of the sky.

Holes punched in a desert of clouds.

Thrust into nothing.

Echo -- a white mute.

Quiet.

Yeti, down there we've got Wednesday,

bread and alphabets.

Two times two is four.

Roses are red there,

and violets are bluw.

Yeti, crime is not all

we're up to down there.

Yeti, not every sentence there

means death,

We've inherited hope --

the gift of forgetting.

You'll see how we give

birth among the ruins.

Yeti, we've got Shakespeare there.

Yeti, we play solitaire

and violin. At nightfall,

we turn lights on, Yeti.

Up here it's neither moon nor earth.

Tears freeze.

Oh Yeti, semi-moonman,

turn back, think again!

I called this to the Yeti

inside four walls of avalanche,

stomping my feet for warmth

on the everlasting

snow.

-- Wislawa Szymborska (translated by Stanislaw Baranczak and Clare Cavanagh)

Miracle Fair

The commonplace miracle:
that so many common miracles take place.

The usual miracle:

invisible dogs barking

in the dead of night.

One of many miracles:

a small and airy cloud

is able to upstage the massive moon.

Several miracles in one:

an alder is reflected in the water

and is reversed from left to right

and grows from crown to root

and never hits bottom

though the water isn't deep.

A run-of-the-mill miracle:

winds mild to moderate

turning gusty in storms.

A miracle in the first place:

cows will be cows.

Next but not least:

just this cherry orchard

from just this cherry pit.

A miracle munus top hat and tails:

fluttering white doves.

A miracle (what else can you call it):

the sun rose today at three fourteen a.m.

and will set tonight at one past eight.

A miracle that's lost on us:

the hand actually has fewer than six fingers

but still it's got more than four.

A miracle, just take a look around:

the inescapable earth.

An extra miracle, extra and ordinary:

the unthinkable

can be thoguht.

-- Wislawa Szymborska (translated by Stanislaw Baranczak and Clare Cavanagh)

As once the winged energy of delight

As once the winged energy of delight
carried you over childhood's dark abysses,

now beyond your own life build the great

arch of unimagined bridges.

Wonders happen if we can succeed

in passing through the harshest danger;

but only in a bright and purely granted

achievement can we realize the wonder.

To work with Things in the indescribable

relationship is not too hard for us;

the pattern grows more intricate and subtle,

and being swept along is not enough.

Take your practiced powers and stretch them out

until they span the chasm between the two

contradictions . . . For the god

wants to know himself in you.

-- Rainer Maria Rilke

doing justice only where we praise

Call me to the one among your moments
that stands against you, ineluctably:
intimate as a dog's imploring glance

but, again, forever, turned away

when you think you've captured it at last.

What seems so far from you is most your own.

We are already free, and were dismissed

where we thought we soon would be at home.

Anxious, we keep longing for a foothold --

we, at times too young for what is old

and too old for what has never been

doing justice only where we praise,

because we are the branch, the iron blade,

and sweet danger, ripening from within.

(from The Sonnets to Orpheus | II, 23)

-- Rainer Maria Rilke

Orpheus. Eurydice. Hermes

That was the deep uncanny mine of souls.

Like veins of silver ore, they silently

moved through its massive darkness. Blood welled up

among the roots, on its way to the world of men,

and in the dark it looked as hard as stone.

Nothing else was red.

There were cliffs there,

and forests made of mist. There were bridges

spanning the void, and that great gray blind lake

which hung above its distant bottom

like the sky on a rainy day above a landscape.

And through the gently, unresisting meadows

one pale path unrolled like a strip of cotton.

Down this path they were coming.

In front, the slender man in the blue cloak --

mute, impatient, looking straight ahead.

In large, greedy, unchewed bites his walk

devoured the path; his hands hung at his sides,

tight and heavy, out of the falling folds,

no longer conscious of the delicate lyre

which had grown into his left arm, like a slip

of roses grafted onto an olive tree.

His senses felt as though they were split in two:

his sight would race ahead of him like a dog,

stop, come back, then rushing off again

would stand, impatient, at the path's next turn, --

but his hearing, like an odor, stayed behind.

Sometimes it seemed to him as though it reached

back to the footsteps of those other two

who were to follow him, up the long path home.

But then, once more, it was just his own steps' echo,

or the wind inside his cloak, that made the sound.

He said to himself, they had to be behind him;

said it aloud and heard it fade away.

They had to be behind him, but their steps

were ominously soft. If only he could

turn around, just once (but looking back

would ruin this entire work, so near

completion), then he could not fail to see them,

those other two, who followed him so softly:

The god of speed and distant messages,

a traveler's hood above his shining eyes,

his slender staff held out in front of him,

and little wings fluttering at his ankles;

and on his left arm, barely touching it: she.

A woman so loved that from one lyre there came

more lament than from all lamenting women;

that a whole world of lament arose, in which

all nature reappeared: forest and valley,

road and village, field and stream and animal;

and that around this lament-world, even as

around the other earth, a sun revolved

and a silent star-filled heaven, a lament-

heaven, with its own, disfigured stars --:

So greatly was she loved.

But now she walked beside the graceful god,

her steps constricted by the trailing graveclothes,

uncertain, gently, and without impatience,

She was deep within herself, like a woman heavy

wuth child, and did not see the man in front

or the path ascending steeply into life.

Deep within herself. Being dead

filled her beyond fulfillment. Like a fruit

suffused with its own mystery and sweetness,

she was filled with her vast death, which was so new,

she could not understand that it had happened.

She had come into a new virginity

and was untouchable; her sex had closed

like a young flower at nightfall, and her hands

had grown so unused to marriage that the god's

infinitely gentle touch of guidance

hurt her, like an undesired kiss.

She was no longer that woman with blue eyes

who once had echoed through the poet's songs,

no longer the wide couch's scent and island,

and that man's property no longer.

She was already loosened like long hair,

poured out like fallen rain,

shared like a limitless supply.

She was already root.

And when, abruptly,

the god put out his hand to stop her, saying,

with sorrow in his voice: He has turned aroun --,

she could not understand, and softly answered

Who?

Far away,

dark before the shining exit-gates,

someone or other stood, whose features were

unrecognizable. He stood and saw

how, on the strip of road among the meadows,

with a mournful look, the god of messages

silently turned to follow the small figure

already walking back along the path,

her steps constricted by the trailing graveclothes,

uncertain, gentle, and without impatience.

-- Rainer Maria Rilke

And Life steps almost straight

We grow accustomed to the Dark --
When Light is put away --

As when the Neighbor holds the Lamp

To witness her Goodbye --

A Moment -- We uncertain step

For newness of the night --

Then -- fit our Vision to the Dark --

And meet the Road -- erect --

And so of larger -- Darkness --

Those Evenings of the Brain --

When not a Moon disclose a sign --

Or Star -- come out -- within --

The Bravest -- grope a little --

And sometimes hit a Tree

Directly in the Forehead --

But as they learn to see --

Either the Darkness alters --

Or something in the sight

Adjusts itself to Midnight --

And Life steps almost straight.

-- Emily Dickinson

But thou, meek lover of the good!

Brahma

If the red slayer think he slays,

Or if the slain think he is slain,

They know not well the subtle ways

I keep, and pass, and turn again.

Far or forgot to me is near;

Shadow and sunlight are the same;

The vanished gods to me appear;

And one to me are shame and fame.

They reckon ill who leave me out;

When me they fly, I am the wings;

I am the doubter and the doubt,

I am the hymn the Brahmin sings.

The strong gods pine for my abode,

And pine in vain the sacred Seven;

But thou, meek lover of the good!

Find me, and turn thy back on heaven

- Ralph Waldo Emerson

The Bhagavad Gita - personal notes

Books 1 - 5: Here

Books 6 -10: Here

Books 11 -14: Here

Books 15 -18: Here

(From the version translated by Winthrop Sargeant. In Sanskrit and English, available here.)

personal notes:
self- restraint
self discipline
tranquil and calm mind, steady intellect
discrimination
x self. What is self think again, and wide. (whose self has become the self of all beings)
without desire, not deluded by passion
physical sensations come and go, learn to endure them
indifferent to the pair of opposites
content, sama
Form, be content :)
remaining in solitude, alone, with controlled mind and body, having no desire
steady mind
Be the mere instrument

Some passages to further think over:

The Bhagavad Gita (Books 15 -18)

Books 1 - 5: Here

Books 6 -10: Here

Books 11 -14: Here

(From the version translated by Winthrop Sargeant. In Sanskrit and English, available here. The following copies the English translation of the verses)

* * *

BOOK 15 | The Yoga of the Supreme Spirit

The Blessed Lord spoke:
They speak of the eternal ashvattha tree,
Having its roots above and branches
below,
Whose leaves are the (Vedic)
hymns.
He who knows this is a knower of the

Vedas.

2

Below and above its branches spread,

Nourished by the qualities, with objects

of the senses as sprouts;

And below its roots stretch forth

Engendering action in the world of

men.

Its form is not perceptible here in the

world,

Not its end, nor its beginning, nor its

existence.

Cutting this ashvattha tree, with its

well grown root,

By the strong axe of non-attachment,

Then that goal is to be sought

From which, having gone, no one

returns.

In that primal Spirit I take refuge,

Whence the primeval energy

streamed forth.

Without arrogance or delusion, with

the evils of attachment conquered,

Dwelling constantly in the supreme

Self, with desires turned away,

Released from the dualities known as

pleasure and pain,

The undeluded go to that imperishable

goal.

The sun does not illumine,

Nor the moon, nor fire, that place

To which, having gone, no one returns;

That is my supreme abode.

Merely a fragment of Myself,

Becoming an eternal (individual)

soul in the world of the living,

Draws to itself the senses, of which the

sixth is the mind,

That exist in material nature.

When the Lord acquires the body,

And also when He departs from it,

He goes, taking them along,

Like the wind blowing perfumes from

their source.

Presiding over hearing, sight and

touch,

Taste and smell, as well as the mind,

He (i.e. the fragment of the Lord

incarnated as the individual soul)

Enjoys the objects of the senses.

When He departs, remains,

Or enjoys (sense objects) while

accompanied by the qualities,

The deluded do not preceive Him.

Those with the eye of knowledge see

Him.

The yogins, striving, see Him (the

embodied fraction of the Lord)

Situated in the Self,

But the unthinking, those of

unperfected selves,

Strive but do not see Him.

That brilliance which resides in the

sun,

Which illumines the entire universe,

Which is in the moon and which is in

fire,

Know that brilliance to be Mine.

Entering the earth, I support

All beings with energy,

And, having become the watery moon,

I cause all the plants to thrive.

Having become the digestive fire of

all men,

I abide in the body of all living beings;

And joining with the peana and apana,

I (digest) the four kinds of food.

I have entered into the hearts of all

beings;

From Me come memory and knowledge,

as well as their loss.

I alone am that which is to be known

in all the Vedas;

I am the author of the Vedanta and

the knower of the Vedas.

There are these two spirits in the

world

The perishable and the imperishable.

All beings are the perishable;

The unchanging is called the

imperishable.

But the highest Spirit is another,

Called the supreme Self,

Who, entering the three worlds as the

eternal Lord,

Supports them.

Since I transcend the perishable

And am higher than the imperishable,

Therefore I am, in the world, and in

the Vedas,

Celebrated as the supreme Spirit.

He who, thus undeluded, knows Me

As the supreme Spirit,

He, all-knowing, worships Me

With his whole being, Arjuna.

Thus this most secret doctrine

Has been taught by Me, O Arjuna;

Having awakened to this, a man

becomes wise

And fulfills all his duties, Arjuna.

* * *

BOOK 16 | The Yoga of the Distinction between the Divine and Demonic Destinies

The Blessed Lord spoke:

Fearlessness, purity of being,

Perseverance in yoga and

knowledge,

Giving, self-restraint and sacrifice,

Study of sacred texts, austerity,

and uprightness,

Non-violence, truth, absence of

anger,

Renunciation, serenity, absence of

calumny,

Compassion for all beings, freedom

from desire,

Gentleness, modesty, absence of

fickleness,

Vigor, forgiveness, fortitude, purity,

Freedom from malice, freedom from

pride;

These are the endowments of those

Born to a divine destiny, Arjuna.

Hypocisy, arrogance, pride,

Anger, insolence,

And ignorance, are the endowment of

those born

To a demoniacal destiny, Arjuna.

The divine destiny leads to liberation;

The demoniacal to bondage, it is thought.

Do not grieve! You are born

to a divine destiny, Arjuna.

There are two classes of created

beings in this world

The divine and the demoniacal.

The divine has been explained at

length;

Now hear from Me, Arjuna,

about the domoniacal.

Demoniacal men do not understand

When to act and when to refrain from

action.

Neither purity, nor good conduct,

Nor truth is found in them.

"The universe," they say "is without

truth,

Without basis, without a God;

Brought about by mutual union.

How else? It is caused by lust alone."

Holding this view,

These men of lost souls, of small

intelligence,

And of cruel actions, come forth as

enemies

Of the world for its destruction.

Attached to insatiable desire,

Full of hypocrisy, arrogance, and

pride,

Having accepted false notions through

delusion,

They work with unclean resolves.

Clinging to immeasurable

Anxiety, ending only in death,

With gratification of desire as their

highest aim,
Convinced that this is all;

Bound by a hundred snares of hope,

Devoted to desire and anger,

They seek to obtain, by unjust means,

Hoards of wealth for the gratification

of their desires.

This has been obtained by me

today;

This desire I shall attain;

This is mine, and this wealth also

Shall be mine.

"That enemy has been slain be me,

And I shall slay others too;

I am a lord, I am the enjoyer,

I am successful, powerful, and happy,

"I am wealthy and high born.

Who else is equal to me?

I shall sacrifice, I shall give, I shall

rejoice."

Thus, they are deluded by ignorance.

Led astray by many imaginings,

Enveloped in a net of delusion,

Attached to the gratification of desires,

They fall into a foul hell.

Self-conceited, stubborn,

Filled with the pride and

arrogance of wealth,

They perform sacrifices only

in name,

With hypocrisy, and not according to

Vedic injunction.

Clinging to egotism, force, insolence,

Desire, and anger,

Those malicious people hate Me

In their own and others' bodies.

Those cruel haters,

The worst of men, I constantly hurl

Into the wombs of demons

In the cycles of rebirth.

Having entered the wombs of demons,

Those who are deluded, not attaining

In birth after birth, Arjuna,

From there go to a condition still lower

than that.

This is the threefold gate of hell,

Destructive of the self:

Desire, anger, and greed.

Therefore one should abandon these

three.

Released from these gates to

darkness,

Arjuna,

A man does what is best for himself.

Then he goes to the highest goal.

He who acts under the impulse of desire,

Casting aside the injunctions of the

scriptures,
Does not attain perfection,

Nor happiness, nor the highest

goal.

Therefore, determining your standard

by the scriptures,

As to what is and what is not to be

done,

Knowing the scriptural injunction

prescribed,

You should perform action here in

this world.

* * *

BOOK 17 | The Yoga of the Distinction of the Three Kinds of Faith

1

Arjuna spoke:
Those who sacrifice

Casting the injunctions

aside, but filled with faith,

What is their condition, Krishna?

Is it sattva, rajas, or tamas?

The Blessed Lord spoke:

The faith of embodied beings is of three

kinds,

Born of their innate nature;

It is sattvic, rajasic,

And tamasic. Now hear of this.

Faith is in accordance

With the truth (nature) of each,

Arjuna.

Man is made of faith.

Whatever faith he has, thus he is.

The sattvic worship the gods,

The rajasic worship the Yakshas and

demons;

The others, the tamasic men, worship

The ghosts and the hordes of nature

spirits.

Men who undergo terrible austerities

Not enjoined by the scriptures,

Accompanied by hypocrisy and

egotism,

Along with desire and passion,

The unthinking, torturing within the

body

The aggregate of elements,

And also torturing Me thus within the

body,

Know them to be of demoniacal resolves.

But also the food preferred by all

Is of three kinds,

As are their sacrifices, austerities, and

gifts.

Hear now the distinction between

them.

Promoting life, virtue, strength,

health,

Happiness, and satisfaction,

Which are savory, smooth, firm

and pleasant to the stomach;

Such foods are dear to the sattvic.

Causing pain, misery, and sickness

Bitter, sour, salty, excessively hot,

Pungent, dry, and burning;

Such foods are desired by the rajasic.

Stale, tasteless, purid, rotten,

And refuse as well as the impure,

Is the food which

Is dear to the tamasic.

Sacrifice which is offered, observing

the scriptures,

By those who do not desire the fruit,

Concentrating the mind only on the

thought "this is to be sacrificed";

That sacrifice is sattvic.

But sacrifice which is offered

With a view to the fruit, Arjuna,

And also for the purpose of ostentation;

Know that to be rajasic.

Sacrifice devoid of faith,

Contrary to scriptural ordinances,

with no food offered,

Without mantras and without gifts (to

the presiding priest),

They regard as tamasic.

Worship of the gods, the twice-born,

teachers,

And wise men; purity, rectitude,

Celibacy, and non-violence;

These are called austerities of the body.

Words that do not cause distress,

Truthful, agreeable, and beneficial;

And practice in the recitation of sacred

texts;

These are called austerities of speech.

Peace of mind, gentleness,

Silence, self-restraint,

Purity of being; these

Are called austerities of the mind.

This threefold austerity

Practiced with the highest faith by

men

Who are not desirous of fruits and are

steadfast,

They regard as sattvic.

Austerity which is practiced with

hypocrisy

For the sake of honor, respect, and

reverence;

That, here in the world, is declared to

Rajasic, unsteady, and impermanent.

Austerity which is performed

With deluded notions and with

self-torture,

Or with the aim of destroying another,

Is declared to be tamasic.

The gift which is given only with the

thought "it is to be given,"

To a worthy person who has done no

prior favor,

At the proper place and time;

That gift is held to be sattvic.

But that gift which is given grudgingly,

With the aim of recompense

Or gain, with regard to fruit,

Is considered rajasic.

That gift which is given at the wrong

place and time

To the unworthy,

Without paying respect, or with

contempt,

Is declared to be tamasic.

"Om tat sat" this has been taught as

The threefold designation of Brahman.

By this the brahmins, the Vedas,

And the sacrifices were created in

ancient times.

Therefore, acts of sacrifice, giving, and

austerity

Are always begun uttering the syllable

"Om"

By the students of Brahman

As prescribed in the Vedic injunctions.

Uttering "tat" and without aiming at

Fruits, acts of sacrifice and austerity

And acts of giving of various sorts

Are performed by those who

desire liberation.

"Sat" is used

In its meaning of "reality: and in its

meaning of "goodness."

Also the word "sat" is used

For an auspicious act, Arjuna.

Steadfastness in sacrifice, austerity, and

Giving is also called "sat,"

And action relating to these

Is likewise designated as "sat",

An oblation offered or an auterity

practiced

Without faith

Is called "asat," Arjuna,

And is nothing in the hereafter or

here in the world.

* * *

BOOK 18 | The Yoga of Renunciation

Arjuna spoke:

I wish to know the truth

Of sannyasa, krishna,

And of renunciation,

And the difference between them.

The Blessed Lord spoke:

The relinquishment of actions

prompted by desire

The sages understand as sannyasa;

The relinquishment of the fruit of all

action

The wise declare to be renunciation.

Some men of wisdom declare

That action is to be adandoned and is

full of evil,

And others say that acts of sacrifice,

giving and austerity

Are not to be abandoned.

Hear My conclusion in this matter

Concerning renunciation, Arjuna.

Renunciation is declared

To be of three kinds:

Acts of sacrifice, giving, and austerity

Are not to be abandoned, but rather to

be performed;

Sacrifice, giving and austerity

Are purifiers of those who are wise.

These actions, however, are to be

performed

Abandoning attachment to the fruits.

This is My definite

And highest belief, Arjuna.

But renunciation of obligatory action

Is not proper;

The abandonment of it through

delusion

Is proclaimed to be tamasic.

He who abandons action merely

because it is difficult,

Or because of fear of bodily suffering,

Performs rajasic renunciation.

He does not obtain the fruit of that

renunciation.

9

When action is done because it is a

duty,

Arjuna,

And abandoning attachment

to the fruit,

Such renunciation is thought to be

sattvic.

The man of renunciation, the wise man

Whose doubt is cut away, filled with

goodness,

Does not hate disagreeable action,

Nor is he attached to agreeable action.

Indeed embodied beings are not able

To abandon actions entirely;

He, then, who abandons the fruit of

action,

Is called a man of renunciation.

The fruit of action for those

who have not renounced

When they depart (die) is threefold:

Evil, good, and mixed;

But for the renouncers there is none

whatever.

Learn from Me, O Arjuna,

These five factors

Declared in the Sankhya doctrine

For the accomplishment of all actions:

The seat of action (the body), the doer,

The various organs,

And the various separate activities,
With the presiding dieties as the fifth;

Whatever action a man undertakes

With his body, speech or mind,

Either right or wrong,

These are its five factors.

This being so, he who sees his Self

As the doer does not really see,

Because of the fact that

He has not perfected his

understanding.

He whose state of mind is not egoistic,

Whose intellect is not tainted,

Even though he slays these people,

He does not slay, and is not bound (by

his actions).

Knowledge, the process of knowing,

and the knower

Are the threefold impulse to

action;

The instrument, the action, and the doer

Are the threefold basis of action.

It is declared in Sankhya that

Knowledge, action, and the doer

Are of three kinds, distinguished

according to the qualities.

Hear about these also:

That knowledge by which one sees

One imperishable Being in all beings,

Undivided in separate beings;

Know that knowledge to be sattvic.

But that knowledge which sees

In all beings

Separate entities of various kinds,

by differentiation,

Know that knowledge to be rajasic.

The (knowledge), however, which is

attached to one single effect

As if it were all, and without reason,

Without a real purpose and small in

significance,

Is declared to be tamasic.

That action which is ordained and

free from attachment,

Performed without desire or hate,

With no wish to obtain fruit,

Is said to be sattvic.

But that action which is performed

with a wish to obtain desires,

With selfishness, or, again,

With much effort,

Is declared to be rajasic.

That action which is undertaken

because of delusion,

Disregarding consequences, loss, or

injury to others,

As well as one's own ability,

Is said to be tamasic.

Released from attachment, free from

ego,

Endowed with steadfastness and

resolution,

Unperturbed in success or failure;

Such a doer is said to be sattvic.

Passionate, desiring the fruits of

action,

Greedy, violent-natured, impure,

Subject to joy or sorrow;

Such a doer is proclaimed to be

rajasic.

Undsiciplined, vulgar, obstinate,

Wicked, deceitful, lazy,

Despondet, and procrastinating;

Such a doer is said to be tamasic.

Now hear the threefold distinctions

of intellect

And also of firmness, according to the

qualities,

Taught completely

And separately, Arjuna.

That intellect which knows

when to act and when not to act,

What is to be done and what is not to

be done,

And what is to be feared and what is

not to be feared,

Along with the knowledge of bondage

and liberation, Arjuna, is sattvic.

That intellect which distinguished

incorrectly

Between the right and the wrong,

And between that which is to be done

and which is not to be done,

Is rajasic, Arjuna.

That intellect which, enveloped

in darkness,

Imagines wrong to be right,

And all things to be perverted,

Is tamasic, Arjuna.

The unswerving firmness by which,

Through yoga, one holds fast

The functions of the mind, vital

breath, and senses,

That firmness, Arjuna, is sattvic.

But the firmness by which one holds to

Duty, pleasures, and wealth,

With attachment and desire for the

fruits of action,

That firmness, Arjuna, is rajasic,

That firmness by which a stupid man

Does not abandon sleep, fear, grief,

Depression, and conceit,

Is tamasic, Arjuna.

And now, hear from Me, Arjuna,

The threefold happiness

That one enjoys through practice,

And in which one comes to the end of

suffering.

That which in the beginning is like

poison

But in the end like nectar;

That happiness, born from the

tranquility of one's own mind,

Is declared to be sattvic.

That which in the beginning, through

contact

Between the senses and their objects,

is like nectar,

And in the end like poison;

That happiness is declared to be rajasic.

That happiness which both in the

beginning

And afterwards deludes the self,

Arising from sleep, indolence, and

negilgence,

Is declared to be tamasic.

There is no being, either on earth

Or yet in heaven among the gods,

Which can exist

Free from these three qualities born on

material nature.

The duties of the brahmins, the

kshatriyas, the vaishyas,

And of the shudras, Arjuna,

Are distributed according to

The qualities which arise from their

own nature.

Tranquility, restraint, austerity,

purity,

Forgiveness, and uprightness,

Knowledge, wisdom, and faith in God

Are the duties of the brahmins, born of

their innate nature.

Heroism, majesty, firmness, skill,

Not fleeing in battle,

Generosity, and lordly spirit

Are the duties of the kshatriyas,

born of their innate nature.

Plowing, cow-herding, and trade

Are the duties of the vaishyas, born of

their innate nature.

Service is the duty of the shudras,

Born of their innate nature.

Devoted to his own duty,
A man attains perfection.

Hear then how one who is devoted

to his own duty

Finds perfection:

By worshipping with his own proper

duty

Him from whom all beings have their

origin,

Him by whom all this universe is

pervaded,

Man finds perfection.

Better one's own duty, though

imperfect,

Than the duty of another well performed;

Performing the duty prescribed by one's

own nature,

One does not incur evil.

One should not abandon the duty

to which one is born

Even though it be deficient, Arjuna.

Indeed, all undertakings are enveloped

by evil

As fire is by smoke.

With his intellect unattached at all

times,

With conquered self, free from desire,

By renunciation, one attains

The supreme state of freedom from

action.

Learn from Me briefly, Arjuna,

How one who has attained perfection

Also attains Brahman,

Which is the highest state of

knowledge.

Endowed with a pure intellect,

Controlling the self with firmness,

Abandoning sound and the other

objects of sense,

Casting off attraction and hatred,

Dwelling in solitude, eating lightly,

Controlling speech, body, and mind,

Constantly devoted to yoga

meditation.

Taking refuge in dispassion,

Relinquishing egotism, force,

arrogance,

Desire, anger, and possession of

property;

Unselfish, tranquil,

He is fit for oneness with Brahman.

Absorbed in Brahman, he whose self

is serene

Does not mourn, nor does he desire;

Impartial among all beings

He attains supreme devotion to Me.

By devotion to Me he comes to know

Who I am in truth;

Then having known Me in truth,

He enters me immediately.

Performing all actions,

He whose reliance is always on Me,

Attains, by My grace,

The eternal, imperishable abode.

Mentally renouncing

All actions in Me, devoted to Me as

the Supreme,

Taking refuge in the yoga of

discrimination,

Constantly think of Me.

Fixing your mind on Me, you shall

pass over

All difficulties, through My grace;

But if, through egoism, you will not

listen,

Then you shall perish.

If, filled with egoism,

You think, "I shall not fight,"

Your resolve will be in vain;

Your own material nature will

compel you.

What you wish not to do, through

delusion,

You shall do that

Against your will, Arjuna,

Bound by your own karma, born of

your own material nature.

The Lord abides in the hearts

Of all beings, Arjuna,

Causing all beings to revolve,

By the power of illusion, as if fixed on

a machine.

Fly unto Him alone for refuge

With your whole being, Arjuna.

From His grace, you shall attain

Supreme peace and the eternal abode.

Thus the knowledge that is more secret

Than all that is secret has been expounded

to you by Me.

Having reflected on this fully,

Do as you please.

Hear again My supreme word,

Most secret of all.

You are surely loved by Me;

Therefore, I shall speak for your good.

Fix your mind on Me, worshipping Me,

Sacrificing to Me, bowing down to

Me;

In this way you shall come truly to Me,

I promise, for you are dear to Me.

Abandoning all duties,

Take refuge in Me alone.

I shall liberate you

From all evils; do not grieve.

This shall not be spoken of by you

to one who is without austerity,

Nor to one who is without devotion,

Nor to one who does not render

service,

Nor to one who does not desire to listen,

Nor to one who speaks evil of Me.

He who shall teach this supreme

Secret to My worshippers,

Having performed the highest

devotion to Me,

Shall come to Me, without doubt.

And no one among men shall

Do more pleasing service to Me than

he,

And no other on earth

Shall be dearer to Me.

And he who shall study this

Sacred dialogue of ours,

By him I shall have been worshipped

With the wisdom sacrifice; such is

My conviction.

Even the man who hears is

With faith and free from malice,

He also, liberated, shall attain

The happy worlds of those whose

actions are pure.

Has this been heard by you, Arjuna,

With a concentrated mind?

Have your ignorance and delusion

Been destroyed?

Arjuna spoke:

My delusion is destroyed and I have gained

wisdom

Through Your grace, Krishna.

My doubts are gone.

I shall do as You command.

Sanjaya spoke:

Thus I have heard from Krishna

And the great-souled Arjuna,

This wondrous dialogue

Which causes the hair to stand on end.

By the grace of Vyasa I have heard

This supreme and most secret yoga

Which Krishna, the Lord of Yoga, has

divulged

Directly, speaking Himself.

O King, remembering again and again

This marvelous and holy dialogue

Of Krishna and Arjuna,

I rejoice again and again.

And remembering again and again

That marvelous form of Krishna,

My amazement is great, O King,

And I rejoice again and again.

Wherever there is Krishna, Lord of

Yoga,

Wherever there is Arjuna, the archer,

There will surely be

Splendor, victory, wealth, and

righteousness; this is my conviction.

*****

Here ends the Bhagavadgita Upanishad

Books 1 - 5: Here

Books 6 -10: Here

Books 11 -14: Here

Books 15 -18: Here