Top highlights from The Bhagavad Gita
Control your mind and senses. "The mind is the most uncontrollable force in the world; but he who has conquered his mind, he has conquered the world." (Chapter 6, Verse 6)
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Perform your duty without attachment. "Do your duty without attachment to results, and you will be victorious. Attachment to results is the cause of bondage." (Chapter 2, Verse 47)
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Be equanimous in good times and bad. "He who remains the same in pleasure and pain, in honor and disgrace, in heat and cold, he is truly wise." (Chapter 2, Verse 56)
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Surrender to God. "Those who surrender to me completely, those who see me in all things and all things in me, I never forsake." (Chapter 11, Verse 55)
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Know thyself. "He who knows himself, knows God." (Chapter 4, Verse 24)
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Be compassionate to all beings. "A person who is not envious but is friendly to all living entities, who has no possessiveness, who is without ego – he is dear to me." (Chapter 12, Verse 13)
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Meditate on the Supreme. "Wherever the mind is constantly fixed, there alone the intellect also remains fixed. And wherever the intellect remains fixed, there alone is the bliss of the Self." (Chapter 6, Verse 20-21)
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Live in the present moment. "One should not grieve for the past or worry about the future. What is past cannot be changed, and the future is uncertain. The only thing that matters is the present moment." (Chapter 2, Verse 49)
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Act without fear of failure. "Even if you fail, you will have learned something from the experience. And if you succeed, you will have achieved your goal. So, act without fear of failure." (Chapter 2, Verse 48)
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Do not be attached to material possessions. "Just as a person puts on new clothes and takes off old clothes, similarly, the soul takes on new bodies and leaves off old bodies." (Chapter 2, Verse 22)
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Be content with what you have. "He who is content with what he has, and who rejoices in the Self, he is truly rich." (Chapter 6, Verse 20)
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Be humble. "There is nothing that is higher than the Self. He who has realized the Self is humble." (Chapter 13, Verse 13)
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Be truthful. "Truthfulness is the highest dharma. He who is truthful is always victorious." (Chapter 16, Verse 1)
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Be non-violent. "Violence is the cause of all suffering. He who is non-violent is truly compassionate." (Chapter 16, Verse 3)
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Be forgiving. "He who can forgive others is truly wise." (Chapter 16, Verse 4)
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Be charitable. "He who is charitable is truly generous." (Chapter 16, Verse 5)
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Be patient. "He who is patient is truly strong." (Chapter 16, Verse 6)
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Be pure of heart. "He who has a pure heart is truly blessed." (Chapter 16, Verse 7)
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Be steadfast. "He who is steadfast is truly brave." (Chapter 16, Verse 8)
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Be devoted to God. "He who is devoted to God is truly wise." (Chapter 16, Verse 9)
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Lesson 1: "You have the right to perform your prescribed duties, but you are not entitled to the fruits of your actions." - Chapter 2, Verse 47.
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Lesson 2: "There is neither this world nor the world beyond. The Supreme Soul is beyond both." - Chapter 2, Verse 16.
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Lesson 3: "You have the right to perform your prescribed duties, but you are not entitled to the fruits of your actions." - Chapter 2, Verse 47.
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Lesson 4: "The soul is neither born, and nor does it die." - Chapter 2, Verse 20.
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Lesson 5: "One who is not disturbed in mind even amidst the sorrows is free from all anxieties and fear." - Chapter 2, Verse 11.
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Lesson 6: "There is neither this world nor the world beyond. The Supreme Soul is beyond both." - Chapter 2, Verse 16.
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Lesson 7: "Perform your duty equipoised, O Arjuna, abandoning all attachment to success or failure. Such equanimity is called yoga." - Chapter 2, Verse 48.
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Lesson 8: "A person can rise through the efforts of his own mind; he can also sink in the same manner. Because each person is his own friend or enemy in either the face or the fulfillment of his desires." - Chapter 6, Verse 5.
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Lesson 9: "You have the right to perform your prescribed duties, but you are not entitled to the fruits of your actions." - Chapter 2, Verse 47.
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Lesson 10: "As a person puts on new garments, giving up old ones, similarly, the soul accepts new material bodies, giving up the old and useless ones." - Chapter 2, Verse 22.
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Lesson 11: "You have the right to perform your prescribed duties, but you are not entitled to the fruits of your actions." - Chapter 2, Verse 47.
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Lesson 12: "The soul is neither born, and nor does it die." - Chapter 2, Verse 20.
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Lesson 13: "You have the right to perform your prescribed duties, but you are not entitled to the fruits of your actions." - Chapter 2, Verse 47.
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Lesson 14: "There is neither this world nor the world beyond. The Supreme Soul is beyond both." - Chapter 2, Verse 16.
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Lesson 15: "Perform your duty equipoised, O Arjuna, abandoning all attachment to success or failure. Such equanimity is called yoga." - Chapter 2, Verse 48.
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Lesson 16: "A person can rise through the efforts of his own mind; he can also sink in the same manner. Because each person is his own friend or enemy in either the face or the fulfillment of his desires." - Chapter 6, Verse 5.
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Lesson 17: "You have the right to perform your prescribed duties, but you are not entitled to the fruits of your actions." - Chapter 2, Verse 47.
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Lesson 18: "As a person puts on new garments, giving up old ones, similarly, the soul accepts new material bodies, giving up the old and useless ones." - Chapter 2, Verse 22.
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Lesson 19: "You have the right to perform your prescribed duties, but you are not entitled to the fruits of your actions." - Chapter 2, Verse 47.
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Lesson 20: "The soul is neither born, and nor does it die." - Chapter 2, Verse 20.
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It is better to live your own destiny imperfectly than to live an imitation of somebody else's life with perfection.
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A gift is pure when it is given from the heart to the right person at the right time and at the right place, and when we expect nothing in return
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No one who does good work will ever come to a bad end, either here or in the world to come
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The happiness which comes from long practice, which leads to the end of suffering, which at first is like poison, but at last like nectar - this kind of happiness arises from the serenity of one's own mind.
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Curving back within myself I create again and again.
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Anyone who is steady in his determination for the advanced stage of spiritual realization and can equally tolerate the onslaughts of distress and happiness is certainly a person eligible for liberation.
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The peace of God is with them whose mind and soul are in harmony, who are free from desire and wrath, who know their own soul.
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He who has let go of hatred
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Perform all thy actions with mind concentrated on the Divine, renouncing attachment and looking upon success and failure with an equal eye. Spirituality implies equanimity.
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Hell has three hates: lust, anger and greed.
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You have the right to work, but never to the fruit of work. You should never engage in action for the sake of reward, nor should you long for inaction. Perform work in this world, Arjuna, as a man established within himself - without selfish attachments, and alike in success and defeat.
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The man who sees me in everything
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..... ( I am Time, the great destroyer of the world ~Bhagavad Gita 11.32)
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He who experiences the unity of life sees his own Self in all beings, and all beings in his own Self, and looks on everything with an impartial eye.
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Set thy heart upon thy work, but never on its reward.
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I have become Death, the destroyer of worlds.
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For the senses wander, and when one lets the mind follow them, it carries wisdom away like a windblown ship on the waters.
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The nonpermanent appearance of happiness and distress, and their disappearance in due course, are like the appearance and disappearance of winter and summer seasons.They arise from sense perception,and one must learn to tolerate them without being disturbed.
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The wise grieve neither for the living nor for the dead. There was never a time when you and I and all the kings gathered here have not existed and nor will there be a time when we will cease to exist.
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He is the source of light in all luminous objects. He is beyond the darkness of matter and is unmanifested. He is knowledge, He is the object of knowledge, and He is the goal of knowledge. He is situated in everyone's heart.
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They say that life is an accident, driven by sexual desire, that the universe has no moral order, no truth, no God.
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We behold what we are, and we are what we behold.
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The embodied soul is eternal in existence, indestructible, and infinite, only the material body is factually perishable, therefore fight O Arjuna.
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Perform all work carefully, guided by compassion.
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I enter into each planet, and by My energy they stay in orbit. I become the moon and thereby supply the juice of life to all vegetables.
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We are not cabin-dwellers, born to a life cramped and confined; we are meant to explore, to seek, to push the limits of our potential as human beings. The world of the senses is just a base camp: we are meant to be as much at home in consciousness as in the world of physical reality.
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It is Nature that causes all movement. Deluded by the ego, the fool harbors the perception that says "I did it".
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The Lord said: "Time [death] I am, the destroyer of the worlds, who has come to annihilate everyone. Even without your taking part all those arrayed in the [two] opposing ranks will be slain!
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Feelings of heat and cold, pleasure and pain, are caused by the contact of the senses with their objects. They come and they go, never lasting long. You must accept them.
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we never really encounter the world; all we experience is our own nervous system.
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O Krishna, the mind is restless
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I am the Atma abiding in the heart of all beings. I am also the beginning, the middle, and the end of all beings.
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Then, O King! the God, so saying,
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Performing the duty prescribed by (one's own) nature, one incurreth no sin.
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Selfish action imprisons the world. Act selflessly, without any thought of personal profit.
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You have control over doing your respective duty, but no control or claim over the result. Fear of failure, from being emotionally attached to the fruit of work, is the greatest impediment to success because it robs efficiency by constantly disturbing the equanimity of mind.
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Reshape yourself through the power of your will; never let yourself be degraded by self-will.
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When a person responds to the joys and sorrows of others as if they were his own, he has attained the highest state of spiritual union.
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The true goal of action is knowledge of the Self.
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The wise unify their consciousness and abandon attachment to the fruits of action.
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Lust, anger, and greed are the three doors to hell
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Our mistake is in taking this for ultimate reality, like the dreamer thinking that nothing is real except his dream.
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Asceticism is giving up selfish activities, as poets know, and the wise declare renunciation is giving up fruits of action. Krishna.
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It is I who remain seated in the heart of all creatures as the inner controller of all; and it is I who am the source of memory, knowledge and theratiocinativefaculty. Again, I am the only object worth knowing through the Vedas; I alone am the origin of Vednta and the knower of the Vedas too. Krishna; Chapter 15, verse 15
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I am Sama Veda among the Vedas; I am Indra among the Devas; I am the mind among the senses; I am the consciousness in living beings.
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There was never a time when I did not exist, nor you, nor any of these kings. Nor is there any future in which we shall cease to be.
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All that we are is the result of what we have thought. We are made of our thoughts; we are molded by our thoughts.
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I am time, the destroyer of all; I have come to consume the world.
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Left to itself, the mind goes on repeating the same old habitual patterns of personality. By training the mind, however, anyone can learn to step in and change old ways of thinking; that is the central principle of yoga:
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Those established in Self-realization control their senses instead of letting their senses control them.
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The awakened sages call a person wise when all his undertakings are free from anxiety about results; all his selfish desires have been consumed in the fire of knowledge. 20 The wise, ever satisfied, have abandoned all external supports. Their security is unaffected by the results of their action; even while acting, they really do nothing at all. 21 Free from expectations and from all sense of possession, with mind and body firmly controlled by the Self, they do not incur sin by the performance of physical action. 22 They live in freedom who have gone beyond the dualities of life. Competing with no one, they are alike in success and failure and content with whatever comes to them. 23 They are free, without selfish attachments; their minds are fixed in knowledge. They perform all work in the spirit of service, and their karma is dissolved.
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You have the right to work, but never to the fruit of work. You should never engage in action for the sake of reward, nor should you long for inaction. 48 Perform work in this world, Arjuna, as a man established within himself without selfish attachments, and alike in success and defeat. For yoga is perfect evenness of mind.
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For even if the greatest sinner worships me with all his soul, he must be considered righteous, because of his righteous will. And he shall soon become pure and reach everlasting peace. For this is my word of promise, that he who loves me shall not perish. -Krishna; Chapter 9, verses 3031.
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Pleasures conceived in the world of the senses have a beginning and an end and give birth to misery, Arjuna.
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Seek refuge in the attitude of detachment and you will amass the wealth of spiritual awareness. Those who are motivated only by desire for the fruits of action are miserable, for they are constantly anxious about the results of what they do. 50 When consciousness is unified, however, all vain anxiety is left behind. There is no cause for worry, whether things go well or ill.
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If I could offer only one key to understanding this divine dialogue, it would be to remember that it takes place in the depths of consciousness and that Krishna is not some external being, human or superhuman, but the spark of divinity that lies at the core of the human personality. This is not literary or philosophical conjecture; Krishna says as much to Arjuna over and over: I am the Self in the heart of every creature, Arjuna, and the beginning, middle, and end of their existence (10:20).
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It was Vyasas genius to take the whole great Mahabharata epic and see it as metaphor for the perennial war between the forces of light and the forces of darkness in every human heart.
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We must act in a selfless spirit, Krishna says, without ego-involvement and without getting entangled in whether things work out the way we want; only then will we not fall into the terrible net of karma. We cannot hope to escape karma by refraining from our duties: even to survive in the world, we must act.
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Be aware of me always, adore me, make every act an offering to me, and you shall come to me; this I promise; for you are dear to me.
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The immature think that knowledge and action are different, but the wise see them as the same.
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