DISCOURSE TWENTY-EIGHT

Bhagavad Gita 18:2-72
Arjuna asks Bhagavan to explain renunciation.

Bhagavan said,

Poets understand renunciation
as letting go of works driven by lust.
The clear-eyed say renunciation
is the abandonment of all outcome.
Some wise teachers say work
is full of evil, and thus to be given up.
Others say that the work of worship, charity,
and austerity is not to be given up.

I’ve concluded this
about renunciation.
There are three ways of giving things up,
of renunciation.
Don’t give up the work
of worship, charity, and austerity,
Do it! Religious work, charity, and austerity
purify the wise.
Do these works, giving up
attachment and outcome.
Those kinds of work are the best ways
of renunciation, in my opinion.
Don’t give up doing what you have to do.
That won’t work for you.
Giving that up would be confusion.
Stay out of the dark with that.
If you renounce work just because it’s hard,
or because you’re afraid of discomfort,
that’s power-driven. You won’t magically
reach what you imagine renunciation to be.
Whatever work you have to do,
do in a disciplined manner.
That’s the sort of renunciation,
of letting go, that casts light.

If your renunciation is filled
with goodness, if your doubt is cut away,
you manage not to hate the disagreeable,
or hold too tight to the agreeable.
Those in a body
can’t give up work entirely.
A renunciate gives up
the outcome of work.

Consequences reach us three ways
when we die, if we’re still attached:
by what you don’t want, by what you do want,
and by a mixture of the two.
A renunciate doesn’t need a specific outcome.

I’ve seen five causes
repeat themselves, all my life,
keys to success in everything.
Spelled out in Self-Realization,
are the basis; the doer;
the various sorts of means;
the distinct activities;
and the divine. In this case, it’s the fifth.

I’ve seen five origins, too,
whatever work someone starts:
whether by body, speech, or mind,
whether in favor or against.
People who see themselves
as the only ones working
don’t quite see everything.
Fools don’t see at all.
Is there someone whose wits
aren’t puffed up or defiled,
who isn’t bound, even after
wasting these worlds?

Wisdom, the to be known, the knower,
are the three-fold motivations to work.
The means, the task itself, and the agent,
are the three-fold constituents of work.

Wisdom, work, and worker are
three-fold, too: determined by the basic drives,
in the overall reckoning of the basic drives.
Understand them, too.
Wisdom that gives you the ability
to see one, undivided,
eternal being in all the living,
comes from light.
Wisdom which knows
all the living as various beings
of different species, individually,
comes from power.
Something fixated on one issue,
as if nothing else mattered, unconcerned
with reasoning, without real purpose, trivial,
comes from darkness.
When your work is disciplined,
freed from attachment, done without
lust or hatred, not looking for a hidden outcome,
it’s done in light.
Work done with much effort,
lusting after the lusts themselves,
benefiting the worker and no one else,
is driven by power.
Work started in confusion,
refusing to notice an inevitable outcome,
causing loss, violence, carelessness,
and injury to others,
seeps out of darkness.

You’re in the light when you’re
freed from attachment; freed from self-puffery;
when you can live with courage and determination,
undisturbed in success or failure.
It’s all about power when
you lust passionately for an outcome,
greedy, violent, and impure.
It leads to the heights and the depths.
When you do works that are undisciplined,
vulgar, obstinate, deceitful, vile, and lazy,
despondent and procrastinating,
such works slouch out of darkness.
Understand intelligence
and steadfastness as three-fold,
according to the basic drives.
I’ll tell you all about it, if you’ll listen.
The kind of intelligence that knows
activity and inactivity; what’s to be done
and what’s not; what’s to be feared
and what isn’t; slavery and freedom —
is from light.
Intelligence that chooses incorrectly
between righteousness and unrighteousness,
what’s to be done and what isn’t. —
is about power.
Understanding that imagines
wrong as right, wrapped in gloom,
all its aims backwards,
spills out of darkness.

Use mind, breath, and senses,
disciplined by ongoing practice,
to find that steadiness
which is born of light.
But lusting for an outcome
that lets you hold on to
duty, desire, and wealth,
yields a steadiness only of power.
When the dimwitted refuse
to give up sleep, fear, sorrow,
depression, and pride,
it’s a steadfastness of darkness.

Understand a three-fold happiness too,
since a lot of this has been heavy.
You learn to enjoy it by practice,
and go on from there to the end of suffering.
There’s a happiness born of light that,
at the start, may taste like poison.
When it matures, though, it’s sweet wine.
Such is born from the clarity of your own soul.
The happiness born from the contact of sense
with sense object may taste like sweet wine
at the start, but when it matures it’s poison.
That kind is born out of power.
There’s even a happiness which confuses the self,
from the beginning through the inevitable consequences.
It bubbles up from sleep, idleness,
and negligence. That kind comes from darkness.

No existence born of nature, either
on earth or in heaven among gods,
can exist free from
the three basic drives.
The basic drives,
innate in nature, distribute
the works of priests, warriors,
farmers and traders, and laborers,
The works of priests, born of innate nature,
include tranquility, restraint, austerity,
cleanliness, patience, honesty,
wisdom, discernment, and belief in God.
The work of warriors, born of innate nature,
includes heroism, majesty, courage, skill —
even that of not running away in battle —
generosity, and nobility of spirit,
The work of farmers and traders, born
of innate nature, includes agriculture,
raising animals, and commerce.
Laborers are born of nature to serve.

Find fulfillment
in your own repeated duty.
Let me tell you how
that can happen.
You find fulfillment
doing your own work,
consciously loving the Origin of all the living,
who pervades all this.
You’re better off doing your own duty,
even if you can’t finish it,
than finishing someone else’s.
You don’t pile up guilt doing the work
your own nature prescribes.
Don’t give up your innate work,
even if you can’t finish it.
All beginnings are unfinished,
just as all fire produces smoke.

Some reach intelligence by renunciation,
not attached on any side,
pacified in self and lust overcome.
That’s the highest completion of work.
I’ve also see that,
once you learn to be content,
you learn to live near brahman as well.
That is wisdom’s highest state.
Joined with pure intelligence;
self-control steady;
sense objects given up, beginning with sound;
setting aside passion and hatred;
living apart, eating lightly;
speech, body, and mind controlled;
devoted continually to disciplined meditation;
taking refuge in dispassion;
giving up ego, force,
arrogance, longing, anger, and possession;
not acquisitive, at peace;
you are fit for oneness with brahman.

When you’re one with brahman,
at peace in your own self, you don’t have to mourn,
you don’t have to want things,
and you can be impartial among all the living.
You also find pure love for me.
Some come to know who I am,
even how great I am, by love for me.
Since they know me in reality,
they commune with me immediately .
They find my kindness,
my eternal, unchanging abode,
trusting me, continually,
doing all works.

Keep your mind on me, Arjuna.
Let all works go to me.
Love me as the highest in your thought.
Take refuge in disciplined intelligence.
You’ll get beyond life’s rough goings
by my grace, with your mind on me.
But if you won’t listen
because of ego, you’ll perish.

If you imagine, “I will not fight,”
depending on your own ego,
it won’t work out that way.
Nature will force you.
You’ll end up doing what you don’t want,
from confusion, bound by
your own nature, your own work,
even against your will.

The Lord of all the living
stands in the heart, O Arjuna,
causing all the living to move
on a mechanism of illusion.
Go to that Lord alone,
with your whole being.
Reach the highest peace,
an eternal abode, by that grace

But think about what I’ve told you.
This wisdom is more secret than secret,
and I’ve told it to you, well enough.
Now, do what you choose.

But understand the highest word
the most secret of all secrets:
I genuinely love you,
and I will speak your good.
Fix your mind on me. Love me.
Do religious work for me. Reverence me.
That way you’ll come to me in truth.
I promise you are dear to me.
Set aside all gimmicks,
and take refuge in me alone!
I will release you from
all wrongs. Don’t grieve.

My message isn’t for someone
who won’t practice austerity.
It’s never for someone who won’t love!
It’s not for those who won’t listen,
or those who speak evil of me.
Those who open this highest secret
to others who love me,
perform the highest love for me.
They’ll come to me, without doubt.
No one will be dearer to me
than they will be;
No other on earth
will be dearer to me.

If someone merely recites
this holy conversation of ours,
I’ll have been loved, in my opinion,
by the wisdom they offered.
If someone merely hears, full of faith,
not scoffing, they’ll be set free, too,
to reach the pure, happy worlds
of those whose works are pure.

Have you paid attention
to me, Arjuna?
Has this cleared up
confusion and ignorance?

Arjuna Answers Bhagavan’s Closing Questions

Bhagavad Gita 18:73

Arjuna said,
I’m standing. You’ve destroyed my confusion.
I will remember, and my doubt is gone.
By your grace to me, O Unchanging One,
I will do what you command.