“So learn from Me now, friend, as I briefly profile the qualities that make the loving yogi one with Me, Brahman, the Godhead. There is no higher achievement in life.
“Cultivate a pure intellect. Free your mind and heart of delusion. Be self-restrained. Give up the ego. Subdue your senses through steady will. Abandon the sights, tastes, and noises of the world. Put aside with no regret the likes and dislikes so burdensome in life.
“Seek solitude, eat but little, lead a simple, self-reliant life, curbing your thoughts, speech, and actions. Be detached, impersonal. Engage your mind always in concentration, contemplation, and meditation on the Godhead.
“Cast from yourself all egotism, violence, arrogance, desire, anger, and attachment. Turn your back on luxuries and property. Possess very little, and shed any sense of ‘mine.’ Be calm, at peace with yourself and all others. Enter into the supreme state of unity with Me – I who am Truth, Consciousness, and Bliss.
“Thus united with Me, tranquil of mind and heart, neither craving nor grieving anything or anyone, accept all people equally and serve Me, Divinity, in every living creature. Love Me most dearly.
“Be very clear about the crucial importance of love. To love is to know Me. The act itself of loving is indeed the experience of really knowing Me, for I am Love, Arjuna! To love is to know My innermost nature, the Truth that I am. It is through this sacred and deep knowing that you gain access to Me and become one with My own Self. Loving is knowing God! As a deep knower of the Godhead you actually become the Godhead.
“Do not renounce action itself but only the sense of doership. Thus, even while engaging in worldly actions be but an instrument of the Divine. When you surrender there is no weariness in your work. As you are fully concentrated on Me, you will come home to Me in eternity.
“Mentally cast every thought and act onto Me. Know I am your best friend and only refuge. Be solely devoted to Me. Fix your mind and intellect on Me. Once you recognise that your mind, senses, and body – and all activities performed by them – are Divinity, then sense of doership, of ‘I’ and ‘mine,’ leaves you. When that happens, you have no concern but to do Divinity’s work for Its sake only. Your only interest should be to merge in God. It is by loving God that you rise from the human to the Divine.
“The one with his or her mind thus fixed on Me can, through My grace, overcome all obstacles. I know, Arjuna, that you are a good devotee and a beloved friend, but if you stay caught in your egoism and do not heed My words, you are lost and you will perish. If, in your vanity you think, ‘I will not fight,’ that misguided resolve will be in vain, because your very nature will drive you to do it.
“You can do no greater harm than fail to follow your inner truth! You have been nurtured in the duties of a warrior-leader. Your aptitudes, temperament, and disposition are such that you must oppose wrongdoing in the world. Facing this righteous fight you cannot simply decide on impulse to practice renunciation and quietism. This ego-driven decision of yours creates a conflict in your personality. Your inner nature will prevail in spite of your ego. Do not yield to this egoism and disgrace yourself.
“A man is not different from his nature, Arjuna, and is obliged to act in conformity with it. You yourself have created the tendencies that bind you now. The law of karma is more powerful than your ego. Even if in your delusion you think that you do not want to fight, your own nature will force you to. Following one’s nature is the only way to work out one’s karma.
“God dwells in the very heart of every creature and whirls them around and around as though mounted on a revolving machine. It is as if dancing puppets imagine that they are the dancers rather than merely puppets, and because of this illusion they become increasingly entangled in the strings.
“The yogi, however, changes this basic attitude and holds the conviction that all actions are in the Divine One’s hands. In this way the yogi lives life as the willing instrument of Divinity.
“Seek refuge only in the Divine, beloved friend. Always remember the illustrious truth that you have neither existence nor individuality independent of God. Attune your whole life to this truth. Take refuge in Me and experience great peace of mind. Those who do not come fully to Me continue to bring agitation and a stressful life upon themselves.”
~ Excerpts from Chapter 18, Liberation Through Knowing, Acting, and Loving (Moksha Sanyasa Yoga), the Bhagavad Gita, A Walkthough for Westerners by Jack Hawley ~
= The Gita documents the inner battle and struggles for the mind, heart, body and spirit which directs us to turn inwards and upwards to the True Self Within. =
thank you for typing it out and sharing this piece. lovely
pleasure.. 🙂