Building upon many years of privately shared thoughts on the real benefits of Stoic Philosophy, Liam Milburn eventually published a selection of Stoic passages that had helped him to live well. They were accompanied by some of his own personal reflections. This blog hopes to continue his mission of encouraging the wisdom of Stoicism in the exercise of everyday life. All the reflections are taken from his notes, from late 1992 to early 2017.
The Death of Marcus Aurelius
Tuesday, June 23, 2020
Wisdom from the Bhagavad Gita 16
30-31. All of these are knowers of Yajna, having their sins consumed by Yajna, and eating of the nectar—the remnant of Yajna, they go to the Eternal Brahman. Even this world is not for the non-performer of Yajna, how then another, O best of the Kurus?
32. Various Yajnas, like the above, are strewn in the store-house of the Veda. Know them all to be born of action, and thus knowing, you shall be free,
33. Knowledge-sacrifice, O scorcher of foes, is superior to sacrifice performed with material objects. All action in its entirety, O Pârtha, attains its consummation in knowledge.
34. Know that, by prostrating yourself, by questions, and by service; the wise, those who have realized the Truth, will instruct you in that knowledge.
35. Knowing which, you shall not, O Pândava, again get deluded like this, and by which you shall see the whole of creation in your Self and in Me.
36. Even if you are the most sinful among all the sinful, yet by the raft of knowledge alone you shall go across all sin.
37. As blazing fire reduces wood into ashes, so, O Arjuna, does the fire of knowledge reduce all Karma to ashes.
38. Verily there exists nothing in this world purifying like knowledge. In good time, having reached perfection in Yoga, one realizes that oneself in one's own heart.
39. The man with Shraddhâ, the devoted, the master of one's senses, attains this knowledge. Having attained knowledge one goes at once to the Supreme Peace.
40. The ignorant, the man without Shraddhâ, the doubting self, goes to destruction. The doubting self has neither this world, nor the next, nor happiness.
41. With work renounced by Yoga and doubts rent asunder by knowledge, O Dhananjaya, actions do not bind him who is poised in the Self.
42. Therefore, cutting with the sword of knowledge, this doubt about the Self, born of ignorance, residing in your heart, take refuge in Yoga. Arise, O Bhârata!
—Bhagavad Gita, 4:30-42
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