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Monday, July 27, 2020

Wisdom from the Bhagavad Gita 18


8-9. The knower of Truth, being centered in the Self should think, "I do nothing at all"—though seeing, hearing, touching, smelling, eating, going, sleeping, breathing, speaking, letting go, holding, opening and closing the eyes—convinced that it is the senses that move among sense-objects. 

10. He who does actions forsaking attachment, resigning them to Brahman, is not soiled by evil, like unto a lotus-leaf by water. 

11. Devotees in the path of work perform action, only with body, mind, senses, and intellect, forsaking attachment, for the purification of the heart. 

12. The well-poised, forsaking the fruit of action, attains peace, born of steadfastness; the unbalanced one, led by desire, is bound by being attached to the fruit of action. 

13. The subduer of the senses, having renounced all actions by discrimination, rests happily in the city of the nine gates, neither acting, nor causing others to act. 

14. Neither agency, nor actions does the Lord create for the world, nor does He bring about the union with the fruit of action. It is universal ignorance that does it all. 

15. The Omnipresent takes note of the merit or demerit of none. Knowledge is enveloped in ignorance, hence do beings get deluded. 

16. But whose ignorance is destroyed by the knowledge of Self—that knowledge of theirs, like the sun, reveals the Supreme Brahman. 

17. Those who have their intellect absorbed in That, whose self is That, whose steadfastness is in That, whose consummation is That, their impurities cleansed by knowledge, they attain to Non-return, to Moksha (Liberation).

Bhagavad Gita, 5:8-17

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