your specific duty as a Kshatriya, you should know that there is no better engagement for you than fighting on religious principles; and so there is no need for hesitation.
O Partha, happy are the Kshatriyas to whom such fighting opportunities come unsought, opening for them the doors of the heavenly planets.
If, however, you do not perform your religious duty of fighting, then you will certainly incur sins for neglecting your duties and thus lose your reputation as a fighter.
People will always speak of your disgrace, and for a respectable person, dishonor is worse than death.
The great generals who have highly esteemed your name and fame will think that you have left the battlefield out of fear only, and thus they will consider you worthless.
Your enemies will describe you in many unkind words and mock at your ability. What could be more painful for you?
O son of Kunti, either you will be killed on the battlefield and attain the heavenly planets, or you will conquer and enjoy the earthly kingdom. Therefore, get up with determination and fight.
Do fight for the sake of fighting, without considering happiness or sorrow, loss or gain, victory or defeat-and by so doing you shall never incur sin.
Thus far I have described this knowledge to you through analytical study. Now listen as I explain it in terms of working without fruitive results. O son of Pritha, when you act in such knowledge you can free yourself from the bondage of works.
In this attempt there is no loss or decline, and a little advancement on this path can protect one from the most dangerous type of fear.
Those who are on this path are determined in purpose, and their aim is one. O beloved child of the Kurus, the intelligence of those who are uncertain is many-branched.
Men of small knowledge are very much attached to the flowery words of the Vedas, which recommend various fruitive activities for elevation to heavenly planets, resultant good birth, power, and so forth. Being desirous of sense pleasure and luxurious life, they say that there is nothing more than this.
In the minds of those who are too attached to sense enjoyment and material richness, and who are confused by such things, the unwavering determination for devotional service to the Supreme Lord does not take place.
The Vedas deal mainly with the subject of the three modes of material nature. O Arjuna, become transcendental (superior) to these three modes. Be free from all dualities and from all anxieties for gain and safety, and be established in the self.
All purposes that are served by a small well can at once be served by a great reservoir of water. Similarly, all the purposes of the Vedas can be served to one who knows the purpose behind them.
You have a right to perform your prescribed duty, but you are not entitled to the fruits of action. Never consider yourself the cause of the results of your activities, and never be attached to not doing your duty.
Perform your duty with a balanced mind, O Arjuna, abandoning all attachment to success or failure. Such calmness is called yoga.
O Dhananjaya, keep all bad activities far distant by devotional service, and in that awareness surrender unto the Lord. Those who want to enjoy the fruits of their work are misers.
A man engaged in devotional service rids himself of both good and bad actions even in this life. Therefore, strive for yoga, O Arjuna, which is the art of all work.
By thus engaging in devotional service to the Lord, great sages or devotees free themselves from the results of work in the material world. In this way they become free from the cycle of birth and death and attain the state beyond all miseries [by going back to Godhead].
When your intelligence has passed out of the dense forest of misbelief, you shall become indifferent to all that has been heard and all that is to be heard.
When your mind is no longer disturbed by the flowery language of the Vedas, and when it remains fixed in the trance of self-realization, then you will have attained the divine consciousness.
Arjuna said: O Krishna, what are the symptoms of one whose consciousness is thus merged in transcendence (experience beyond the normal)? How does he speak, and what is his language? How does he sit, and how does he walk?
The Supreme Personality of Godhead said: O Partha, when a man gives up all varieties of desire for sense pleasure, which arise from mental creation, and when his mind, thus purified, finds satisfaction in the self alone, then he is said to be in pure transcendental consciousness.
One who is not disturbed in mind even amidst the threefold miseries or overjoyed when there is happiness, and who is free from attachment, fear and anger, is called a sage of steady mind.
In the material world, one who is unaffected by whatever good or evil he may obtain, neither praising it nor disliking it, is firmly fixed in perfect knowledge.
One who is able to withdraw his senses from sense objects, as the tortoise draws its limbs within the shell, is firmly fixed in perfect consciousness.
The embodied soul may be restricted from sense enjoyment, though the taste for sense objects remains. But, ending such engagements by experiencing a higher taste, he is fixed in consciousness.
The senses are so strong and quick, O Arjuna, that they forcibly carry away the mind even of a man of discrimination who is trying hard to control them.
One who restrains his senses, keeping them under full control, and fixes his consciousness upon Me, is known as a man of steady intelligence.
While thinking deeply about the objects of the senses, a person develops attachment for them, and from such attachment lust develops, and from lust anger arises.
From anger, complete misunderstanding arises, and from misunderstanding confusion of memory. When memory is confused, intelligence is lost, and when intelligence is lost one falls down again into the material pool.
But a person free from all attachment and hatred and able to control his senses through regulative principles of freedom can obtain the complete mercy of the Lord.
For one thus satisfied [in Krishna consciousness], the threefold miseries of material existence exist no longer; in such satisfied consciousness, one’s intelligence is soon well established.
One who is not connected with the Supreme [in Krishna consciousness] can have neither transcendental (superior) intelligence nor a steady mind, without which there is no possibility of peace. And how can there be any happiness without peace?
As a strong wind sweeps away a boat on the water, even one of the roaming senses on which the mind focuses can carry away a man’s intelligence.
Therefore, O mighty-armed, one whose senses are kept under control from their objects is certainly of steady intelligence.
What is night for all beings is the time of awakening for the self-controlled; and the time of awakening for all beings is night for the inward-looking sage.
A person who is not disturbed by the
