Imperishable amid the Perishing:
For, whoso thus beholds, in every place,
In every form, the same, one, Living Lord,
Doth no more wrongfulness unto himself,
But goes the highest road which brings to bliss.
Seeing, he sees, indeed, who sees that works
Are Nature's wont, for Soul to use, not love,
Acting, yet not the actor; sees the mass
Of separate living things-each of its kind-
Issue from One, and blend again to One:
Then hath he BRAHMA, he attains!
O Prince!
That Ultimate, High Spirit, Uncreate,
Unqualified, even when it entereth flesh
Taketh no stain of acts, worketh in nought!
Like to th' ethereal air, pervading all,
Which, for sheer subtlety, avoideth taint,
The subtle Soul sits everywhere, unstained:
Like to the light of the all-piercing sun
[Which is not changed by aught it shines upon,]
The Soul's light shineth pure in every place;
And they who, by such eye of wisdom see
How matter, and what deals with it, divide;
And how the Spirit and the flesh have strife,
These wise ones go the way which leads to Life!
Here ends Chapter XIII. of the Bhagavad-Gitâ, entitled "Kshetrakshetrejnavibhagayôgô," or "The Book of Religion by Separation of Matter and Spirit"
YET farther will I open unto thee
This wisdom of all wisdoms, uttermost,
The which possessing, all My saints have passed
To perfectness. On these high verities
Reliant, rising into fellowship
With Me, they are not born again at birth
Of Kalpas, nor at Pralyas suffer change!
This Universe the Womb is where I plant
Seed of all lives! Thence, Prince of India comes
Birth to all beings! Whoso, Kunti's Son!
Mothers each mortal form, Brahma conceives,
And I am He that fathers, sending seed!
Sattwan, Rajas, and Tamas, so are named, The qualities of Nature, "Sooth fastness," "Passion," and "Ignorance." These three bind down The changeless Spirit in the changeful flesh. Whereof sweet Sooth fastness"-by purity
Living unsullied and enlightened-binds
The sinless Soul to happiness and truth;
And Passion, being kin to appetite,
And breeding impulse and propensity,
Binds the embodied Soul, O Kunti's Son!
By tie of works. But Ignorance, the child
Of Darkness, blinding mortal men, binds down
Their souls to stupor, sloth, and drowsiness.
Yea, Prince of India! Sooth fastness binds souls
In pleasant wise to flesh; and Passion binds
By toilsome strain; but Ignorance, which blots
The beams of wisdom, binds the soul to sloth
Passion and Ignorance, once overcome,
Leave Soothfastness, O Bharata! Where this
With Ignorance are absent, Passion rules;
And Ignorance in hearts not good nor quick.
When at all gateways of the Body shines
The Lamp of Knowledge, then may one see well
Soothfastness settled in that city reigns;
Where longing is, and ardor, and unrest,
Impulse to strive and gain, and avarice,
Those spring from Passion-Prince !-engrained; and where
Darkness and dulness, sloth and stupor are,
'Tis Ignorance hath caused them, Kuru Chief!
Moreover, when a soul departeth, fixed
In Soothfastness, it goeth to the place-
Perfect and pure-of those that know all Truth
If it departeth in set hebetude
Of impulse, it shall go into the world
Of spirits tied to works; and, if it dies
In hardened Ignorance, that blinded soul
Is born anew in some unlighted womb.
The fruit of Soothfastness is true and sweet;
The fruit of lusts is pain and toil; the fruit
Of Ignorance is deeper darkness. Yea!
For Light brings light, and Passion ache to have.
Blindness, bewilderments, and ignorance
Grow forth from Ignorance. Those of the first
Rise ever higher; those of the second mode
Take a mid place; the darkened souls sink back
To lower deeps, loaded with witlessness!
When, watching life, the living man perceives
The only actors are the Qualities,
And knows what lives beyond the Qualities,
Then is he come nigh unto Me!
Thus passing forth from the Three Qualities-
Whereof arise all bodies-overcomes
Birth, Death, Sorrow, and Age; and drinketh deep
The undying wine of Amrit.
Which be the signs to know him that hath gone Past the Three Modes? How liveth he? What way Leadeth him safe beyond the threefold modes?
He who with equanimity surveys
Lustre of goodness, strife of passion, sloth
Of ignorance, not angry if they are,
Not angry when they are not: he who sits
A sojourner and stranger in their midst
Unruffled, standing off, saying-serene
When troubles break, "These are the Qualities!"
He unto whom-self-centred grief and joy
Sound as one word; to whose deep-seeing eyes
The clod, the marble, and the gold are one;
Whose equal heart holds the same gentleness
For lovely and unlovely things, firm-set,
Well-pleased in praise and dispraise; satisfied
With honor or dishonor; unto friends
And unto fôés alike in tolerance,
Detached from undertakings, he is named
Surmounter of the Qualities!
With single, fervent faith adoring Me,
Passing beyond the Qualities, conforms
To Brahma, and attains Me!
That whereof Brahma is the likeness! Mine
The Amrit is; and Immortality
Is mine; and mine perfect Felicity!
Here ends Chapter XIV. of the Bhagavad-Gîtâ, entitled "Gunatrayavibhagayôgô," or "The Book of Religion by Separation
MEN call the Aswattha,-the Banyan-tree,-
Which hath its boughs beneath, its roots on high,-
The ever-holy tree. Yea! for its leaves
Are green and waving hymns which whisper Truth!
Who knoweth well the Aswattha, knows all.
Its branches shoot to heaven and sink to earth,1
Even as the deeds of men, which take their birth
From qualities: its silver sprays and blooms,
And all the eager verdure of its girth,
Leap to quick life at touch of sun and air,
As men's lives quicken to the temptings fair
Of wooing sense: its hanging rootlets seek
The soil beneath, helping to hold it there,
As actions wrought amid this world of men
Bind them by ever-tightening bonds again.
If ye knew well the teaching of the Tree,
What its shape saith; and whence it springs; and,
then
How it must end, and all the ills of it,
The axe of sharp Detachment ye would whet,
And cleave the clinging snaky roots, and lay
This Aswattha of sense-like low,-to set
New growths upspringing to that happier sky,—
Which they who reach shall have no day to die,
Nor fade away, nor fall-to Him, I mean,
FATHER and FIRST, Who made the mystery
1 I do not consider these verses-which are somewhat freely rendered here" an attack on the authority of the Vedas," but a beautiful lyrical episode, a new "Parable of the fig-tree."
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