Indian stream·Bhagavad Gita·Discourse 2: The Yoga of Knowledge (Sankhya Yoga)

Source context

Theme

collapse of inherited will at the threshold of self-conscious action; Arjuna's grief as the entry-point for Sankhya discrimination between the perishable body and the imperishable Self

Soul-faculty

Intellectual Soul — discriminative reason (buddhi) as the faculty that distinguishes eternal from transient

Steiner

• GA 142, 1912-12-28Steiner identifies the Bhagavad Gita as the harmonious interpenetration of the three great spiritual streams of Indian thought — Vedic-philosophical, devotional, and yogic — which together form the doctrinal foundation from which Krishna's instruction to Arjuna proceeds.
• GA 146, 1913-06-05Steiner treats the gunas (sattwa, rajas, tamas) — first systematically presented in Discourse 2's Sankhya framework — as the triple principle through which Krishna leads the soul toward self-consciousness, distinguishing the Bhagavad Gita age's passive ascent to Brahma from the active path required in the present intellectual age.

Cross-tradition

• Classical Sankhya (Kapila)The Discourse 2 enumeration of purusha (pure witness-self) and prakriti (the field of nature) shows cross-tradition congruence with classical Sankhya metaphysics, where discrimination between the two principles is the formal means of liberation.
• Stoic philosophy (Logos / hegemonikon)Krishna's injunction to act without attachment to fruit shows cross-tradition congruence with the Stoic principle that the hegemonikon governs action through rational assent independent of external outcome.
• Neoplatonism (Plotinus, Enneads I.4)The Sankhya distinction between the unaffected atman and the suffering empirical person shows cross-tradition congruence with Plotinus's teaching that the higher soul remains untouched by the passions of the composite being.

Discourse 2: The Yoga of Knowledge (Sankhya Yoga)

2:1Sanjaya said: To him thus with pity overcome, with smarting brimming eyes,
despondent, Madhusŭdana spake these words:

2:2The Blessed Lord said: Whence hath this dejection befallen thee in this perilous
strait, ignoble, heaven-closing, infamous, O Arjuna?

2:3Yield not to impotence, O Partha! it doth not befit thee. Shake off this paltry
faint-heartedness! Stand up, Parantapa!

2:4Arjuna said: How, O Madhusŭdana, shall I attack Bhishma and Drona with
arrows in battle, they who are worthy of reverence, O slayer of foes?

2:5Better in this world to eat even the beggar's crust than to slay these most noble
Gurus. Slaying these Gurus, our well-wishers, I should taste of blood-besprinkled feasts.

2:6Nor know I which for us be the better, that we conquer them or they conquer us
—these, whom having slain we should not care to live, even these arrayed against us, the sons of Dhritarashtra.

2:7My heart is weighed down with the vice of faintness; my mind is confused as to
duty. I ask thee which may be the better that tell me decisively. I am thy disciple, suppliant to Thee; teach me.

2:8For I see not that it would drive away this anguish that withers up my senses, if I
should attain unrivalled monarchy on earth, or even the sovereignty of the Shining Ones.

2:9Sanjaya said: Gudakesha, conqueror of his foes, having thus addressed
Hrishikesha, and said to Govinda, "I will not fight!" became silent.

2:10Then Hrishikesha, smiling, as it were, O Bharata, spake these words to him,
despondent, in the midst of the two armies:

2:11The Blessed Lord said: Thou grievest for those that should not be grieved for,
yet speakest words of wisdom. The wise grieve neither for the living nor for the dead.

2:12Nor at any time verily was I not, nor thou, nor these princes of men, nor verily
shall we ever cease to be, hereafter.

2:13As the dweller in the body experienceth in the body childhood, youth, old age,
so passeth he on to another body; the steadfast one grieveth not thereat.

2:14The contacts of matter, O son of Kunti, giving cold and heat, pleasure and pain,
they come and go, impermanent endure them bravely, O Bharata.

2:15The man whom these torment not, O chief of men, balanced in pain and
pleasure, steadfast, he is fitted for immortality.

2:16The unreal hath no being; the real never ceaseth to be the truth about both hath
been perceived by the seers of the essence of things.

2:17Know THAT to be indestructible by whom all this is pervaded. Nor can any
work the destruction of that imperishable One.

2:18These bodies of the embodied One, who is eternal, indestructible and
immeasurable, are known as finite. Therefore fight, O Bharata.

2:19He who regardeth this as a slayer, and he who thinketh he is slain, both of them
are ignorant. He slayeth not, nor is he slain.

2:20He is not born, nor doth he die; nor having been, ceaseth he any more to be;
unborn, perpetual, eternal and ancient, he is not slain when the body is slaughtered.

2:21Who knoweth him indestructible, perpetual, unborn, undiminishing, how can
that man slay, O Partha, or cause to be slain?

2:22As a man, casting off worn-out garments, taketh new ones, so the dweller in the
body, casting off worn-out bodies, entereth into others new.

2:23Weapons cleave him not, nor fire burneth him, nor waters wet him, nor wind
drieth him away.

2:24Uncleavable he, incombustible he, and indeed neither to be wetted nor dried
away; perpetual, all-pervasive, stable, immovable, ancient,

2:25Unmanifest, unthinkable, immutable, he is called; therefore knowing him as
such, thou shouldst not grieve.

2:26Or if thou thinkest of him as constantly being born and constantly dying, even
then, O mighty-armed, thou shouldst not grieve.

2:27For certain is death for the born, and certain birth for the dead; therefore over
the inevitable thou shouldst not grieve.

2:28Beings are unmanifest in their origin, manifest in their midmost state, O
Bharata, unmanifest likewise are they in dissolution. What room then for lamentation?

2:29As marvellous one regardeth him; as marvellous another speaketh thereof; as
marvellous another heareth thereof; yet having heard none indeed understandeth.

2:30This dweller in the body of everyone is ever invulnerable, O Bharata; therefore
thou shouldst not grieve for any creature.

2:31Further, looking to thine own duty thou shouldst not tremble; for there is
nothing more welcome to a Kshattriya than righteous war.

2:32Happy the Kshattriyas, O Partha, who obtain such a fight, offered unsought as
an open door to heaven.

2:33But if thou wilt not carry on this righteous warfare, then casting away thine own
duty and thine honour, thou wilt incur sin.

2:34Men will recount thy perpetual dishonour, and, to one highly esteemed,
dishonour exceedeth death.

2:35The great car-warriors will think thee fled from the battle from fear, and thou,
that wast highly thought of by them, wilt be lightly held.

2:36Many unseemly words will be spoken by thine enemies, slandering thy strength;
what more painful than that?

2:37Slain, thou wilt obtain heaven; victorious, thou wilt enjoy the earth; therefore
stand up, O son of Kunti, resolute to fight.

2:38Taking as equal pleasure and pain, gain and loss, victory and defeat, gird thee
for the battle; thus thou shalt not incur sin.

2:39This teaching set forth to thee is in accordance with the Sankhya; hear it now
according to the Yoga, imbued with which teaching, O Partha, thou shalt cast away the bonds of action.

2:40In this there is no loss of effort, nor is there transgression. Even a little of this
knowledge protects from great fear.

2:41The determinate Reason is but one-pointed, O joy of the Kurus; many-branched
and endless are the thoughts of the irresolute. Verses 2:42-2:44: Flowery speech is uttered by the foolish, rejoicing in the letter of the Vedas, O Partha, saying: "There is naught but this"; With desire for self, with heaven for goal, they offer birth as the fruit of action, and prescribe many and various ceremonies for the attainment of pleasure and lordship. For them who cling to pleasure and lordship, whose minds are captivated by such teaching, is not designed this determinate Reason, on contemplation steadily bent.

2:45The Vedas deal with the three attributes; be thou above these three attributes, O
Arjuna; beyond the pairs of opposites, ever steadfast in purity, careless of possessions, full of the SELF.

2:46All the Vedas are as useful to an enlightened Brahmana as is a tank in a place
covered all over with water.

2:47Thy business is with the action only, never with its fruits; so let not the fruit of
action be thy motive, nor be thou to inaction attached.

2:48Perform action, O Dhananjaya, dwelling in union with the divine, renouncing
attachments and balanced evenly in success and failure: equilibrium is called yoga.

2:49Far lower than the Yoga of Discrimination is action, O Dhananjaya. Take thou
refuge in the Pure Reason; pitiable are they who work for fruit.

2:50United to the Pure Reason one abandoneth here both good and evil deeds;
therefore cleave thou to yoga; yoga is skill in action.

2:51The Sages, united to the Pure Reason, renounce the fruit which action yieldeth,
and, liberated from the bonds of birth, they go to the blissful seat.

2:52When thy mind shall escape from this tangle of delusion, then thou shalt rise to
indifference as to what has been heard and shall be heard.

2:53When thy mind, bewildered by the Scriptures, shall stand immovable, fixed in
contemplation, then shalt thou attain unto yoga.

2:54Arjuna said: What the mark, of him who is stable of mind, steadfast in
contemplation, O Keshava? how doth the stable-minded talk, how doth he sit, how walk?

2:55The Blessed Lord said: When a man abandoneth, O Partha, all the desires of the
heart, and is satisfied in the SELF by the SELF, then is he called stable in mind.

2:56He whose mind is free from anxiety amid pains, indifferent amid pleasures,
loosed from passion, fear and anger, is called a sage of stable mind.

2:57He who on every side is without attachments, whatever hap of fair and foul,
who neither likes nor dislikes, of such a one the understanding is well poised.

2:58When, again, as a tortoise draws in on all sides its limbs, he withdraws his
senses from the objects of sense, then is his understanding well poised.

2:59The objects of sense, but not the relish for them, turn away from an abstemious
dweller in the body; and even relish turneth away from him after the Supreme is seen.

2:60O son of Kunti, the excited senses of even a wise man, though he be striving,
impetuously carry away his mind.

2:61Having restrained them all, he should sit harmonised, I his supreme goal; for
whose senses are mastered, of him the understanding this well poised.

2:62Man, musing on the objects of sense, conceiveth an attachment to these; from
attachment ariseth desire; from desire anger cometh forth;

2:63From anger proceedeth delusion; from delusion confused memory; from
confused memory the destruction of Reason; from destruction of Reason he perishes.

2:64But the disciplined self, moving among sense-objects with senses free from
attend on and repulsion, mastered by the SELF, goeth to peace.

2:65In that Peace the extinction of all pains ariseth for him, for of him whose heart
is peaceful the Reason soon attaineth equilibrium.

2:66There is no Pure Reason for the non-harmonised, nor for the non-harmonised is
there concentration; for him without concentration there is no peace, and for the unpeaceful how can there be happiness?

2:67Such of the roving senses as the mind yieldeth to, that hurries away the
understanding, just as the gale hurries away a ship upon the waters.

2:68Therefore, O mighty-armed, whose senses are all completely restrained from the
objects of sense, of him the understanding is well poised.

2:69That which is the night of all beings, for the disciplined man is the time of
waking; when other beings are waking, then is it night for the sage who seeth.

2:70He attaineth Peace, into whom all desires flow as rivers flow into the ocean,
which is filled with water, but remaineth unmoved-not he who desireth desires.

2:71Whoso forsaketh all desires and goeth onwards free from yearnings, selfless and
without egoism- he goeth to Peace.

2:72This is the ETERNAL state, O son of Pritha. Having attained thereto none is
bewildered. Who, even at the death-hour, is established therein, he goeth to the Nirvana of the ETERNAL.

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