GLOSSARY (Proper names are given in capitals, words with English terminations in italics.) abhayam—fearlessness. abhyasa—Yogic practice. acharya—teacher. ahankara—the ego-sense, egoism. ahinsa—non-violence. akarta—a non-doer. Akshara—the immobile, the immutable. ananda—spiritual delight, the bliss of the Spirit. anisha—not lord, not master of but subject to the nature. anumanta—giver of sanction. apana—the incoming breath. artha—self-interest. Asura—a hostile being of the mental world. Asuric—relating to, of the nature of the Asuras. Atman—the Self or Spirit. avatara—descent or incarnat

INTRODUCTION It may be useful in approaching an ancient Scripture, such as the Veda, Upanishads or Gita to indicate precisely the spirit in which we approach it and what exactly we think we may derive from it that is of value to humanity and its future. First of all, there is undoubtedly a Truth one and eternal which we are seeking, from which all other truth derives, by the light of which all other truth finds its right place, explanation and relation to the scheme of knowledge. But precisely for that reason it cannot be shut up in a single trenchant formula, it is not likely to be found in its entirety or in all its bearings in any single philosophy or scripture or

EIGHTEENTH CHAPTER THE GUNAS, MIND AND WORKS 1.. Arjuna said: I desire, 0 mighty-armed, to know the principle of Sannyasa and the principle of Tyaga, 0 Hrishikesha, and their difference,1 0 Keshinisudana. 2. The Blessed Lord said: Sages have known as Sannyasa2 the physical depositing (or laying aside) of desirable actions; Tyaga is the name given by the wise to an entire abandonment of all attached clinging to the fruit of works. ____________________________________________ 1 The last question of Arjuna demands a clear distinction between the outer and inner renunc

FIFTEENTH CHAPTER THE THREE PURUSHAS 1.. The Blessed Lord said: With its original source above (in the Eternal), its branches stretching below, the Ashwattha1 is said to be eternal and imperishable; the leaves of it are the hymns of the Veda; he who knows it is the Veda-knower.2 _____________________________________________ 1 Here is a description of cosmic existence in the Vedantic image of the Ashwattha tree. 2 The knowledge the Veda gives us is a knowledge of the gods, of the principles and powers of the cosmos, and its fruits are the fruits of a sacrifice which is offered with desire, fruits of enjoyment and lo

THIRD CHAPTER 1. WORKS AND SACRIFICE Arjuna said: If thou holdest the intelligence to be greater1 than works, O Janardana, why then dost thou, O Keshava, appoint me to a terrible work ? Thou seemest to be bewilder my intelligence with a confused and mingled speech; tell me then decisively that one thing by which I may attain to my soul's weal. ________________________________________________ 1. The Yoga of the intelligent will and its culmination in the Brahmic status, which occupies all the close of the second chapter, contains the seed of much of the teaching

FIRST CHAPTER KURUKSHETRA 1. Dhritarashtra1 said: _On the field of Kurukshetra, the field of the working out of the Dharma 2, gathered together, eager for battle, what did they, O Sanjaya.my people and the Pandavas? _________________________________________________ 1. THE peculiarity of the Gita among the great religious books of the world is that it does not stand apart as a work by itself, the fruit of the spiritual life of a creative personality like Christ, Mahomed or Buddha or of an epoch of pure spiritual searching like the Veda and Upanishads, but is given as an episode in an epic history of nations and their wars and men and the

APPENDIX I THE STORY OF THE GITA The Mahabhatata, of which the Gita is a part, took its present form from the fifth to the first centuries B. C. The Gita occurs in it as one portion of the Bhishma Parva. "Mahabharata" means literally "great India"; it is an epic narrative of the ancient Indians who saw the vision of a great India, one in culture and unified in political life, stretching from the Himalayas to Cape Commorin. Kuru is the name of a leading Kula or clan of that time, and Kurukshetra was a vast field near their capital Hastinapur (modern Delhi) where the Kurus used to perform their religious sacrifices. When Dhritarashtra the blind

EIGHTH CHAPTER THE SUPREME DIVINE (In the last two slokas of the seventh chapter we have certain expressions which give us in their brief sum the chief essential truths of the manifestation of the supreme Divine in the cosmos. All the originative and effective aspects of it are there, all that concerns the soul in its return to integral self-knowledge. First, there is that Brahman, tad brahma; adhyatma, second, the principle of the self in nature; adhibhutao and adhidaiva next, the objective phenomenon and subjective phenomenon of being; adhiyajna last, the secret of the cosmic principle of works and sacrifice. I, the Purushottama (maw viduh}, says in

TENTH CHAPTER I. THE SUPREME WORD OF THE GITA The Blessed Lord said: Again,1 0 mighty- armed, hearken to my supreme word, that I will speak to thee from my will for thy soul's good, now that thy heart is taking delight 2 in me Neither the gods nor the great Rishis know any birth 3 of Me, for I am altogether and in every way the origin 4 of the gods 5 and the great Rishis. __________________________________________ 1 The divine Avatar declares, in a brief reiteration of the upshot of all that he has been saying, that this and no other is his supreme word which he had promised to reveal. 2 Th

THIRD CHAPTER II. THE DETERMINISM OF NATURE The passages in which the Gita lays stress on the subjection of the ego-soul to Nature, have by some been understood as the enunciation of an absolute and a mechanical determinism which leaves no room for any freedom within the cosmic existence. Certainly, the language it uses is emphatic and seems very absolute. But we must take, here as elsewhere, the thought of the Gita as a whole and not force its affirmations in their solitary sense quite detached from each other. We have always to keep in mind the two great doctrines which stand behind all the Gita's teachi