GitaduniaBhagavad Gita Quotes
A quiet line to sit with - search, switch between English and Hindi, and copy the ones that stay with you.
100 quotes
You have a right to perform your prescribed duties, but you are not entitled to the fruits of your actions. Never consider yourself the cause of the results, nor be attached to inaction.
Meaning
Do your duty with full sincerity, and let go of anxiety over the outcome - that release from attachment is real freedom.
The soul is never born, nor does it ever die; nor, having come into being, will it ever cease to be. It is unborn, eternal, ever-existing, and primeval. It is not slain when the body is slain.
Meaning
The body changes and passes away, but the soul within is never born and never dies - so there is nothing in death to truly fear.
O son of Kunti, the contact of the senses with sense objects gives rise to fleeting perceptions of heat and cold, pleasure and pain. These are impermanent, appearing and disappearing; learn to tolerate them, O Bharata.
Meaning
Pleasure and pain, heat and cold, are temporary sensations that pass like the seasons - meet them with steady patience.
Perform your duty established in yoga, O Dhananjaya, abandoning attachment, and remaining equal-minded in success and failure. Such equanimity is called yoga.
Meaning
True yoga is evenness of mind - acting wholeheartedly while staying calm through both success and failure.
Death is certain for one who is born, and rebirth is certain for one who dies. Therefore, over this unavoidable matter, you should not grieve.
Meaning
Birth makes death certain, and death makes rebirth certain - grieving over what cannot be changed brings no peace.
When a person dwells on sense objects, attachment to them develops; from attachment arises desire, and from desire arises anger.
Meaning
Dwelling on desirable things quietly creates attachment, and attachment is where craving begins - notice the first step before it grows.
From anger arises delusion; from delusion, confusion of memory; from confused memory, the ruin of intellect; and from the ruin of intellect, one is utterly lost.
Meaning
Anger clouds judgment, corrupts memory, and destroys the intellect in turn - watch the mind before it starts to unravel.
Therefore, always perform your prescribed duty without attachment; for by performing action without attachment, a person attains the Supreme.
Meaning
Act without clinging to the result - that quality of unattached action is itself the path to the highest good.
Better is one's own duty, though imperfectly performed, than the duty of another well performed. Death while doing one's own duty is preferable, for pursuing another's duty is fraught with danger.
Meaning
It's better to walk your own imperfect path with sincerity than to imitate someone else's, however well it seems to work for them.