ARJUNA:

Tell me of those who live in wisdom, Ever aware of the Self, O Krishna;

How do they talk, how sit, how move about?

SRI KRISHNA:

They live in wisdom

Who see themselves in all and all in them, Whose love for the Lord of Love has consumed Every selfish desire and sense craving Tormenting the heart. Not agitated By grief or hankering after pleasure, They live free from lust and fear and anger.

Fettered no more by selfish attachments, They are not elated by good fortune Nor depressed by bad. Such are the seers.

Even as a tortoise draws in its limbs, The wise can draw in their senses at will.

Aspirants abstain from sense pleasures, But they still crave for them. These cravings all Disappear when they see the Lord of Love.

For even of those who tread the path, The stormy senses can sweep off the mind.

But they live in wisdom who subdue them And keep their minds ever absorbed in me.

When you keep thinking about sense objects, Attachment comes. Attachment breeds desire, The lust of possession which, when thwarted, Burns to anger. Anger clouds the judgment And robs you of the power to learn from Past mistakes. Lost is the discriminative Faculty, and your life is utter waste.

But when you move amidst the world of sense From both attachment and aversion freed,

There comes the peace in which all sorrows end, And you live in the wisdom of the Self.

The disunited mind is far from wise;

How can it meditate? How be at peace?

When you know no peace, how can you know joy?

When you let your mind follow the Siren Call of the senses, they carry away Your better judgment as a cyclone drives A boat off the charted course to its doom.

Use your mighty arms to free the senses From attachment and aversion alike

And live in the full wisdom of the Self.

Such a sage awakes to light in the night Of all creatures. In which they are awake Is the night of ignorance to the sage.

As the rivers flow into the ocean

But cannot make the vast ocean overflow, So flow the magic streams of the sense world Into the sea of peace that is the sage.

They are forever free who have broken out Of the ego-cage of I and mine To be united with the Lord of Love.

This is the supreme state. Attain to this And pass from death to immortality.

CHAPTER 2:54-72