BG 2.1: Sañjaya said: To him, who was thus overcome with pity, whose eyes were wet with tears, who was sorrow-stricken and who bore a bewildered look Shri Krishna spoke as follows:

BG 2.2: The Lord said: Whence comes on you this despondency, O Arjuna, in this crisis? It is unfit for a noble person. It is disgraceful and it obstructs one’s attainment of heaven.

BG 2.3: Yield not to unmanliness, O Arjuna, it does not become you. Shake off this base faint-heartedness and arise, O scorcher of foes!

BG 2.4: Arjuna said: How can I, O slayer of foes, aim arrows in battle against Bhishma and Drona who are worthy of reverence?

BG 2.5: It is better even to live on a beggar’s fare in this world than to slay these most venerable teachers. If I should slay my teachers, though degraded they be by desire for wealth, I would be enjoying only blood-stained pleasures here.

BG 2.6: We do not know, which of the two is better for us—whether our vanquishing them, or their vanquishing us. The very sons of Dhrtarashtra, whom, if we slay, we should not wish to live, even they are standing in array against us.

BG 2.7: With my heart stricken by the fault of weak compassion, with my mind perplexed about my duty, I request you to say for certain what is good for me. I am your disciple. Teach me who have taken refuge in you.

BG 2.8: Even if I should win unchallenged sovereignty of a prosperous earth or even the kingdom on lordship over the Devas, I do not feel that it would dispel the grief that withers up my senses.

BG 2.9: Sañjaya said: Having spoken thus to Shri Krishna, Arjuna, the conqueror of sleep and the scorcher of foes, said, ‘I will not fight’ and became silent.

BG 2.10: O King, to him who was thus sorrowing between the two armies, Shri Krishna spoke the following words, as if smiling (by way of ridicule).

BG 2.11: The Lord said: You grieve for those who should not be grieved for; yet you speak words of wisdom. The wise grieve neither for the dead nor for the living.

BG 2.12: There never was a time when I did not exist, nor you, nor any of these kings of men. Nor will there be any time in future when all of us shall cease to be.

BG 2.13: Just as the self associated with a body passes through childhood, youth and old age (pertaining to that body), so too (at death) It passes into another body. A wise man is not deluded by that.

BG 2.14: The contact of senses with their objects, O Arjuna, gives rise to feelings of cold and heat, pleasure and pain. They come and go, never lasting long. Endure them, O Arjuna.

BG 2.15: For, he whom these do not affect, O chief of men, and to whom pain and pleasure are the same—that steadfast man alone is worthy of immortality.

BG 2.16: The unreal can never come into being, the real never ceases to be. The conclusion about these two is seen by the seers of truth.

BG 2.17: Know That to be indestructible by which all this is pervaded. None can cause the destruction of This Immutable.

BG 2.18: These bodies of the Jiva (the embodied self) are said to have an end while the Jiva itself is eternal, indestructible and incomprehensible. Therefore, fight O Bharata (Arjuna).

BG 2.19: He who deems It (the self) a slayer, and he who thinks of It as slain—both are ignorant. For, the self neither slays nor is slain.

BG 2.20: It (the self) is never born; It never dies; having come into being once, It never ceases to be. Unborn, eternal, abiding and primeval, It is not slain when the body is slain.

BG 2.21: He who knows this (self) to be indestructible, unborn, unchanging and hence eternal—how and whom, O Arjuna, does he cause to be killed, and whom does he kill?

BG 2.22: As a man casts off worn-out garments and puts on others that are new, so does the embodied self cast off Its worn-out bodies and enter into others that are new.

BG 2.23: Weapons do not cleave It (the self), fire does not burn It, waters do not wet It, and wind does not dry It.

BG 2.24: It cannot be cleft; It cannot be burnt; It cannot be wetted and It cannot be dried It is eternal, all-pervading, stable, immovable and primeval.

BG 2.25: This (self) is said to be unmanifest, inconceivable and unchanging. Therefore, knowing It thus, it does not befit you to grieve.

BG 2.26: Or if you hold this self as being constantly born and as constantly dying, even then, O mighty-armed one, it does not become you to feel grief.

BG 2.27: For, death is certain for the born, and re-birth is certain for the dead; therefore you should not feel grief for what is inevitable.

BG 2.28: O Arjuna, beings have an unknown beginning, a known middle and an unknown end. What is there to grieve over in all this?

BG 2.29: One looks upon This (self) as a wonder; likewise another speaks of It as a wonder; still another hears of It as a wonder; and even after hearing of It, one knows It not.

BG 2.30: The self in the body, O Arjuna, is eternal and indestructible. This is so in the case of the selves in all bodies. Therefore, it is not fit for you to feel grief for any being.

BG 2.31: Further, considering also your own duty, it does not befit you to waver. For, to a Kshatriya, there is no greater good than a righteous war.

BG 2.32: Happy are the Kshatriyas, O Arjuna, to whom a war like this comes of its own accord; it opens the gate to heaven.

BG 2.33: But if you do not fight this righteous war, you will be turning away from your duty and honoured position, and will be incurring sin.

BG 2.34: Further, people will speak ill of you for all time, and for one accustomed to be honoured, dishonour is worse than death.

BG 2.35: The great warriors will think that you have fled from battle in fear. These men who held you in high esteem will speak lightly of you now.

BG 2.36: Your enemies, slandering your prowess, will use words which should never be uttered. What could be more painful than that?

BG 2.37: If slain, you shall win heaven; or if victorious, you shall enjoy the earth. Therefore, arise, O Arjuna, resolve to fight.

BG 2.38: Holding pleasure and pain, gain and loss, victory and defeat as alike, gird yourself up for the battle. Thus, you shall not incur any sin.

BG 2.39: This Buddhi concerning the self (Sankhya) has been imparted to you. Now listen to this with regard to Yoga, by following which you will get rid of the bondage of Karma.

BG 2.40: Here, there is no loss of effort, nor any accrual of evil. Even a little of this Dharma (called Karma Yoga) protects a man from the great fear.

BG 2.41: In this (Karma Yoga), O Arjuna, the resolute mind is one-pointed; the minds of the irresolute are many-branched and endless.

BG 2.42-44: O! Partha, the unwise, who rejoice in the letter of the Vedas, say, ‘There is nothing else.’ They are full only of worldly desires and they hanker for heaven. They speak flowery words which offer rebirth as the fruit of work. They look upon the Vedas as consisting entirely of varied rites for the attainment of pleasure and power. Those who cling so to pleasure and power are attracted by that speech (offering heavenly rewards) and are unable to develop the resolute will of a concentrated mind.

BG 2.45: The Vedas have the three Gunas for their sphere, O Arjuna. You must be free from the three Gunas and be free from the pairs of opposites. Abide in pure Sattva; never care to acquire things and to protect what has been acquired, but be established in the self.

BG 2.46: What use a thirsty person has for a water reservoir when all sides of it are flooded—that much alone is the use of all the Vedas for a Brahmana who knows.

BG 2.47: To work alone you have the right, and not to the fruits. Do not be impelled by the fruits of work. Nor have attachment to inaction.

BG 2.48: Abandoning attachment and established in Yoga, perform works, viewing success and failure with an even mind. Evenness of mind is said to be Yoga.

BG 2.49: Action with attachment is far inferior, O Arjuna, to action done with evenness of mind. Seek refuge in evenness of mind. Miserable are they who act with a motive for results.

BG 2.50: A man with evenness of mind discards here and now good and evil. Therefore endeavour for Yoga. Yoga is skill in action.

BG 2.51: The wise who possess evenness of mind, relinquishing the fruits born of action, are freed from the bondage of rebirth, and go to the region beyond all ills.

BG 2.52: When your intellect has passed beyond the tangle of delusion, you will yourself feel disgusted regarding what you shall hear and what you have already heard.

BG 2.53: When your intellect, well enlightened by hearing from Me and firmly placed, stands unshaken in a concentrated mind, then you will attain the vision of the self.

BG 2.54: Arjuna said: What is the mode of speech of him who is of firm wisdom, who is established in the control of the mind? What will a man of firm wisdom speak, O Krishna? How does he sit? How does he move?

BG 2.55: The Lord said: When a man renounces all the desires of the mind, O Arjuna, when he is satisfied in himself with himself, then he is said to be of firm wisdom.

BG 2.56: He whose mind is not perturbed in pain, who has no longing for pleasures, who is free from desire, fear and anger—he is called a sage of firm wisdom.

BG 2.57: He who has no love on any side, who, when he finds good or evil, neither rejoices nor hates—his wisdom is firmly set.

BG 2.58: When one is able to draw his senses from the objects of sense on every side, as a tortoise draws in its limbs, then his wisdom is firmly set.

BG 2.59: The objects of senses, excepting relish for the objects, turn away from the abstinent dweller in the body. Even the relish turns away from him when what is supreme over the senses i.e., the self, is seen.

BG 2.60: The turbulent senses, O Arjuna, do carry away perforce the mind of even a wise man, though he is ever striving.

BG 2.61: Having controlled all the senses, let him remain in contemplation, regarding Me as supreme; for, his knowledge is firmly set whose senses are under control.

BG 2.62: To a man thinking about sense-objects, there arises attachment to them; from attachment arises desire, from desire arises anger;

BG 2.63: From anger there comes delusion; from delusion, the loss of memory; from the loss of memory, the destruction of discrimination; and with the destruction of discrimination, he is lost.

BG 2.64: But he who goes through the sense-objects with the senses free from love and hate, disciplined and controlled, attains serenity.

BG 2.65: In that serenity there is loss of all sorrow; for in the case of the person with a serene mind, the Buddhi soon becomes well established.

BG 2.66: There is no Buddhi for the unintegrated, nor for him is there contemplation of the self, and for him without contemplation of the self, there is no peace; and for one lacking peace, where is happiness?

BG 2.67: For, when the mind follows the senses experiencing their objects, his understanding is carried away by them as the wind carries away a ship on the waters.

BG 2.68: Therefore, O mighty-armed, he whose senses are restrained from going after their objects on all sides, his wisdom is firmly set.

BG 2.69: What is night for all beings, in it the controlled one is awake; when all beings are awake, that is the night to the sage who sees.

BG 2.70: He into whom all desires enter as the waters enter the full and undisturbed sea, attains to peace, and not he who longs after objects of desire.

BG 2.71: The man who, abandoning all desires, abides without longing and possession and the sense of ‘I’ and ‘mine’, wins peace.

BG 2.72: This is the Brahmi-state, O Arjuna. None attaining to this is deluded. By abiding in this state even at the hour of death, one wins the self.