Ch. 18: मोक्षसंन्यासयोग - Mokṣasaṃnyāsayoga - The Perfection of Renunciation
- Verse 18.1
Arjuna said: O great armed one, I wish to learn the truth of renunciation and abandonment separately, O bright haired one, killer of the Keshi demon.
- Verse 18.2
The Blessed One said: The seers say saṃnyāsa is the renunciation of acts of desire. The clear eyed call the abandonment of all fruits of action tyāga.
- Verse 18.3
Some learned men say action is to be abandoned as evil. Others say that worship, charity, and austerity are not to be abandoned.
- Verse 18.4
O best of Bharatas, hear My conclusion about abandonment . O tiger among men, abandonment is designated to be threefold.
- Verse 18.5
Actions of austerity, worship, and charity are not to be abandoned. Indeed that is to be done. Worship, charity, and austerity are purifying for the wise.
- Verse 18.6
Certainly these actions are to be done without attachment and expectation of result.
This is My supreme opinion O son of Pṛtha.
- Verse 18.7
But renunciation of prescribed action is not proper. Such delusional renunciation
is declared to be in the mode of ignorance.
- Verse 18.8
He who should abandon work which is sorrowful or from fear of bodily suffering
has performed abandonment in the mode of passion. He will not attain the fruit
of renunciation.
- Verse 18.9
When action which is done because it must be done and is a duty, Arjuna, and
when attachment and the fruit of action has been abandoned, such renunciation
is considered to be in the mode of goodness.
- Verse 18.10
The wise renouncer who neither hates the inauspicious nor is attached to the auspicious
is filled with goodness.
- Verse 18.11
Certainly an embodied being cannot abandon action entirely.
He who abandons the fruit of action however is called a man of renunciation.
- Verse 18.12
For those who do not abandon, the fruits of action are of three kinds -
undesired, desired, and mixed - after death. For the renouncers however, there
are none whatsoever.
- Verse 18.13
O mighty armed one, learn from me the five causes that have been declared in
the conclusion of Sāṃkhya for the accomplishment of all actions.
- Verse 18.14
The body, the doer, the senses of various kinds, the various separate activities, with
the Divine indeed as the fifth.
- Verse 18.15
Whatever action man begins with body, voice, and thoughts - either proper or wrong -
these are its five factors.
- Verse 18.16
This being so, he who only sees the self as the doer sees from incomplete
intelligence. He does not truly see, the fool.
- Verse 18.17
He whose state is not egotistic and whose intellect is untainted, having slain
these people does not slay and he is not bound by his actions.
- Verse 18.18
Threefold is the impetus of action: knowledge, the object of knowledge, and the knower.
Threefold are the factors of action: the instrument, the action, and the doer.
- Verse 18.19
It is declared in Saṃkhyā that knowledge, action, and the doer are of
three kinds distinguished by their qualities. Duly hear these also.
- Verse 18.20
Know that knowledge, by which one sees the imperishable and undivided being among the
divided, to be in the mode of goodness.
- Verse 18.21
But the knowledge which knows many separate beings of separate types in all
living entities, know that knowledge to be in the mode of passion.