Bhagavad Gita – Chapter 3 – Karma Yoga

Main Points of the Discourse:

1. Proving that detached performance of prescribed duties is the best way of life. (1-8)
2. Showing that work done without desire to enjoy the fruits is Yoga, and the need for Yajna in the world. (9-16)
3. Stating that the sage of knowledge and God work for the good of humanity and the creation. (17-24)
4. Differentiating the wise and the ignorant, and exhorting men to work free from attachments and revulsion. (25-35)
5. Describing Kama and Krodha, and pointing out the way to conquer them. (36-43)

Verses 1 to 43

• Arjuna said: O Krishna! If your belief is that knowledge is superior to action, then why do you engage me in this dreadful act of battle? (3.1)
• With these apparently contradictory words, You seem to confuse my understanding. Therefore tell me definitely that one thing by which I shall reach the Highest Goal. (3.2)
• The Blessed Lord said: O sinless Arjuna! In ancient times two paths of spiritual description were spoken by me – the Jnana yoga for the followers of the path of knowledge, and Karma yoga for the followers of the path of action. (3.3)
• Man does not match the actionless state of Brahman by mere non-performance of work, nor does he attain perfection by renunciation only. (3.4)
• No one can live even for a moment without doing work. Everyone without his will is made to do work by the qualities born of Prakriti. (3.5)
• The man of deluded understanding who restraining the organs of the action sits contemplating the sense objects with the mind is called a hypocrite. (3.6)
• But, O Arjuna! he who controls the senses with the mind, and commences the discipline of Karma yoga by his organs of action without attachment, is the best. (3.7)
• Doing the work prescribed by the Sastras is superior to inaction. By inaction, even maintenance of the body for you would not be possible (3.8)
• O Arjuna! Works other than those performed for the sake of sacrifice (Yajna) binds this world. So perform work for sacrifice without attachment. (3.9)
• Having created mankind together with yajna in the beginning, Brahma (Creator) said – “By this shall you propagate; it shall be to you the milk-cow of desires, the wish-fulfilling heavenly cow Kamadhenu.” (3.10)
• Nourish the Gods with Yajna, and they shall nourish you, and thus nourishing one another both men and Gods you shall attain the highest good. (3.11)
• Nourished by sacrifice, the Gods, give you desirable enjoyments. He who enjoys objects given by the Gods without offering them is verily a thief. (3.12)
• The righteous who offer food to the Gods in sacrifice and eat the remnants are freed from all sins. But those who cook food to satisfy their own needs, are sinners and verily eat sin.  (3.13)
• Beings are born of food, food is produced from rain, rain arises from yajna, yajna is born of action, action arises from Vedas, Vedas are born from the Imperishable Paramatma; therefore know that the Supreme Being is established in the yajna. (3.14 & 3.15)
• The man who does not follow the cycle thus set revolving is a sinner rejoicing in sense-pleasures and he lives in vain. (3.16)
• But he who rejoices, who is contented, who finds happiness in Atma only, has no work to perform. (3.17)
• For him, there is in this world no interest whatsoever by work done or not done. He does not depend upon any being for any object. (3.18)
• Therefore that work which should be done, do it well always without attachment. He who performs all the prescribed duties in a detached spirit will attain the Supreme. (3.19)
• King Janaka and others attained perfection by action. Even having in view the need to show the right path to the masses, you should work. (3.20)
• What-so-ever a great man does, that other men do; whatever he sets up as the standard, that the world follows. (3.21)
• There is no duty for me to do in the three worlds. There is nothing unattained or to be attained for me. And yet I am also engaged in work. (3.22)
• If I am not engaged in action always, without relaxation, men follow my path in every way, O Arjuna! (3.23)
• These worlds would perish if I do not perform work; I would be the cause of the confusion of species and the destruction of these beings. (3.24)
• O Arjuna! As the ignorant men work with attachment to action, so should the wise act without attachment, for the welfare of the world. (3.25)
• The wise man should not disturb and confuse the minds of the ignorant attached to action. By performing all actions with yogic equanimity, they should make the ignorant do accordingly. (3.26)
• By the qualities of nature, actions are performed in all cases, but one whose mind is deluded by egoism thinks “I am the doer”. (3.27)
• O mighty-armed Arjuna! But the knower of Truth understands the divisions of qualities and functions. He knows that the qualities in the form of senses function amidst the objects of the senses, and he, as the Supreme Self, is not affected by them. Thus knowing, he remains unattached. (3.28)
• The man of knowledge should not confuse the mind of those men of imperfect understanding who, deluded by the Gunas of Nature, are attached to action in the material world. (3.29)
• Renouncing all actions in Me with the mind fixed in Self, free from hope and egoism, fight without mental agitation. (3.30)
• Those men who, with faith and free from ill-will, practice this my teaching, are also freed from the bondage of action. (3.31)
• But those who carp at my teaching and do not practise it, know them as men deluded in all knowledge, devoid of discrimination and doomed to destruction. (3.32)
• Even a wise man acts according to his own nature. Beings follow nature; what can restraint do? (3.33)
• In each of the senses abide attraction and repulsion for the objects of the senses. One should not come under their sway, for they are man’s enemies. (3.34)
• One’s own duty, ill-performed and without merit, is better than the duty of another well-discharged. Better is death in discharging one’s own duty. Another’s duty is fraught with fear. (3.35)
• Arjuna said: O Krishna! Constrained by force as it were, by what does man commit sin even against his wish? (3.36)
• The Blessed Lord said: It is desire, it is anger, born of Rajoguna (the impulse of action), all-consuming and all-evil. Know this as the enemy here. (3.37)
• As fire is enveloped by smoke, as a mirror by dust, as an embryo by the amnion, so this knowledge of the Self is enveloped by Kama and Krodha. (3.38)
• O Arjuna! Knowledge of the Self is covered by this everlasting foe of the wise in the form of desire, insatiable like fire. (3.39)
• The senses, the mind, and the intellect are the seat of kama. Functioning through them this kama deluded the embodied by veiling the wisdom. (3.40)
• O Arjuna! Therefore, having controlled the senses in the beginning, kill surely this kama, the sinful destroyer of knowledge and Self-realisation. (3.41)
• They say that the senses are superior (to the body), superior to the senses is the mind, superior to the mind is the intellect, but superior than the intellect is He (the Atman). (3.42)
• O mighty-armed Arjuna! Thus, having known what is greater than the intellect (i.e.) Atma, and restraining the mind by the intellect conquer the foe (kama) in the form of desire which is indeed hard to overcome.. (3.43)