The Song celestial Part 7

Purity, constancy, control of self, Contempt of sense-delights, self-sacrifice, Perception of the cert.i.tude of ill In birth, death, age, disease, suffering, and sin; Detachment, lightly holding unto home, Children, and wife, and all that bindeth men; An ever-tranquil heart in fortunes good And fortunes evil, with a will set firm To worship Me--Me only! ceasing not; Loving all solitudes, and shunning noise Of foolish crowds; endeavours resolute To reach perception of the Utmost Soul, And grace to understand what gain it were So to attain,--this is true Wisdom, Prince!

And what is otherwise is ignorance!

Now will I speak of knowledge best to know- That Truth which giveth man Amrit to drink, The Truth of HIM, the Para-Brahm, the All, The Uncreated;; not Asat, not Sat, Not Form, nor the Unformed; yet both, and more;-- Whose hands are everywhere, and everywhere Planted His feet, and everywhere His eyes Beholding, and His ears in every place Hearing, and all His faces everywhere Enlightening and encompa.s.sing His worlds.

Glorified in the senses He hath given, Yet beyond sense He is; sustaining all, Yet dwells He unattached: of forms and modes Master, yet neither form nor mode hath He; He is within all beings--and without-- Motionless, yet still moving; not discerned For subtlety of instant presence; close To all, to each; yet measurelessly far!

Not manifold, and yet subsisting still In all which lives; for ever to be known As the Sustainer, yet, at the End of Times, He maketh all to end--and re-creates.

The Light of Lights He is, in the heart of the Dark Shining eternally. Wisdom He is And Wisdom's way, and Guide of all the wise, Planted in every heart.

So have I told Of Life's stuff, and the moulding, and the lore To comprehend. Whoso, adoring Me, Perceiveth this, shall surely come to Me!

Know thou that Nature and the Spirit both Have no beginning! Know that qualities And changes of them are by Nature wrought; That Nature puts to work the acting frame, But Spirit doth inform it, and so cause Feeling of pain and pleasure. Spirit, linked To moulded matter, entereth into bond With qualities by Nature framed, and, thus Married to matter, breeds the birth again In good or evil yonis.[FN#29]

Yet is this Yea! in its bodily prison!--Spirit pure, Spirit supreme; surveying, governing, Guarding, possessing; Lord and Master still PURUSHA, Ultimate, One Soul with Me.

Whoso thus knows himself, and knows his soul PURUSHA, working through the qualities With Nature's modes, the light hath come for him!

Whatever flesh he bears, never again Shall he take on its load. Some few there be By meditation find the Soul in Self Self-schooled; and some by long philosophy And holy life reach thither; some by works: Some, never so attaining, hear of light From other lips, and seize, and cleave to it Worshipping; yea! and those--to teaching true-- Overpa.s.s Death!

Wherever, Indian Prince!

Life is--of moving things, or things unmoved, Plant or still seed--know, what is there hath grown By bond of Matter and of Spirit: Know He sees indeed who sees in all alike The living, lordly Soul; the Soul Supreme, Imperishable amid the Perishing: For, whoso thus beholds, in every place, In every form, the same, one, Living Life, Doth no more wrongfulness unto himself, But goes the highest road which brings to bliss.

Seeing, he sees, indeed, who sees that works Are Nature's wont, for Soul to practise by Acting, yet not the agent; sees the ma.s.s Of separate living things--each of its kind-- Issue from One, and blend again to One: Then hath he BRAHMA, he attains!

O Prince!

That Ultimate, High Spirit, Uncreate, Unqualified, even when it entereth flesh Taketh no stain of acts, worketh in nought!

Like to th" ethereal air, pervading all, Which, for sheer subtlety, avoideth taint, The subtle Soul sits everywhere, unstained: Like to the light of the all-piercing sun [Which is not changed by aught it shines upon,]

The Soul's light shineth pure in every place; And they who, by such eye of wisdom, see How Matter, and what deals with it, divide; And how the Spirit and the flesh have strife, Those wise ones go the way which leads to Life!

HERE ENDS CHAPTER XIII. OF THE BHAGAVAD-GITA, Ent.i.tled "Kshetrakshetrajnavibhagayog,"

Or "The Book of Religion by Separation of Matter and Spirit."

CHAPTER XIV

Krishna.

Yet farther will I open unto thee This wisdom of all wisdoms, uttermost, The which possessing, all My saints have pa.s.sed To perfectness. On such high verities Reliant, rising into fellowship With Me, they are not born again at birth Of Kalpas, nor at Pralyas suffer change!

This Universe the womb is where I plant Seed of all lives! Thence, Prince of India, comes Birth to all beings! Whoso, Kunti's Son!

Mothers each mortal form, Brahma conceives, And I am He that fathers, sending seed!

Sattwan, Rajas, and Tamas, so are named The qualities of Nature, "Soothfastness,"

"Pa.s.sion," and "Ignorance." These three bind down The changeless Spirit in the changeful flesh.

Whereof sweet "Soothfastness," by purity Living unsullied and enlightened, binds The sinless Soul to happiness and truth; And Pa.s.sion, being kin to appet.i.te, And breeding impulse and propensity, Binds the embodied Soul, O Kunti's Son!

By tie of works. But Ignorance, begot Of Darkness, blinding mortal men, binds down Their souls to stupor, sloth, and drowsiness.

Yea, Prince of India! Soothfastness binds souls In pleasant wise to flesh; and Pa.s.sion binds By toilsome strain; but Ignorance, which blots The beams of wisdom, binds the soul to sloth.

Pa.s.sion and Ignorance, once overcome, Leave Soothfastness, O Bharata! Where this With Ignorance are absent, Pa.s.sion rules; And Ignorance in hearts not good nor quick.

When at all gateways of the Body shines The Lamp of Knowledge, then may one see well Soothfastness settled in that city reigns; Where longing is, and ardour, and unrest, Impulse to strive and gain, and avarice, Those spring from Pa.s.sion--Prince!--engrained; and where Darkness and dulness, sloth and stupor are, 'Tis Ignorance hath caused them, Kuru Chief!

Moreover, when a soul departeth, fixed In Soothfastness, it goeth to the place-- Perfect and pure--of those that know all Truth.

If it departeth in set habitude Of Impulse, it shall pa.s.s into the world Of spirits tied to works; and, if it dies In hardened Ignorance, that blinded soul Is born anew in some unlighted womb.

The fruit of Soothfastness is true and sweet; The fruit of l.u.s.ts is pain and toil; the fruit Of Ignorance is deeper darkness. Yea!

For Light brings light, and Pa.s.sion ache to have; And gloom, bewilderments, and ignorance Grow forth from Ignorance. Those of the first Rise ever higher; those of the second mode Take a mid place; the darkened souls sink back To lower deeps, loaded with witlessness!

When, watching life, the living man perceives The only actors are the Qualities, And knows what rules beyond the Qualities, Then is he come nigh unto Me!

The Soul, Thus pa.s.sing forth from the Three Qualities-- Whereby arise all bodies--overcomes Birth, Death, Sorrow, and Age; and drinketh deep The undying wine of Amrit.

Arjuna.

Oh, my Lord!

Which be the signs to know him that hath gone Past the Three Modes? How liveth he? What way Leadeth him safe beyond the threefold Modes?

Krishna.

He who with equanimity surveys l.u.s.tre of goodness, strife of pa.s.sion, sloth Of ignorance, not angry if they are, Not wishful when they are not: he who sits A sojourner and stranger in their midst Unruffled, standing off, saying--serene-- When troubles break, "These be the Qualities!"

He unto whom--self-centred--grief and joy Sound as one word; to whose deep-seeing eyes The clod, the marble, and the gold are one; Whose equal heart holds the same gentleness For lovely and unlovely things, firm-set, Well-pleased in praise and dispraise; satisfied With honour or dishonour; unto friends And unto foes alike in tolerance; Detached from undertakings,--he is named Surmounter of the Qualities!

And such-- With single, fervent faith adoring Me, Pa.s.sing beyond the Qualities, conforms To Brahma, and attains Me!

For I am That whereof Brahma is the likeness! Mine The Amrit is; and Immortality Is mine; and mine perfect Felicity!

HERE ENDS CHAPTER XIV. OF THE BHAGAVAD-GITA Ent.i.tled "Gunatrayavibhagayog,"

Or "The Book of Religion by Separation from the Qualities."

CHAPTER XV

Krishna.

Men call the Aswattha,--the Banyan-tree,-- Which hath its boughs beneath, its roots above,-- The ever-holy tree. Yea! for its leaves Are green and waving hymns which whisper Truth!

Who knows the Aswattha, knows Veds, and all.

Its branches shoot to heaven and sink to earth,[FN#30]

Even as the deeds of men, which take their birth From qualities: its silver sprays and blooms, And all the eager verdure of its girth, Leap to quick life at kiss of sun and air, As men's lives quicken to the temptings fair Of wooing sense: its hanging rootlets seek The soil beneath, helping to hold it there,

As actions wrought amid this world of men Bind them by ever-tightening bonds again.

If ye knew well the teaching of the Tree, What its shape saith; and whence it springs; and, then

How it must end, and all the ills of it, The axe of sharp Detachment ye would whet, And cleave the clinging snaky roots, and lay This Aswattha of sense-life low,--to set

New growths upspringing to that happier sky,-- Which they who reach shall have no day to die, Nor fade away, nor fall--to Him, I mean, FATHER and FIRST, Who made the mystery

Of old Creation; for to Him come they From pa.s.sion and from dreams who break away; Who part the bonds constraining them to flesh, And,--Him, the Highest, worshipping alway--

No longer grow at mercy of what breeze Of summer pleasure stirs the sleeping trees, What blast of tempest tears them, bough and stem To the eternal world pa.s.s such as these!

Another Sun gleams there! another Moon!

Another Light,--not Dusk, nor Dawn, nor Noon-- Which they who once behold return no more; They have attained My rest, life's Utmost boon!

When, in this world of manifested life, The undying Spirit, setting forth from Me, Taketh on form, it draweth to itself From Being's storehouse,--which containeth all,-- Senses and intellect. The Sovereign Soul Thus entering the flesh, or quitting it, Gathers these up, as the wind gathers scents, Blowing above the flower-beds. Ear and Eye, And Touch and Taste, and Smelling, these it takes,-- Yea, and a sentient mind;--linking itself To sense-things so.

The unenlightened ones Mark not that Spirit when he goes or comes, Nor when he takes his pleasure in the form, Conjoined with qualities; but those see plain Who have the eyes to see. Holy souls see Which strive thereto. Enlightened, they perceive That Spirit in themselves; but foolish ones, Even though they strive, discern not, having hearts Unkindled, ill-informed!

Know, too, from Me Shineth the gathered glory of the suns Which lighten all the world: from Me the moons Draw silvery beams, and fire fierce loveliness.

I penetrate the clay, and lend all shapes Their living force; I glide into the plant-- Root, leaf, and bloom--to make the woodlands green With springing sap. Becoming vital warmth, I glow in glad, respiring frames, and pa.s.s, With outward and with inward breath, to feed The body by all meats.[FN#31]