Bhagavad Gita · 3.34 · Path of Selfless Service·34 of 43
इन्द्रियस्येन्द्रियस्यार्थे रागद्वेषौ व्यवस्थितौ।तयोर्न वशमागच्छेत्तौ ह्यस्य परिपन्थिनौ ॥
indriyasyendriyasyārthe rāga-dveṣhau vyavasthitau
tayor na vaśham āgachchhet tau hyasya paripanthinau
Sanskrit recitation
Your work, not someone else’s · 3.30–3.35 · Teaching
Translation
Attachment and aversion for the objects of the senses abide in the senses; let no one come under their sway; for, they are his enemies.
Meaning
Each sense has got attraction for a pleasant object and aversion for a disagreeable object. If one can control these two currents, viz., attachment and aversion, he will not come under the sway of these two currents. Here lies the scope for personal exertion or Purushartha. Nature which contains the sum total of ones Samskaras or the latent selfproductive impressions of the past actions of merit and demerit draws a man to its course through the two currents, attachment and aversion. If one can control these two currents, if he can rise above the sway of love and hate through discrimination and Vichara or right enquiry, he can conquer Nature and attain immortality and eternal bliss. He willl no longer be subject to his own nature now. One should always exert to free himself from attachment and aversion to the objects of the senses.
After Swami Sivananda
Your work, not someone else’s· 3.30–3.35→
Teachers usually read this idea across several verses together, one shared reflection covers the whole unit.
- 3.30Renouncing all actions in Me, with the mind centered on the Self, free from hope and egoism, and from mental fever, fight thou.
- 3.31Those who constantly practice this teaching of Mine with faith and without caviling, they too are freed from actions.
- 3.32But those who criticize My teaching and do not practice it, deprived of all knowledge and lacking discernment, know them to be doomed to destruction.
- 3.33Even a wise man acts in accordance with his own nature; beings will follow their nature; what can restraint do?
3.34Attachment and aversion for the objects of the senses abide in the senses; let no one come under their sway; for, they are his enemies.
- 3.35Better is one's own duty, though devoid of merit, than the duty of another well discharged. Better is death in one's own duty; the duty of another is fraught with fear.
Word-by-word→
- hi
- certainly
- na
- never
- tau
- those
- asya
- for him
- rāga
- attachment
- tayoḥ
- of them
- vaśham
- be controlled
- dveṣhau
- aversion
- indriyasya
- of the senses
- āgachchhet
- should become
- vyavasthitau
- situated
- paripanthinau
- foes
- indriyasya arthe
- in the sense objects
Related verses
- 3.28But he who knows the Truth, O mighty-armed Arjuna, about the divisions of the qualities…
- 3.31Those who constantly practice this teaching of Mine with faith and without caviling, they…
- 3.33Even a wise man acts in accordance with his own nature; beings will follow their nature;…
- 3.42They say that the senses are superior to the body; the mind is superior to the senses; the…