After reading the assigned works in Chapter 3 of the textbook (The Sacred) and completing the multiple choice and response board questions there, please make your main post. For your main post:
Start by copying in your response to your assigned response board question
Elaborate on your response there with an additional 250-350 words, explaining your response and supporting it with evidence from the assigned text
Group C should post on the question List three of the most important things that this chapter (18) says one must do. Instead of quoting the text directly, paraphrase each action that is commanded, and identify the verse(s) the action is presented in. Remember to use your own words!For your expanded post, focus on one (1) action you discussed in your answer, and explain how it could be applied in our time and culture.Everyone, please divide your posts into paragraphs for easier reading, and make sure to reference, paraphrase, or quote specific passages from the text to support and illustrate what you say (and cite the passages using the MLA citation models shown on p. 1.10 of the textbook).
Bhagavad Gita: Chapter 18.Below is the text from the reading.
(45) A man achieves perfection by contenting himself with his own work; hear how such a man, intent upon his own work, finds that perfection.
(46) A man attains perfection by reverencing, through his own specific activity, him from whom all creatures come into being, by whom all this is spread out.
(47) It is better to do one's own duty inadequately than another's well; no man is at fault performing an action enjoined by his own nature.
(48) Son of Kunti, a man should not abandon the work he was born into, even if it is faulty, for just as fire is wreathed in smoke all undertakings are attended by faults.
(49) A man whose intelligence is free of any attachment, who has conquered himself, whose desire has evaporated, attains the supreme perfection of freedom from action and its results through renunciation.
(50) Son of Kunti, learn from me in short how, having attained perfection, one also attains Brahman, which is the highest state of knowledge.
(51) Disciplined with a pure intelligence, having controlled the self with resolution, having abandoned sound and the other objects of the senses, and putting away attraction and aversion,
(52) Dwelling apart, eating little, controlling speech, body, and mind, continuously immersed in yogic concentration, cultivating dispassion,
(53) Having freed oneself from egoism, force, pride, desire, anger, and possessiveness, unselfish and serene, one is able to become Brahman.
(54) Having become Brahman, tranquil in the self, a man does not grieve and he does not desire; the same towards all creatures, he attains the highest devotion to me.
(55) Through devotion he recognizes me-how great I am, and who I am in reality; and then, having known me in reality, he enters me immediately.
Krishna meets Arjuna at Prabhasa Kshetra.
Image courtesy of Ramanarayanadatta Astri/Wikimedia Commons
(56) Though continually performing all actions, his refuge is in me, and through my grace he attains the eternal, imperishable home.
(57) Having surrendered in thought all your actions to me, holding me supreme, depending upon the yoga of intelligence, be ever thinking on me.
(58) For thinking on me, you shall by my grace sail past all obstacles; but if, falling into egoism, you pay no heed, you shall perish.
(59) If, falling into such egoism, you suppose you will not fight, your resolution is quite pointless: your material nature will constrain you.
(60) Bound by your own activity, which springs from your own nature, ineluctably, Son of Kunti, you will do precisely what, in your delusion, you try to avoid.
(61) Arjuna, in the centre of the heart of all beings their lord stands still, mechanically revolving all creatures through his magical power.
(62) Bharata, go with your whole being to him alone for refuge; through his grace you will reach supreme peace, eternal home.
(63) Such is the knowledge I have imparted to you, the mystery of mysteries; consider it fully, then do what you will.
(64) Beyond that, listen to my final word, the most secret of all. You have been assuredly singled out by me, so I shall speak it for your benefit.
(65) Fix your mind on me, devote yourself to me, sacrifice to me, do homage to me, and so you shall in reality come to me. I promise you: you are dear to me.
(66) Abandoning all duties, vow yourself to me alone. Don't agonize, I shall release you from all evils.
(67) You must never repeat this to one who neglects asceticism, to one who is not devoted, to one who has no desire to hear it, or to one who speaks ill of me.
(68) But he who propounds this supreme mystery to my devotees, having rendered the highest devotion to me, will, without a doubt, come to me.
(69) Among men there is no one who does more to please me than he, and no one on earth shall be dearer to me than he is.
(70) And I consider that he who commits this sacred dialogue of ours to memory, in effect worships me through a sacrifice of knowledge.
(71) And the man who listens to it, full of faith and without ill will, is also freed, and will attain the bright worlds of those whose actions have been meritorious.
(72) Partha, have you listened to this single-mindedly? Dhanajaya, has your delusion born of ignorance been dispelled?
Arjuna said:
(73) My delusion has been obliterated, and through your grace, Achyuta, I have remembered myself. I stand, my doubt dispelled. I shall do as you say.
Sanjaya said:
(74) Thus, shivers running down my spine, I have heard this astonishing dialogue between Vasudeva and the great-souled Partha.
(75) ByMahabharata, and so of the Bhagavad Gita." role="link" tabindex="0" >Vyasa'sgrace, I have heard this supreme mystery, yoga, from Krishna, from the lord of yoga himself, who taught it directly.
(76) O King, repeatedly calling to mind this astounding, auspicious dialogue between Keshava and Arjuna, time and again I exult.
(77) And repeatedly calling to mind that more than astounding form of Hari, I am greatly amazed, O King, and exult again and again.
(78) Wherever Krishna, the lord of yoga, and Partha, the bowman, are, I believe that there too there will be fortune, victory, prosperity, and lasting good counsel.