The luminous teachings of the Gita explain how to get there, but the explanation is often tantalizing for there is always a hurdle as to how can we, normal human beings, achieve the necessary conditions to get there?
From the world of the senses, Arjuna, comes heat and cold, and pleasure and pain. They come and they go; they are transient. Arise above them strong soul.
2.14
When a man dwells on the pleasure of sense, attraction for them arises in him. From attraction arises desire, the lust of possession, and this leads to passion, to anger.
2.62
There is no wisdom for a man without harmony, and without harmony there is no contemplation. Without contemplation there cannot be peace, and without peace, can there be joy?
2.66
He who withdraws himself from actions, but ponders on their pleasures in his heart, he is under a delusion and is a false follower of the Path.
3.6
Action is greater than inaction: perform therefore thy task in life. Even the life of the body could not be if there were no actions.
3.8
But the man who has found the joy of the Spirit and in the Spirit has satisfaction, who in the spirit has found his peace, that man is beyond the law of action
3.17
And do thy duty, even if it be humble, rather than another’s even if it be great. To die in one’s duty is life: to live in another’s is death
3.35
Arjuna: “How is it Krishna that I do the wrong that I do not want to do and I do not do the right that I don’t want to do?”
– It is greedy desire and anger, born out of passion, the great evil, the sum of destruction, the wise man’s faithful foe.
3.36-37
They say that the power of the senses is great. But greater than the senses is the mind. Greater than the mind is Buddhi, intellect; and greater than intellect is he – the spirit in man and in all.
3.42
Today I am revealing to thee this yoga eternal, this secret supreme: because of thy love for me, and because I am thy friend.
4.4
I have been born many times, Arjuna, and many times has thou been born. But I remember my past lives, and thou hast forgotten thine. Although I am unborn, everlasting, and I am the Lord of all, I come to my realm of nature and through my wondrous power I am born. When righteousness is weak and faints and evil people exult in pride then I manifest on the earth. For the salvation of those who are good, for the destruction of evil in men, for the fulfilment of the kingdom of righteousness, I come on this world in the ages that pass.
4.5-8
In any way that men love me in that same way they find my love: for many are the paths of men, but in the end they all come to me.
4.11
Know therefore what is work, and also know what is wrong work. And know also of a work that is silence: mysterious is the path of work. The man who in his work finds silence, and who sees that silence is work; this man in truth sees the light and in all his works finds peace.
(note from the pond: yes, but how?)
4.17-18
Because there is nothing like wisdom which can make us pure on this earth. The man who lives in self-harmony finds this truth in his soul. He who has faith has wisdom, who lives in self-harmony, whose faith is his life; and he who finds wisdom, soon finds the peace supreme. But he who has no faith and no wisdom, and whose soul is in doubts, is lost. For neither this world, nor the world to come, nor joy is ever for the man who doubts.
4. 38-40
Know that a man of true detachment is he ho has neither nether greed nor anger; for he who is above the two contraries soon finds his freedom.
5.3
The man of harmony surrenders the reward of his work and thus attains inner peace: the man of disharmony, urged by esire, is attached to his rewards and remains in bondage. The ruler of his soul surrenders in mind all work, and rests in the joy of quietness in the castle of nine gates of his body.
5.12-14
Yoga is harmony…In this union of Yoga there is liberty …let the seeker quietly lead the mind into the spirit and let all his thoughts be silenced..
5. 16/23/25
he who in this oneness of love, loves me in whatever he sees, wherever this man may live, in truth this man lives in me
5.31
For my glory is not seen by all: I am hidden by my veil of mystery; and in its delusion the world knows me not, who was never born and for ever I am.
All this visible universe comes from my invisible Being. All beings have their re4st in me , but I have not my rest in them.
7.25 ; 9.4
But the fools of the world know me not when they see me in my own human body.They know not my Spirit supremer, the infinite God of all this.
9.11
When in the yoga of holy contemplation the movements of the mind and of the reath of life are in a harmony of peace, there is steadiness and that steadiness is pure.
8.33
Fix thy mind on me, give thy heart’s love to me, consecrate all thy actions to My service, hold thine own self as nothing before me. To me then shalt thou come. Truly I promise for thou art dear to me.
And when a man sees that the God in himself is the same God in all that is, he hurts not himself by hurting others; then he goes indeed to the higher path.
The Bhagavad Gita