Bhagavad Gita Chapter 16
Introduction
Bhagavad Gita Chapter 16, describes those pious souls, who have been doing scripture-based worship i.e. worship according to the Vedas since their previous human births. It also emphasises that those inflicted with lust, greed, anger etc. cannot do worship. Moreover in verse 16.23 and 16.24, there is a description that arbitrary worship is fruitless. Only Scripture based worship is useful.
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Analysis Chapter 16 | Bhagavad Gita
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Chapter 16 Verses | Bhagavad Gita
Chapter 16 Verse 1: Fearlessness, complete purity of inner-self, knowledgeable and charity, self-control, performance of yagya, study of religious scriptures, penance in the form of bearing hardships in the path of bhakti and submissiveness.
Chapter 16 Verse 2: To not hurt anyone in any way by mind, speech and body, truthful, to not even show anger towards someone who harms oneself, to even surrender one’s head to God, absence of unsteadiness of mind, to not criticize anyone, kindness towards all living beings, without vices, gentleness, ashamed of doing wrong deeds, absence of flattery.
Chapter 16 Verse 3: Brilliance, forgiveness, patience, purity, absence of hostility, does not get oneself honoured, O Arjun! These are the characteristics of a person born with devotional nature.
Chapter 16 Verse 4: O Paarth! hypocrisy, arrogance and conceit and anger, harshness and also ignorance – all these are the characteristics of a person born with demoniac attributes.
Chapter 16 Verse 5: The saintly characteristics are believed to be for liberation, and demoniac attributes for bondage. Therefore, O Arjun, do not grieve because you are born with devotional nature.
Chapter 16 Verse 6: O Arjun! In this world, there is creation of only two types of living beings; one with saintly nature and the other with demoniac nature. Of these, those with saintly nature have been described earlier in detail. Now, you hear about those with demoniac nature from me.
Chapter 16 Verse 7: The people with demoniac nature, even if they are called saints, whether their disciples or they themselves, who do sadhna opposite to the injunctions of the scriptures, do not even know what to do and what to refrain from ; therefore, neither they have internal purity, nor good conduct and also truth is not known.
Chapter 16 Verse 8: Those people with demoniac nature say that the world is without any base, is unreal in every way and is without God. It is self-generated only by the union of male and female. Only sex is its cause. What else is, apart from this? Those with such beliefs are of demoniac nature.
Chapter 16 Verse 9: With this point of view, following the false knowedge, the disgraceful souls, who are dim-witted, who harm everyone, who perform cruel deeds, are born for the destruction of the world.
Chapter 16 Verse 10: Filled with hypocrisy, pride and arrogance, driven by insatiable desires, out of ignorance, acquiring the false principles opposed to the scriptures wander about in the world.
Chapter 16 Verse 11: Obsessed with innumerable worries which remain even after death, they remain eager to enjoy the worldly enjoyments and thus believe that only this is happiness.
Chapter 16 Verse 12: Bound by hundreds of shackles of desires, overpowered by lust and anger, strive to collect wealth etc by unjust means for indulging in worldly enjoyments.
Chapter 16 Verse 13: Today, I have acquired this and now I will fulfil this desire. I have this much wealth and will also have this much again.
Chapter 16 Verse 14: That enemy has been killed by me and I will also kill those other enemies. I am God and the enjoyer of luxuries. I am endowed with all the supernatural powers and am powerful and happy.
Chapter 16 Verse 15, 16: I am very wealthy and have a big family or many disciples. Who else is equal to me? I will perform yagya, will do charity and will rejoice. In this way, deluded by ignorance and with a mind perplexed in many ways, entangled in the snare of delusion, and excessively attached to sensual pleasures, the demoniac people fall into deep impure hell.
Chapter 16 Verse 17: They, who consider themselves to be superior, firm on bad behaviour, intoxicated with wealth and prestige, worship with ostentation by performing yagyas only for name i.e. by doing arbitrary bhakti, which is opposite to the injunctions of the scriptures.
Chapter 16 Verse 18: Overpowered by conceit, power, arrogance, desire and anger etc, those who criticize others, hate the God along with the soul in every body and me.
Chapter 16 Verse 19: In reality, I hurl those who hate, the sinful persons, who perform cruel deeds, the degraded men, repeatedly in demoniac births in the world.
Chapter 16 Verse 20: O Arjun! Those fools, instead of attaining me, attain the demoniac wombs from birth to birth, and then attain a further lower state than that i.e. fall into deep hells.
Chapter 16 Verse 21: Lust, anger and greed, these three types of gates of hell are the destroyers of the soul i.e. are suicidal. Therefore, one should abandon these three.
Chapter 16 Verse 22: O Arjun! A person liberated from these three gates of hell acts for the welfare of the soul. Thus he goes to the supreme state i.e. attains the Purna Parmatma.
Chapter 16 Verse 23: He who, abandoning the injunctions of the scriptures, acts according to the whimsical desires, neither attains siddhi/perfection, nor supreme state/salvation, nor happiness.
Chapter 16 Verse 24: Therefore, in the state of what should be done and what should not be done, Scripture is the only evidence for you. Knowing this, only those acts should be performed, which are in accordance with the ordinances of the scriptures.
