Bhagavad Gita Act Quotations

Filled with insatiable desires, hypocrisy, pride, and arrogance; holding wrong views due to delusion; they act with impure motives.

Faith in sacrifice, charity, and austerity is also called SAT. The action for the sake of the Supreme is verily termed as SAT.

Action is the product of the Qualities inherent in Nature.

All beings follow their nature. Even the wise act according to their own nature. What, then, is the value of sense restraint?

All actions in their entirety culminate in knowledge.

They, whose wisdom has been carried away by various desires impelled by their own deeds, resort to other gods and practice various religious rites.

Some philosophers say that all work is full of faults and should be given up, while others say that acts of sacrifice, charity, and austerity should not be abandoned.

The deluded ones, who restrain their organs of action but mentally dwell upon the sense enjoyment, are called hypocrites.

The senses have been conditioned by attraction to the pleasant and aversion to the unpleasant: a man should not be ruled by them; they are obstacles in his path.

No one becomes a Karma-yogi who has not renounced the selfish motive behind an action.

Perform your obligatory duty, because action is indeed better than inaction.

Sitting and concentrating the mind on a single object, controlling the thoughts and the activities of the senses, let the yogi practice meditation for self-purification.

An intelligent person does not take part in the sources of misery, which are due to contact with material senses. Such pleasures have a beginning and an end, and so the wise man does not delight in them.

The Lord abides in the heart of all beings, O Arjuna, causing all beings to act (or work out their Karma) by His power of Maya as if they are (puppets of Karma) mounted on a machine.

Those who practice severe austerities without following the scriptures, with hypocrisy and egotism, impelled by lust, and attachment; / Senselessly torturing the elements in their body and also Me who dwell within the body; know these ignorant persons to be of demonic nature.

Thus many types of sacrifice are described in the Vedas. Know them all to be born from Karma or the action of body, mind, and senses. Knowing this, you shall attain nirvana.

Even the wise are confused about what is action and what is inaction.

Those who consciousness is unified abandon all attachment to the results of action and attain supreme peace. But those whose desires are fragmented, who are selfishly attached to the results of their work, are bound in everything they do.

Those who always practice this teaching of Mine, with faith and free from cavil, are freed from the bondage of Karma.

A man who sees action in inaction and inaction in action has understanding among men and discipline in all action he performs.

This yoga should be practiced with firm determination and perseverance, without any mental reservation or doubts.

A Karma-yogi performs action by body, mind, intellect, and senses, without attachment (or ego), only for self-purification.

Whatever is endowed with glory, brilliance, and power; know that to be a manifestation of a fraction of My splendor.

Whatever action, whether right or wrong, one performs by thought, word, and deed; these are its five causes.

When the senses contact sense objects, a person experiences cold or heat, pleasure or pain. These experiences are fleeting they come and go. Bear them patiently.

These acts of creation do not bind Me, O Arjuna, because I remain indifferent and unattached to those acts.

But, those who carp at My teaching and do not practice it, consider them as ignorant of all knowledge, senseless, and lost.

As a lamp in a spot sheltered from the wind does not flicker, this simile is used for the subdued mind of a yogi practicing meditation on Brahman.

Whoever hears this with faith and without cavil becomes free from sin, and attains heaven (or the higher regions for those whose actions are pure).

What is the need for this detailed knowledge, O Arjuna? I continually support the entire universe by a small fraction of My energy.

Mentally offering all actions to Me, be devoted to Me. Resorting to equanimity, always fix your mind on Me.

Practice to look upon all creatures as Myself in thought, word, and deed; and mentally bow down to them.

The true nature of action is very difficult to understand. Therefore, one should know the nature of attached action, the nature of detached action, and also the nature of forbidden action.

By contemplating on Me with an unwavering mind, disciplined by the practice of meditation, one attains the Supreme divine spirit, O Arjuna.

The knowledge sacrifice is superior to any material sacrifice, O Arjuna. Because, all actions in their entirety culminate in knowledge.

Pleasures derived from the contact of senses with their objects are verily the source of misery, and have a beginning and an end.

Some offer their wealth, their austerity, and their practice of yoga as sacrifice, while the ascetics with strict vows offer their study of scriptures and knowledge as sacrifice.

Brahman is the oblation. Brahman is the clarified butter. The oblation is poured by Brahman into the fire of Brahman. Brahman shall be realized by the one who considers everything as (a manifestation or) an act of Brahman.

A sinless yogi, who constantly engages the mind with the Self, easily enjoys the infinite bliss of contact with Brahman.

Attached action is selfish work that produces Karmic bondage.

The one who sees inaction in action, and action in inaction, is a wise person.

Because, if I do not engage in action relentlessly, people would follow My path in every way.

Free from desires, mind and senses under control, renouncing all proprietorship, doing mere bodily action, one does not incur sin (or Karmic reaction).