Are purifying waters for true souls! Yet must be practised even those high works In yielding up attachment, and all fruit Produced by works. This is My judgment, Prince! This My insuperable and fixed decree! Abstaining from a work by right prescribed Never is meet! So to abstain doth spring From "Darkness," and Delusion teacheth it. Abstaining from a work grievous to flesh, When one saith "'Tis unpleasing!" this is null! Such an one acts from "passion;" nought of gain Wins his Renunciation! But, Arjun! Abstaining from attachment to the work, Abstaining from rewardment in the work, While yet one doeth it full faithfully, Saying, "Tis right to do!" that is "true " act And abstinence! Who doeth duties so, Unvexed if his work fail, if it succeed Unflattered, in his own heart justified, Quit of debates and doubts, his is "true" act: For, being in the body, none may stand Wholly aloof from act; yet, who abstains From profit of his acts is abstinent. The fruit of labours, in the lives to come, Is threefold for all men,--Desirable, And Undesirable, and mixed of both; But no fruit is at all where no work was. Hear from me, Long-armed Lord! the makings five Which go to every act, in Sankhya taught As necessary. First the force; and then The agent; next, the various instruments; Fourth, the especial effort; fifth, the God. What work soever any mortal doth Of body, mind, or speech, evil or good, By these five doth he that. Which being thus, Whoso, for lack of knowledge, seeth himself As the sole actor, knoweth nought at all And seeth nought. Therefore, I say, if one-- Holding aloof from self--with unstained mind Should slay all yonder host, being bid to slay, He doth not slay; he is not bound thereby! Knowledge, the thing known, and the mind which knows, These make the threefold starting-ground of act. The act, the actor, and the instrument, These make the threefold total of the deed. But knowledge, agent, act, are differenced By three dividing qualities. Hear now Which be the qualities dividing them. There is "true" Knowledge. Learn thou it is this: To see one changeless Life in all the Lives, And in the Separate, One Inseparable. There is imperfect Knowledge: that which sees The separate existences apart, And, being separated, holds them real. There is false Knowledge: that which blindly clings To one as if 'twere all, seeking no Cause, Deprived of light, narrow, and dull, and "dark." There is "right" Action: that which being enjoined-- Is wrought without attachment, passionlessly, For duty, not for love, nor hate, nor gain. There is "vain" Action: that which men pursue Aching to satisfy desires, impelled By sense of self, with all-absorbing stress: This is of Rajas--passionate and vain. There is "dark" Action: when one doth a thing