Chapter 18 - Moksha Sanyaas Yoga


Yoga through the Perfection of Renunciation and Surrender



The eighteenth chapter of the Bhagavad Gita is Moksha Sanyas Yoga. Arjuna requests the Lord to explain the difference between the two types of renunciations - sanyaas(renunciation of actions) and tyaag(renunciation of desires). Krishna explains that a sanyaasi is one who abandons family and society in order to practise spiritual discipline whereas a tyaagi is one who performs their duties without attachment to the rewards of their actions and dedicating them to the God. Krishna recommends the second kind of renunciation - tyaag. Krishna then gives a detailed analysis of the effects of the three modes of material nature. He declares that the highest path of spirituality is pure, unconditional loving service unto the Supreme Divine Personality, Krishna. If we always remember Him, keep chanting His name and dedicate all our actions unto Him, take refuge in Him and make Him our Supreme goal, then by His grace, we will surely overcome all obstacles and difficulties and be freed from this cycle of birth and death.


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Verse 50


Understand for certain from Me, in brief indeed, O son of Kunti, that process by which one who has achieved success attains Brahman, which is the supreme consummation of Knowledge.

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Verse 51


Being endowed with a pure intellect, and controlling oneself with fortitude, rejecting the objects-beginning from sound, and eliminating attachment and hatred;

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Verse 52


One who resorts to solitude, eats sparingly, has speech, body and mind under control, to whom meditation and concentration are ever the highest (duty), and who is possessed of dispassion;

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Verse 53


(That person,) having discarded egotism, force, pride, desire, anger and superfluous possessions, free from the idea of possession, and serene, is fit for becoming Brahman.

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Verse 54


One who has become Brahman and has attained the blissful Self does not grieve or desire. Becoming the same towards all beings, he attains supreme devotion to Me.

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Verse 55


Through devotion he knows Me in reality, as to what and who I am. Then, having known Me in truth, he enters (into Me) immediately after that (Knowledge).

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