Still your mind in me, still yourself in me,And without doubt you shall be united with me,Lord of Love, dwelling in your heart.But if you cannot still your mind in me,Learn to do so through the practice of meditation.If you lack the will for such self-discipline,Engage yourself in selfless service of all around you,For selfless service can lead you at last to me.If you are unable to do even this,Surrender yourself to me in love,Receiving success and failure with equal calmnessAs granted by me.
Better indeed is knowledge than mechanical practice.Better than knowledge is meditation.But better still is surrender in love,Because there follows immediate peace.
That one I love who is incapable of ill will,And returns love for hatred.Living beyond the reach of I and mineAnd of pleasure and pain, full of mercy,Contented, self-controlled, firm in faith,With all their heart and all their mind given to me –With such people I am in love.
Not agitating the world or by it agitated,They stand above the sway of elation,Competition, and fear, accepting lifeGood and bad as it comes. They are pure,Efficient, detached, ready to meet every demandI make on them as a humble instrument of my work.
They are dear to me who run not after the pleasantOr away from the painful, grieve notOver the past, lust not today,But let things come and go as they happen.
Who serve both friend and foe with equal love,Not buoyed up by praise or cast down by blame,Alike in heat and cold, pleasure and pain,Free from selfish attachments and self-will,Ever full, in harmony everywhere,Firm in faith – such as these are dear to me.
But dearest to me are those who seek meIn faith and love as life's eternal goal.They go beyond death to immortality.
(taken from Chapter 12 of the Bhagavad Gita, translated by Eknath Easwaran)
