Home › Chapter 16
Divine and Demoniac Natures · 24 verses
Ask Krishna about this chapterLord Shri Krishna continued: Fearlessness, clean living, unceasing concentration on wisdom, readiness to give, self-control, a spirit of sacrifice, regular study of the…
Non-violence, truthfulness, absence of anger, renunciation, peacefulness, absence of slander, compassion toward all beings, freedom from covetousness, gentleness,…
Valor, forgiveness, fortitude, purity, freedom from hate and vanity—these are the qualities of one who possesses the divine, O Arjuna!
Hypocrisy, arrogance, conceit, anger, harshness, and ignorance — these belong to one who is born to the demoniac nature, O Partha.
Godly qualities lead to liberation; godless ones lead to bondage. Do not be anxious, Prince! You have the Godly qualities.
In this world there are two types of created beings — the divine and the demoniac. The divine has been described at length; now hear from Me about the demoniac, O Partha.
The godless do not know how to act or renounce; they lack both purity and truth. They do not understand the right principles of conduct.
They say that the world is without truth, without any foundation, without a God, born of nothing but mutual union — what else could there be? — with desire alone as its…
Thinking thus, these degraded souls, these enemies of mankind—whose intelligence is negligible and whose deeds are monstrous—come into the world only to destroy.
Giving themselves up to insatiable passions, hypocritically, self-sufficiently, and arrogantly, cherishing false conceptions founded on delusion, they work only to…
Beset by immeasurable anxieties that end only with death, regarding the gratification of desires as the highest aim, and convinced that this is all there is.
Caught in the toils of a hundred vain hopes, enslaved by passion and wrath, they accumulate hoards of unjust wealth, only to indulge their sensual desires.
Today I have gained this; tomorrow I will fulfill another desire; this wealth is mine now, and the rest will soon be mine.
That enemy has been slain by me, and I shall slay others as well. I am the lord, I am the enjoyer, I am successful, I am powerful and happy.
I am wealthy, I am of noble birth — who else is equal to me? I shall perform sacrifices, I shall give charity, I shall rejoice" — thus they are deluded by ignorance.
Bewildered by countless anxious thoughts, enveloped in the net of delusion, and deeply attached to the enjoyment of sensual pleasures, they fall into a foul hell.
Self-conceited, stubborn, filled with the pride and intoxication of wealth, they perform sacrifices that are so in name only, with ostentation and without regard for…
Given over to egotism, force, arrogance, desire, and anger, these envious ones hate Me dwelling in their own and others' bodies.
Those hateful, cruel, and inauspicious beings—the lowest of men in the cycles of worldly existence—I hurl them again and again into demoniac wombs alone.
So, reborn, they spend life after life enveloped in delusion, and they never reach Me, O Prince, but degenerate into even lower forms of life.
The gates of hell are three: lust, wrath, and avarice; they destroy the Self, so avoid them.
O son of Kunti, a person who is freed from these three gates to darkness strives for the welfare of the soul, and thereby attains the supreme goal.
But he who neglects the commands of the scriptures and follows the promptings of passion does not attain perfection, happiness, or the final goal.
Therefore, let the scripture be your authority in determining what is to be done and what is not to be done. Having understood what is declared by the injunctions of…