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Chapter 18 · Verse 7
🪈 Krishna speaks
Illustration for Chapter 18, Verse 7

नियतस्य तु संन्यासः कर्मणो नोपपद्यते। मोहात्तस्य परित्यागस्तामसः परिकीर्तितः॥

niyatasya tu saṁnyāsaḥ karmaṇo nopapadyate | mohāttasya parityāgastāmasaḥ parikīrtitaḥ ||

Word by Word 11 words
नियतस्य
ni down, firmly yam to hold, to fix

of the prescribed, of the duty fixed for one

तु
tu but, yet

but, yet

संन्यासः
sam fully ni down as to throw, to cast

renunciation, the giving up

कर्मणः
kṛ to do, to act

of action, of duty

न
na not

not

उपपद्यते
upa near, fitting pad to go, to come about

is not fitting, is not proper, does not make sense

मोहात्
muh to be confused, to be deluded

out of delusion, from a clouded mind

तस्य
tad that

of that, of it

परित्यागः
pari all around, completely tyaj to let go, to give up

the complete abandoning, the throwing-away

तामसः
tamas darkness, dullness

tamasic, of the dark and dull quality

परिकीर्तितः
pari all around, fully kīrt to proclaim, to declare

is declared to be, is proclaimed

Now shows the first of the three kinds of letting go — the wrong one. He says: "It is never right to give up a duty that has been laid out for you, a task that is truly yours to do. And if someone throws away their proper duty simply out of confusion, because their mind is clouded and they cannot see clearly, that kind of giving-up is called , the letting go that comes from darkness." Running away from your real work is not true renunciation at all.

कथा

The Lamplighter Who Walked Away

From the mythological

In an old city there once lived a lamplighter whose duty was simple and important: each evening, as the sun sank behind the temple towers, he walked the winding lanes with his long pole and lit the oil lamps so that no one would stumble in the dark.

It was not glamorous work. No one threw garlands at the lamplighter. The children did not gather to watch. And one cloudy evening, tired and muddle-headed, the lamplighter sat down on a step and grumbled to himself.

"Why should I bother?" he mumbled. "It is dull. It is endless. I light them, and by morning they have all gone out. I shall simply stop. I shall call it renunciation, and people will think me very wise — a man who has given up his work to seek peace."

So he leaned his pole against a wall and went home in the gloom.

That night the lanes lay in darkness. An old grandmother, carrying water, missed her footing and fell. A merchant's cart tipped into a ditch. A small child, lost and frightened, cried at a corner where no light shone. The whole quarter grew uneasy and afraid.

A travelling sage passed through and heard the lamplighter boasting at his door that he had "renounced" his lowly task. The sage shook his head sadly.

"You have given up nothing holy," the sage said. "You have only run from your own duty because your mind was clouded and you could not see its worth. That is not renunciation. That is the letting-go that comes from darkness — , the giving-up born of confusion. True renunciation lets go of greed and clinging. It never lets go of the work the world needs you to do."

Far away, told this truth so he would not mistake it. "To abandon your rightful duty, Arjuna, simply because you are confused or it seems hard — that is the lowest kind of giving-up, the kind wrapped in shadow. Do not call running away by the noble name of renunciation."

The lamplighter, hearing the child still crying in the dark street, felt the cloud lift from his mind at last. He rose, took up his pole, and went out — and one by one, the little flames returned to the city.

चिन्तनम्

Is it the same thing to 'let go' of something and to 'run away' from it? How can you tell the difference between truly releasing something and just avoiding what is hard?