Bhagavad Gita Chapter 16, Verse 23 (BG 16.23) — Meaning, Translation & Commentary

# BG 16.23 — The Teaching of Lord Krishna The blessed Lord Krishna's instruction is this: through the abandonment of desire, anger, and other self-destructive vices, one accumulates inner spiritual powers. These powers must be wisely employed for one's own elevation and self-realization. Failure to do so results in a fall from which it becomes exceedingly difficult to rise again. The character of demons like Ravana stands as a striking testimony to this truth. These asuras acquired immense powers through austerity and spiritual practice, yet through their misuse, they brought about their own destruction. Their powers were so formidable and terrible that they shook their own generations and reduced them to dust upon the earth. Humanity requires grave and solemn warning to protect itself and this world from ruin. This very warning is given in these final two verses. The person who disregards the guidance of sacred scripture and acts according to the whims of his own nature gains no benefit whatsoever. Here, by the word "scripture," we need not understand only the elaborate and complex ritual injunctions that orthodox practitioners emphasize with great fervor. Rather, those texts which expound the knowledge of Brahman and the means to attain it are called scripture here—chiefly the Upanishads and the Vedantic treatises. The Bhagavad Gita itself, having expounded the knowledge of Brahman and the means to its realization, is therefore also scripture. In this section, the teaching concerns the abandonment of desire, anger, and greed. We have seen that desire is the root cause of both anger and greed. Therefore, Lord Krishna, mentioning desire alone, declares that the person impelled by desire does not attain the supreme goal. Such a person neither achieves perfection, nor happiness, nor the highest state. What harm comes from not following the Gita's teaching? The answer is this: the person driven by desire, encouraged by greed, and disturbed by anger perpetually experiences only restlessness and a life filled with cruel mental turbulence. Such a person neither attains happiness nor achieves self-realization. Thus, the conclusion is this: