41 commandments of Right-living: Bhagavad Gita Dharma quotes

The word ‘Dharma‘ is hard to strictly define. It means proactively choosing the ‘right way of living’ or the ‘law of being’ in our physical, mental, spiritual lives. That is to say a conscious decision to live righteously, following the path of duty, virtuosity and values over plain instincts. The Gita, rightly called the cream of the Upanishads; succinctly summarizes the commandments penned down by wise sages of the yore. Additionally, Dharma quotes in Bhagavad Gita are presented so lucidly that it is easy for the average man to understand and practice.

So, lets dive in right away into the 41 commandments laid out by Lord Krishna as the ‘Dharmic’ way of living. These qualities may sound elementary but they are sure to bring in peace, joy and spiritual evolution to serious practitioners.

The 41 Dharma Commandments: Right way of living and ‘being’ for character/spiritual perfection

Qualities when nurtured can give character & spiritual perfection

Bhagavad Gita Dharma quote; Chapter 12, verse 13

Adwestaa sarvabhootaanaam maitrah karuna eva cha; Nirmamo nirahankaarah samadukhasukha kshamee

Translation: One who hates no creatures, who is friendly, compassionate to all, who is free from attachment, egoism; one who is balanced in pleasure and pain and also forgiving

1.Hate no creature :

Through the study of Gita and Upanishads, the truth dawns upon us, that all creatures spring from the same life force. Basis this understanding, our outlook to righteousness changes.

Hence it becomes hard to hate even the most annoying person or eat even the most ‘succulent’ meat for food.

Who knows we may be that exact creature in our next life, being offered up for slaughter. Or that annoying person’s secret trauma could be ours in the next life!

2. Be friendly :

Friendliness is not just aversion to animosity or avoiding conflicts. It means to proactively keep our relationship with ourselves and with the people/environment around us, pleasing and amiable.

3.Be Compassionate :

Compassion is not only helping others but also developing the empathy to proactively to sense others pain and do our bit to help them.

4. Live Attachment free :

Being Attachment free does not mean being detached, insipid and cold. Nor is it an excuse for shirking duties because one is ‘detached’

Attachment-free is that potent learning of Karma Yoga that tells us to give our best shot to each moment, each task and each challenge but not get too attached to that action or to the fruits/rewards that the action may bring us.

5. Live Ego free :

To be ego-free means not getting too hung up on the ‘I-ness’ and the ‘mine-ness’ of things.

A common human trait is to take full credit for success but blame failures on others. It helps to remember that while we do control our destiny, mindfully working with Providence ushers in more positive outcomes. Also, being ignorant of ways to rope in Providence is like taking the long way down the path.

With this understanding, having a king-sized ego is like living in a fool’s paradise often painfully ending with arrogance and failure.

6.Be Balanced in pleasure and pain :

Equanimity is another key aspect of Karma Yoga. Imagine living constantly in the throes of joy and sorrow; ebullient at each victory and smarting under each failure. The surest path to being an emotional wreck!

Bhagavad Gita advices us to derive our confidence, peace and direction from a quiet core within, instead.

7. Practice forgiveness:

First forgive yourself, unload the guilt from the past. Next forgive everyone else who you think have wronged you. Keeping toxic feelings for them is only going to damage you more. Once released of guilt and ill- feelings, understand the law of Karma and why some things happen due to the accumulated vasanas of previous lives. Read all about Karma here.

Now set out to making your present and future Karma pristine so you can create your own glorious destiny.

Bhagavad Gita Dharma quote; Chapter 12, verse 14

Santushtah satatam yogee yataatma dridhanishchayah, Mayyarpitamanohbuddhiryoh madbhaktah sa me priyah.

Translation: One who is always content, steadily meditating, full of conviction and self- control, mind and intellect focussed on me, such a devotee is dear to me.

8. Be Ever-Content

Count your blessings daily. Nurture in yourself a default attitude of gratitude. If you learn to focus on how far you have come, contentment will well up naturally. Its only when the mind is envious and saturated with desires does contentment take flight. Dissatisfaction, anxiety, restlessness then take its place.

9. Be steady in meditation

Take up the idea of meditation seriously. Doing it when ‘you have time’ is self-defeating.

Make time for it. Choose which style of meditation suits you best and then stick to it.

10. Be full of conviction

To be full of conviction simply means being sure of what one is up to. This can only happen when the mind is calm and occupied in peace-generating activities like meditation, devotion or Karma Yoga (complete concentration on the task at hand).

When a million dissipating thoughts are kept at bay automatically we feel more sorted and more sure about ourselves.

11.Be self-controlled

The senses respond to tempting stimuli, thus nudging the mind to regurgitate these stimuli and develop a deeper and deeper desire for them. Soon , the ego jumps in whipping up plans with the intellect on the means to ‘acquire those desires’.

A self-controlled man is able to keep the senses, mind, ego and intellect always under tight leash. Else the vicious looped dance of these can keep one hooked on, till the very last breath.

12. Devote the Mind, Intellect to God

Let loose, the human mind has very little capacity to stay out of trouble. We know the adage, ‘Mind is a good servant but a terrible master!’

Therefore we must screen the realms where we may let it meander. Establishing the mind in the fields of devotion is a sure fire way to bring out its very best. Also a devotion-concentrated mind tends to get firmly established in Sattva, thereby adding light and harmony into the life.

Bhagavad Gita Dharma quote; Chapter 12, verse 15

Yasmaannodwijate loko lokannodwijaate cha yah; Harshaamarshabhyodwegairmukto ya sa cha me priyah.

Translation : The one who doesn’t agitate the world nor does he get agitated by the world and is freed from joy, envy, fear, anxiety – he is dear to me.

13. Do not agitate the world

Don’t be like the thorn that sticks out in all situations. Overly argumentative, opinionated, competitive, pessimistic , indolent, malicious personalities often rub people the wrong way.

14. Do not get agitated by the world

Have the mental strength not to get ticked off when you interact with people exuding negative tendencies. The moment you give in to locking horns with them (much to their delight!), you will get thrown off your long and short term action-plan/goals. Instead choose to be steady-minded and focused on you game-plan

15. Be free from joy, envy, fear, anxiety

This phrase mostly puzzles. Working at being free from envy, fear and anxiety sounds legit! But why freedom from joy?!

The drift here is towards the current trend of joy-addiction. The last few decades have seen an attitude of entitlement towards joy. People feel that if they are not joyful all the time then there is something wrong…. they suspect that they are surely depressed!

Whereas the truth is far from it! People in worldly lives must realize that the twin emotions of joy and sorrow are but two sides of the same coin. One cannot do without another.

So, freedom from joy here means giving up the ambition to be joyous at all times, at all costs.

Bhagavad Gita Dharma quote, Chapter 12, verse 16

Anapekshah shuchirdaksha udaseeno gatavyatha, Sarvarambhparityagi yo madbhaktah same priyah.

Translation : The one who is free from wants; is pure, alert, unconcerned, untroubled, renouncing all undertakings or commencements, thus devoted to me is dear to me.

16. Be free from wants

Train yourself to stop hankering after this and that. After all, nothing outside of us can ever give lasting satisfaction. Most of us never even truly enjoy our hard-earned victories when they do finally come by! How can we, when we are already fantasizing about newer, fancier aspirations?!

So free yourself from unnecessary ‘wants’ if you want to be delivered from a compulsive small living.

17. Be Pure

Purity here implies a multi-fold attitude towards cleanliness. Firstly, Physical purity as in personal hygiene and cleanliness with respect to one’s belongings. Secondly, Purity as in mental purity attained by discarding toxic negative thoughts . Lastly Purity in relationships meaning avoiding associations with bearers of foul intentions and habits.

18. Be Alert

An alert personality, quick to respond to life’s moments is a very natural outcome of a well-kept mind… a mind that has been weeded of worries, anxieties, indolence and negativity

19. Be Unconcerned/ Untroubled

Unconcerned certainly does not mean general apathy to life. On the contrary it means being wise enough to recognize that life comes with its fair share of day to day inconveniences, problems, pain points that one shouldn’t make a big deal of.

20. Renounce undertakings/ commencements

This one should not be misconstrued as washing hands off initiatives or the responsibility of seeing these initiatives through. It simply means developing the wisdom to realize that there is an unseen factor that nudges people, places and events at all points in time. This is the deep connection that we share with the Universal Power.

So to take the entire credit or blame of everything that happens with us or around us is an immature point of view. Therefore this phrase from the stanza goads us to remember that while we keep doing our best, we must also accept that Providence has a role to play in all our new beginnings and good/bad endings.

Bhagavad Gita Dharma Quote, Chapter 12, verse 17

Yona hrishyati na dwesti na shochati na kaangshati, Shubhaashubhaparityagee bhaktimaan ya sa me priyah.

Translation : The one who neither rejoices, nor hates, neither grieves nor desires; renounces good and evil and is full of devotion, is dear to me

21. Avoid rejoicing or hating

Rejoicing, i.e. being jubilant over a proud victory and hating i.e. feeling revulsed by specific events or people; are diametrically opposite emotions. The wise man neither allows himself to soar to joyous abandon nor does he let himself sink into acerbic revulsion.

22. Give up grieving and needless hankering (desires):

Grieving is crying over a lost something or somebody while desiring is pining after something or somebody. The wise avoid both.

23. Renounce good and evil

At first glance renouncing both good and evil seems absurd. Giving up evil is perfect but why give up good?

But the idea here is to duck the trap of becoming too judgmental. Many promising people spend their time judging every li’l thing, event and person coming their way. And we know how satisfying that kind of self-righteousness is; especially with an audience!

So, while we must be discerning, the inertia and self-righteousness that comes with being judgmental is totally avoidable.

Bhagavad Gita Dharma quotes; Chapter 12, Verse 18

Sama shatrau cha mitre cha tatha maanapamanayoh; Sheetoshnasukhadukheshu samah sangavivarjitah.

Translation : The one who is the same to both enemy and friend, same in honor and dishonor, same in both cold and heat, pleasure and pain and who is free from attachment

24. Treat alike, both the enemy and the friend:

Hard to do, but strongly advised. Maybe, this good attitude may bowl over your enemies and turn them into your fans!

Either ways, it is the most peace-generating option. Imagine not wasting your energies berating, mud slinging or verbally dueling them. But instead quietly accepting your troubled history with them.

25. Maintain Equanimity in honor/dishonor, heat/cold, pleasure/pain

Intellectually, we feel boosted when we are treated honorably, but being insulted/dishonored make us cringe

Mentally, pleasure brings with it spasms of joy while pain envelops us in a depressing shadow .

Physically, extreme heat/cold mars not only our zest but also our capacity to work, enjoy and socialize

The point here is that these twin pairs of emotions are unavoidable on the physical, mental and intellectual planes.

But none of these can impact the Soul, the Real Self.

So the one who has learnt to be stoic through these range of external stimuli, is a serious Dharma aspirant.

Bhagavad Gita dharma quote, Chapter 12, verse 19

Tulyanindaastutirmaunee santushto yena kenachit, Aniketah sthiramatir bhaktimaan me priyo narah.

Translation : To the one for whom censure and praise is equal, who is silent, content with anything, is homeless, has a steady mind and is full of devotion to me, he is dear to me.

26. Cultivate calm silence

Being silent alludes to the serenity that comes when one is freed of compulsive verbal and mental chatter.

27. Cultivate an attitude of ‘Homelessness’

Home is a metaphor here for a man’s belongings and possessions.

Home is a place from where a person draws his comfort and his physical and emotional strength. He owns it and is deeply attached to it. His whole identity revolves around it.

However this is the exact kind of attachment to worldly possessions that leads to the twin pairs of opposites of pleasure and pain, joy and sorrow also loss and gain.

So, the point here is that we must start identifying with something far more permanent, i.e. the Self within us.

Bhagavad Gita Dharma quote; Chapter 16, verse 1

Abhayam Satwashamshuddih jnaanayogavyavastithi, Daanam Damaschcha Yajnashcha swaadhyaayastapa arjavam.

Translation : Fearlessness, purity of heart, steadfastness in yoga, and knowledge, alms giving, control of the senses, sacrifice, study of scriptures, austerity and straight forwardness.

28. Be Fearless:

Courage can be learned. One may be fearful due to reasons like trauma, anxious parents, bad child-care etc. But being brave starts with challenging oneself; putting oneself constantly in intimidating situations.

And that also means reminding ourselves of the Divinity that we have within. That is to say, internalizing that we are not just a mortal body with a mind and intellect. In fact, the most powerful part of us is the Indestructible Soul within.

Translated into practice, the more we stand up to our fear, the more we get over it. And that’s exactly what Gita advises; to practice being courageous enough to do the right thing over and over again.

29. Practice Charity :

Dana is a key pre-requisite to any follower of Dharma. But the point to be remembered is that Charity must be done with the right attitude.

Charitable endeavors taken up just for name/fame (Rajasic) or with the intention of getting something in return (Tamasic) is ill-advised.

30. Practice Sacrifice

Sacrifice here refers to the choice of putting others before our personal ambitions, appetites and cravings. A father sacrifices when he uses his spare cash to invest in a better education for his child than splurging it on a fancy car for himself.

Further, only sacrifices made with the true spirit of self-lessness and renunciation of fruits are advised.

31. Study the scriptures

Time is best invested, when spent on gleaning wisdom from the scriptures written by the wise. So, devote some time daily or weekly to refresh your value-education

32. Practice Austerity

Tapas/penance is the literal translation of the word austerity.

In this context austerity refers to moderation in the way one lives, eg moderate eating, sleeping, talking, socializing, spending etc. Because going overboard in our lifestyle is what leads to modern day physical-mental ailments.

33. Be Straight forward

Be upfront in your dealing with family, friends and colleagues. That way you wont have to remind yourself of the pretenses or make your engagements cold and calculated.

An important point to be noted is that, speaking in harsh, hurtful ways under the guise of being straight-forward is ill-advised. The Gita reiterates that speech should always be pleasing, beneficial, sweet and in the best interest of the one being spoken to.

Bhagavad Gita Dharma quote, Chapter 16, verse 2

Ahimsa satyamakrodhas tyagah shaantirapaishunam; Dayaabhooteshvaloluptwam maardavam hreerachaapalam.

Translation : Non-violence, truth, absence of anger, renunciation, peacefulness, absence of crookedness, compassion, non-covetousness, gentleness, modesty, absence of fickleness

34. Practice Non-violence

‘Ahimsa paramo Dharma’ or ‘Non-violence is the highest Dharma’ is a saying that needs no explanation. Non- violence not only towards humans but also towards all creatures is the key teaching in Bhagavad Gita.

35. Let Truth be the way of life

‘Satyamev Jayate’ or ‘Truth alone triumphs‘ is a key Bhagavad Gita teaching. That is to say, truth that seeps into every action, thought and word in our daily life

36. Be anger-free

Anger is a destructive emotion that takes over without warning. It is also a sign of an inflated sense of I-ness. Bhagavad Gita lists out lust, greed and anger as the ‘3 gates to hell’. So the importance of being patient with oneself and others cannot be overstated.

37. Practice non- covetousness

Covetousness is unbridled greed; for what one doesn’t have, also for what someone else has. With the senses firmly under control, covetousness can have no power to torment us.

38. Be Gentle

Gentleness is a way of life. Something that one learns mostly in his formative years. But even if harshness is a part of you due to circumstances some steps can remedy that. Sattvic food and Sattvic lifestyle keeps harsh emotions like anger, restlessness, greed, impatience at bay. Meditation is a great tool that brings about quietude and gentleness in the persona.

39. Be Modest

The opposite of modesty is arrogance, pride, pompousness! And we know how distasteful that is. However, with training and discipline, these toxic mental habits can be replaced with sweeter, amiable ones.

Bhagavad Gita Dharma quote, Chapter 16, verse 3

Tejah Kshamah dhritih shauchamadroho naatimaanitaa; Bhavanti sampadam daiveem abhijatasya bharataa,

Translation : Vigour, forgiveness, fortitude, purity, absence of hatred, absence of pride these belong to the one in the divine state, o arjuna

40. Build Vigour

Vigour also used interchangeably with the word ‘Tejas’ is developing a strong, unstoppable, charismatic personality. The best thing about this is that it is not a pretense to charm people. But a natural strength of character cultivated due to the Dharmic way living.

41. Build Fortitude

Fortitude means having the substance to keep at your goals. No matter how hard things get, no matter how many failures wear you down; you just keep going.

Of course you take feedback and improve your pitch too. But you never ever give up!

Dharma will always prevail : Krishna’s promise to the followers of Dharma

Bhagavad Gita Dharma quote : Chapter 4, verses 7 and 8

Yadaa Yadaa his dharmasya glaanir bhavati bhaarata, Abhyutthanam adharmasya tadaatmanam srijamyaham.

Paritraanaaya sadhunam vinashaya cha dushkritaam, Dharma samsthapanaarthaya sambhavami yuge yuge.

Translation : Whenever there is an erosion of righteousness, and a rise of evil, I manifest myself. This I do for the destruction of the wicked, the protection of the good and reinstatement of righteousness from age to age.

Meaning : A famous Gita quote, this divine assurance simply reaches out to all including dharma warriors assuring them that He will descend when Evil goes out of hand. Further, he would re-instate Good!.

Bhagavad Gita Dharma quote , Chapter 9 verse 31

Kshipram bhavati dharmaatma shaashwachaantim nigachhati, Kaunteya pratijaneehi na me bhakta pranashyati

Translation: Soon he becomes righteous and attains to eternal peace, Know that for sure, my devotee is never destroyed.

Meaning: Lord Krishna promises eternal peace and joy and safety for people who tirelessly practice these commandments