THE SIXTEENTH TEACHING

THE DIVINE AND THE
DEMONIC IN MAN

Lord Krishna

Fearlessness, purity, determination
in the discipline of knowledge,
charity, self-control, sacrifice,
study of sacred lore, penance, honesty;

1

Nonviolence, truth, absence of anger,
disengagement, peace, loyalty,
compassion for creatures, lack of greed,
gentleness, modesty, reliability;

2

Brilliance, patience, resolve,
clarity, absence of envy and of pride;
these characterize a man
born with divine traits.

3

Hypocrisy, arrogance, vanity,
anger, harshness, ignorance;
these characterize a man
born with demonic traits.

4

The divine traits lead to freedom,
the demonic lead to bondage;
do not despair, Arjuna;
you were born with the divine.

5

All creatures in the world
are either divine or demonic;
I described the divine at length;
hear what I say of the demonic.

6

Demonic men cannot comprehend
activity and rest;
there exists no clarity,
no morality, no truth in them.

7

They say that the world
has no truth, no basis, no god,
that no power of mutual dependence
is its cause, but only desire.

8

Mired in this view, lost to themselves
with their meager understanding,
these fiends contrive terrible acts
to destroy the world.

9

Subject to insatiable desire,
drunk with hypocrisy and pride,
holding false notions from delusion,
they act with impure vows.

10

In their certainty that life
consists in sating their desires,
they suffer immeasurable anxiety
that ends only with death.

11

Bound by a hundred fetters of hope,
obsessed by desire and anger,
they hoard wealth in stealthy ways
to satisfy their desires.

12

“I have gained this wish today,
and I shall attain that one;
this wealth is mine,
and there will be more.

13

I have killed that enemy,
and I shall kill others too;
I am the lord, I am the enjoyer,
successful, strong, and happy.

14

I am wealthy, and wellborn,
without peer,
I shall sacrifice, give, rejoice.”

15

So say men deluded by ignorance.
Confused by endless thoughts,
caught in the net of delusion,
given to satisfying their desires,
they fall into hell's foul abyss.

16

Self-aggrandizing, stubborn,
drunk with wealth and pride,
they sacrifice in name only,
in hypocrisy, violating all norms.

17

Submitting to individuality, power,
arrogance, desire, and anger,
they hate me and revile me
in their own bodies, as in others.

18

These hateful, cruel, vile
men of misfortune, I cast
into demonic wombs
through cycles of rebirth.

19

Fallen into a demonic womb,
deluded in birth after birth,
they fail to reach me, Arjuna,
and they go the lowest way.

20

The three gates of hell
that destroy the self
are desire, anger, and greed;
one must relinquish all three.

21

Released through these three gates
of darkness, Arjuna,
a man elevates the self
and ascends to the highest way.

22

If he rejects norms of tradition
and lives to fulfill his desires,
he does not reach perfection
or happiness or the highest way.

23

Let tradition be your standard
in judging what to do or avoid;
knowing the norms of tradition,
perform your action here.

24