— Bhagavad Gita 16.3 (tr. Swami Swarupananda, 1909)
About this quote
हिन्दी में
साहस, क्षमा, धैर्य, शुद्धता, द्वेष का अभाव और अभिमान का अभाव — हे भरतवंशी, ये उसके लक्षण हैं जो दैवी संपदा लेकर जन्मा है।
What it means
Look at the shape of the list before its contents: of six items, two are stated as absences — no hatred, no pride — and a third, purity, is largely defined by what is not there. A divine nature is being described mostly in terms of what a person has stopped doing.
The positive items are paired oddly on purpose. Boldness sits next to forgiveness, so the courage in question is not the kind that wins exchanges; fortitude here is endurance rather than force. Nothing in the list is a power, a vision, or a sign — the whole of it is conduct, which is what makes it checkable.
What it teaches you
The absences are the part you can actually audit, because “was I pure today” has no answer and “did I want someone to fail today” has a clear one. Run that pair at the end of a day: did I quietly hope a rival’s thing went badly, and did I need someone to know the good result was mine. Both questions take a second and both return a yes or a no, which is more than the grander items on the list will give you.
अर्थ और सीख
ध्यान दीजिए कि इस सूची की आधी बातें ‘न होना’ हैं — द्वेष का न होना, अभिमान का न होना। यानी दैवी स्वभाव कोई शक्ति या चमत्कार नहीं, रोज़ के आचरण की बात है, और उसका बड़ा हिस्सा यह है कि आदमी क्या करना छोड़ देता है। यही हिस्सा जाँचने लायक़ भी है: आज मैंने किसी का बुरा चाहा या नहीं, और अच्छा काम करके यह ज़रूरी समझा या नहीं कि लोग जानें कि वह मैंने किया।
Where it comes from
This verse comes from Chapter 16 of the Bhagavad Gita, Daivasura Sampad Vibhaga Yoga (The Divine and Demonic Natures) — the two inheritances: qualities that liberate — fearlessness, purity, compassion — and the lust, anger and greed that destroy.
The Bhagavad Gita — ‘the Song of the Lord’ — is the dialogue between Krishna and the warrior Arjuna set within the Mahabharata, and one of the most influential spiritual texts ever composed. English translation by Swami Swarupananda (1909), a public-domain rendering from the Sanskrit; the exact chapter and verse are cited with this quote.
