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Sacred Counsel

Timeless guidance for life's questions, from the Bhagavad Gītā, the Tirukkuṟaḷ and the Yoga Sūtras — each passage cited, and shown only where SevaCart can trace it.

This is not a chatbot and nothing here is generated. Every passage shown is real text from a source SevaCart already holds, selected by a reviewed mapping, and shown with its citation. Where a source has nothing to say about your situation, the page says so instead of finding a verse that nearly fits.

What are you facing?

I cannot decideWhat is actually my responsibilityFearGrief and lossAngerI cannot stop thinking about the outcomePride is in the wayThe mind will not settleI keep putting it offWorkLeading othersWho to listen toTrust and betrayalWhat to sayFamilyMoneyForgivingLearningFailurePurposeDeathThe right thing is the harder thingGiving and service

The result is not in my hands, and it is all I can think about.

Anything more specific? (optional)

No — the whole thingWaiting on a resultWanting it to be noticedCannot let it go

Which sources?

All relevant sourcesBhagavad GitaTirukkuṟaḷYoga Sutras of PatanjaliKatha Upanishad
Why some works are not offered here
  • Vidura NītiSevaCart's scripture library does not yet hold a citable passage of this work. It is reviewed and suitable — the text has not been entered, so there is nothing to quote and nothing has been substituted for it.
  • Bhīṣma's counselSevaCart's scripture library does not yet hold a citable passage of this work. It is reviewed and suitable — the text has not been entered, so there is nothing to quote and nothing has been substituted for it.
  • Yakṣa PraśnaSevaCart's scripture library does not yet hold a citable passage of this work. It is reviewed and suitable — the text has not been entered, so there is nothing to quote and nothing has been substituted for it.
  • Chāṇakya NītiNO LOCATOR. Maxims attributed to Chāṇakya circulate widely with no edition behind them. Without a verse reference, printing one as scripture would manufacture the citation. Note also that Chāṇakya Nīti is not the Arthaśāstra — they are separate works and separate entries here, so the two cannot be conflated by accident.
  • ArthaśāstraWRONG GENRE. A manual of statecraft: its counsel on rivals, leverage and force is addressed to a ruler managing a kingdom, and does not transfer to a devotee's difficulty with a colleague.
  • The Principal UpaniṣadsWRONG GENRE at the depth available. A mahāvākya is the summit of its Upaniṣad, not counsel for a difficulty, and selecting one to answer a personal problem flattens it. The Kaṭha carries the reflective load instead, because it can be quoted at enough length to keep a passage inside its own argument.
  • RāmāyaṇaWRONG GENRE, with a locator problem besides. Rāma's choices are narrative: what a character did under one dharma is not a rule for a devotee, and a card implying otherwise would teach the wrong thing about the epic.
  • Aṣṭāvakra GītāWRONG GENRE. Uncompromising Advaita addressed to a listener already established in it — Janaka is realised before the dialogue begins. "You were never bound" is true inside that dialogue and cruel outside it, and a person in grief or fear is not its audience.
  • SubhāṣitaNO LOCATOR, unevenly. Some verses name a work; others record only an anthology tradition with no verse. Quoting the collection wholesale would put well-cited and uncited verses on one card under one authority. Splitting it verse by verse is a content-authority pass.
  • The minor GītāsNOT ONE WORK. This names several distinct texts — Guru Gītā, Devī Gītā, Śiva Gītā and others — and it must stay several: any future enablement gives each its own entry. A blended "other Gītās" source would erase the difference between a Śākta text and a Śaiva one.
  • Dharma ŚāstraNOT SUITABLE, and this is not a coverage gap to be closed. The smṛtis carry historically situated social and penal prescriptions, some ordered by birth and by sex. Surfacing those as personal guidance would put SevaCart on the wrong side of both Indian law and its own devotees. They belong in the library with their historical context intact.
  • Brahma SūtrasWRONG GENRE. The sūtras adjudicate between readings of the Upaniṣads. They are a text about texts, and there is no honest route from one to a devotee's difficulty at work.

Your situation

On I cannot stop thinking about the outcome — cannot let it go, one source in SevaCart's library speaks to this closely enough to cite. What follows is its perspective, not a decision.

Source perspectives

Yoga Sutras of Patanjali

Why this was shownPatañjali gives the two-sided method — sustained practice and non-attachment together — and 2.16 states what the whole system is aiming at.

The passage

अभ्यासवैराग्याभ्यां तन्निरोधः॥

Transliteration

abhyasa-vairagyabhyam tan-nirodhah

English translation pending source and rights review. The received text is shown above.

Note from SevaCart’s library: The two wings of yoga. Abhyasa = sustained effort over long time, uninterrupted, with reverence (1.14). Vairagya = non-attachment to seen + heard objects (1.15).

1.12The 2 means - practice + dispassion

हेयं दुःखमनागतम्॥

Transliteration

heyam duhkham anagatam

English translation pending source and rights review. The received text is shown above.

Note from SevaCart’s library: Past suffering is past. Present suffering must be endured. But FUTURE suffering - that is yoga's actual concern. Prevent the un-arisen.

2.16Suffering yet to come - that is to be avoided

SevaCart’s reflection

Written by SevaCart, not by the source above.

1.12 refuses to let either half stand alone: effort without letting go becomes grinding, letting go without effort becomes drift. 2.16 is oddly practical about the target — the suffering that has not yet arrived is what can still be avoided. What is already here is to be met; what is coming is what practice is for.

What it does not mean

Non-attachment is not indifference to people or abandonment of responsibility. It is a relationship to outcomes, not a licence to withdraw from what you have taken on.

Read Yoga Sutras of Patanjali in the Wisdom library

Questions to sit with

  • Which half are you short of — the effort, or the letting go?

What this is not

  • This is reflection, not a ruling. Nothing here decides anything for you.
  • The passages are shown under their own source. Where SevaCart has added an application, it is labelled as SevaCart's words, not the text's.
  • Where a passage shows no English, its translation is withheld pending source and rights review — not missing. The original text is shown as the library holds it.
  • Different sources answer differently. Where they do, both readings are shown rather than merged.

Corpus 7a532a24 · mappings 1.0.0 · reference sc_1ps4ga3

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