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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

Two paths, and no clear reason to take either one.

Anything more specific? (optional)

No — the whole thingTwo duties pulling opposite waysEvery option costs someone somethingI have to decide soon

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 decide, one source in SevaCart's library speaks to this closely enough to cite. What follows is its perspective, not a decision.

Source perspectives

Bhagavad Gita

Mahabharata

Why this was shownThe Gītā begins from exactly this position. Arjuna does not lack information; he cannot see which duty is his, and says so. 2.7 is his admission, 18.30 describes the clarity he is looking for, and 18.63 is how the teaching ends.

The passage

कार्पण्यदोषोपहतस्वभावः पृच्छामि त्वां धर्मसम्मूढचेताः । यच्छ्रेयः स्यान्निश्चितं ब्रूहि तन्मे शिष्यस्तेऽहं शाधि मां त्वां प्रपन्नम् ॥

Transliteration

kārpaṇya-doṣopahata-svabhāvaḥ pṛcchāmi tvāṃ dharma-sammūḍha-cetāḥ | yac-chreyaḥ syān-niścitaṃ brūhi tan-me śiṣyas-te’haṃ śādhi māṃ tvāṃ prapannam ||

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

2.7Spoken by Arjuna to Krishna.The Yoga of Knowledge (Sankhya Yoga). Krishna's first teaching. Arjuna formally surrenders as disciple. Krishna's answer begins with the deathless Self - the atman cannot be slain. This chapter contains the seed of the entire Gita: the famous verse on action without attachment (2.47) and the description of the sthitaprajna, one of steady wisdom.

प्रवृत्तिं च निवृत्तिं च कार्याकार्ये भयाभये । बन्धं मोक्षं च या वेत्ति बुद्धिः सा पार्थ सात्त्विकी ॥

Transliteration

pravṛttiṃ ca nivṛttiṃ ca kāryākārye bhayābhaye | bandhaṃ mokṣaṃ ca yā vetti buddhiḥ sā pārtha sāttvikī ||

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

18.30Spoken by Krishna to Arjuna.The Yoga of Liberation by Renunciation (Moksha Sanyasa Yoga). The longest and concluding chapter. Sannyasa = renunciation of action; tyaga = renunciation of fruit. Krishna sums up all earlier teachings and ends with the supreme word: surrender all dharmas to me - I will free you from all sin.

इति ते ज्ञानमाख्यातं गुह्याद्गुह्यतरं मया । विमृश्यैतदशेषेण यथेच्छसि तथा कुरु ॥

Transliteration

iti te jñānam-ākhyātaṃ guhyād-guhya-taraṃ mayā | vimṛśyaitad-aśeṣeṇa yathecchasi tathā kuru ||

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

18.63Spoken by Krishna to Arjuna.

SevaCart’s reflection

Written by SevaCart, not by the source above.

Arjuna does not ask to be told what will happen. He asks to be shown what is right, and admits his judgement is clouded — which is itself the first honest step. The Gītā answers with a description of clear judgement: seeing what is to be done and what is not, what is to be feared and what is not, what binds and what frees. And at the very end Krishna does not close the decision. He says: this has been told to you; reflect on it fully; then act as you choose.

What it does not mean

It does not mean the answer arrives if you wait for it, and 18.63 is not a licence to do whatever you already wanted. The sentence is "reflect on it fully, then act" — the reflection is the condition, not the decoration.

Read Bhagavad Gita in the Wisdom library

Questions to sit with

  • Which part of this is genuinely unclear, and which part is clear but unwelcome?
  • What is actually within your control here, and what are you treating as though it were?
  • If fear were not part of this, would the choice still be difficult?

One thing you could do

  • Write the two options side by side and, under each, what it asks of you rather than what it gives you.

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_y0nwxv

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