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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

I suspect I am protecting my standing rather than doing what is right.

Anything more specific? (optional)

No — the whole thingI cannot bring myself to apologiseI need to be seen to be rightTaking credit that is not only mine

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 Pride is in the way — i need to be seen to be right, 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 shown3.27 names the specific error — the one deluded by ego thinks "I am the doer" — and 12.13 describes the person who is not.

The passage

प्रकृतेः क्रियमाणानि गुणैः कर्माणि सर्वशः । अहङ्कारविमूढात्मा कर्ताहमिति मन्यते ॥

Transliteration

prakṛteḥ kriyamāṇāni guṇaiḥ karmāṇi sarvaśaḥ | ahaṅkāra-vimūḍhātmā kartāham-iti manyate ||

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

3.27Spoken by Krishna to Arjuna.The Yoga of Action (Karma Yoga). Arjuna asks: if wisdom is superior, why must I act? Krishna answers - no one can refrain from action even for a moment. Action offered as yajna (sacrifice) does not bind. Doing one's own duty imperfectly is better than another's well performed.

अद्वेष्टा सर्वभूतानां मैत्रः करुण एव च । निर्ममो निरहङ्कारः समदुःखसुखः क्षमी ॥

Transliteration

adveṣṭā sarva-bhūtānāṃ maitraḥ karuṇa eva ca | nirmamo nirahaṅkāraḥ sama-duḥkha-sukhaḥ kṣamī ||

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

12.13Spoken by Krishna to Arjuna.The Yoga of Devotion (Bhakti Yoga). Bhakti is supreme. The devotee who is friendly to all, free from possessiveness, even-minded in pleasure and pain, content, self-restrained, firm in resolve - that one is dear to me.

SevaCart’s reflection

Written by SevaCart, not by the source above.

3.27 is unusually pointed. Actions are being performed by the qualities of nature in every case; ego is the extra claim laid on top. 12.13 gives the contrasting portrait: without hatred toward any being, friendly and compassionate, free of "mine" and of "I", even in pleasure and pain, forbearing. Read together they suggest pride is not so much a sin as a misdescription of what happened.

What it does not mean

Not that you did nothing and deserve no credit, and not that self-respect is a fault. The claim being questioned is sole authorship, not competence.

Read Bhagavad Gita in the Wisdom library

Questions to sit with

  • What would you have to give up if you said the other person was right?
  • Who else made this possible, and have you said so?
  • Is it the outcome you want, or being the one who was right about it?

One thing you could do

  • Name one person whose part in this you have not acknowledged, and acknowledge it.

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_gtxdfx

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