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.
Vidura Nīti — SevaCart'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 counsel — SevaCart'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 Praśna — SevaCart'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 Nīti — NO 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.
Arthaśāstra — WRONG 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 Upaniṣads — WRONG 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.
Rāmāyaṇa — WRONG 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 Gītā — WRONG 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.
Subhāṣita — NO 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 Gītās — NOT 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 Śāstra — NOT 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 Sūtras — WRONG 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 The right thing is the harder thing — a small choice i keep losing, 3 sources speak to this. They are shown separately, in their own voices, because they do not all say the same thing.
Source perspectives
Katha Upanishad
Why this was shownThese two mantras are the classical statement of this exact problem, and no other passage in the corpus states it as precisely.
śreyaś ca preyaś ca manuṣyam etas tau saṃparītya vivinakti dhīraḥ | śreyo hi dhīro 'bhi preyaso vṛṇīte preyo mando yogakṣemād vṛṇīte ||
English translation pending source and rights review. The received text is shown above.
1.2.2
SevaCart’s reflection
Written by SevaCart, not by the source above.
Different is the good, different is the pleasant; both approach a person and both bind. The wise one examines the two and separates them; the dull one chooses the pleasant. What is worth noticing is that the text does not say the pleasant is obviously worse — it says the two look alike enough that examination is required.
What it does not mean
Not that the harder option is always the right one. Difficulty is not the test; examination is.
Why this was shownThe Gītā's description of clear judgement is a list of four distinctions, and this concern is a failure to hold the first of them.
The passage
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.
SevaCart’s reflection
Written by SevaCart, not by the source above.
What is to be done and what is not, what is to be feared and what is not, what binds and what frees — the intellect that knows these is called clear. It is a definition by capacity, not by conclusion: clarity is being able to tell the pairs apart, not arriving at a particular answer.
What it does not mean
Not a claim that the right answer is obvious to a sufficiently good person. The verse describes a capacity that is developed.
English translation pending source and rights review. The received text is shown above.
Kural 391
SevaCart’s reflection
Written by SevaCart, not by the source above.
Learn flawlessly what is worth learning, then stand by it. Valluvar puts the two in a single couplet, which suggests he did not think the second half followed automatically from the first.
What it does not mean
Not that knowing more will close the gap. The couplet is about the second half, not the first.
Katha Upanishad — a longer view of the situation, rather than an answer about what to do.
Bhagavad Gita — direct counsel to someone facing this and unable to decide.
Tirukkuṟaḷ — a question of conduct, character and prudence.
These are different kinds of answer. SevaCart shows each under its own source and does not merge them into a single teaching.
Questions to sit with
Which of these two is this, and how do you know?
What are you telling yourself that makes the easier one sound like the good one?
Of the four pairs, which one is blurred here?
Is this a gap in knowing or a gap in standing by it?
One thing you could do
Name the two options as the good and the pleasant, out loud, and see which name resists.
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_g7hlty