work for the sake of fruit are miserable.  He also that hath devotion throws off, even in this world, both good actions and bad actions.  Therefore, apply thyself to devotion.  Devotion is only cleverness in action.  The wise, possessed of devotion, cast off the fruit born of action, and freed from the obligation of (repeated) birth, attain to that region where there is no unhappiness.  When thy mind shall have crossed the maze of delusion, then shalt thou attain to an indifference as regards the hearable and the heard.[145] When thy mind, distracted (now) by what thou hast heard (about the means of acquiring the diverse objects of life), will be firmly and immovably fixed on contemplation, then wilt thou attain to devotion.’

“Arjuna said,—­What, O Kesava, are the indications of one whose mind is fixed on contemplation?  How should one of steady mind speak, how sit, how move?”

“The Holy One said,—­’When one casts off all the desires of his heart and is pleased within (his) self with self, then is one said to be of steady mind.  He whose mind is not agitated amid calamities, whose craving for pleasure is gone, who is freed from attachment (to worldly objects), fear and wrath, is said to be a Muni of steady mind.  His is steadiness of mind who is without affection everywhere, and who feeleth no exultation and no aversion on obtaining diverse objects that are agreeable and disagreeable.  When one withdraws his senses from the objects of (those) senses as the tortoise its limbs from all sides, even his is steadiness of mind.  Objects of senses fall back from an abstinent person, but not so the passion (for those objects).  Even the passion recedes from one who has beheld the Supreme (being).[146] The agitating senses, O son of Kunti, forcibly draw away the mind of even a wise man striving hard to keep himself aloof from them.  Restraining them all, one should stay in contemplation, making me his sole refuge.  For his is steadiness of mind whose senses are under control.  Thinking of the objects of sense, a person’s attachment is begotten towards them.  From attachment springeth wrath; from wrath ariseth want of discrimination; from want of discrimination, loss of memory; from loss of memory, loss of understanding; and from loss of understanding (he) is utterly ruined.  But the self-restrained man, enjoying objects (of sense) with senses freed from attachment and aversion under his own control, attaineth to peace (of mind).  On peace (of mind) being attained, the annihilation of all his miseries taketh place, since the mind of him whose heart is peaceful soon becometh steady.[147] He who is not self-restrained hath no contemplation (of self).  He who hath no contemplation hath no peace (of mind).[148] Whence can there be happiness for him who hath no peace (of mind)?  For the heart that follows in the wake of the sense moving (among their objects) destroys his understanding like the wind destroying a boat in the waters.[149] Therefore, O thou of mighty arms,