Hyuma Mahadevia
From the Index of Management Areas

The Bhagavad Gita on Failure

Failure is the test the Bhagavad Gita sets for a leader’s steadiness. Krishna asks Arjuna to be balanced in success and failure and calls that balance itself yoga. He says that doing one’s own work imperfectly is better than doing another’s perfectly, that no sincere effort is lost, and that even a person who has done great wrong can cross over by true knowledge. The verses gathered here are for the morning after something has gone badly. They ask a leader to separate the work from its result, learn what the failure has to teach, and return to duty without despair and without excuse.

The 23 verses the book gathers under Failure

Chapter and verse, as listed in the Index of Management Areas, each with The Meaning as it appears in the book. The Teaching and the Reflect question for every verse are in the book.

  1. 1.1Dhritarashtra asks Sanjaya what his sons and the Pandavas did after gathering at Kurukshetra, the field of dharma, ready to fight.
  2. 1.36Arjuna says that sin alone would come upon them if they killed these aggressors. So they should not kill the sons of Dhritarashtra, their own relatives, for how could they be happy after killing their own people?
  3. 2.6Arjuna says he does not know what is better: to win the war or to be defeated. The people standing before him are the very relatives whom he would not want to live after killing.
  4. 2.30The self living in every body is eternal and cannot be killed. Therefore, Krishna tells Arjuna not to grieve for any living being as if the true self can be destroyed.
  5. 2.38Krishna tells Arjuna to keep pleasure and pain, gain and loss, victory and defeat equal in his mind, and then do his duty. If he acts with this balanced attitude, he will not incur fault.
  6. 2.48Do your duty while staying established in yoga. Give up attachment to the result. Be balanced in success and failure. This balanced state of mind is called yoga.
  7. 3.32Krishna says that those who find fault with His teaching and refuse to follow it are confused in knowledge, lacking true understanding, and spiritually lost.
  8. 3.35Krishna says that doing your own duty imperfectly is better than doing another’s duty perfectly. Even death in one’s own dharma is better, because another’s dharma is full of danger.
  9. 4.2Krishna says that this yoga was passed down through a proper tradition and understood by saintly kings, but over a long time it became lost in the world.
  10. 4.22A person who is content with what comes naturally, free from envy, beyond dualities, and steady in success and failure is not bound by action even while working.
  11. 4.36Even if a person has committed great wrongs, true knowledge can carry them across all sin and confusion like a boat crossing water.
  12. 5.20Krishna says that a person established in Brahman remains steady. Such a person does not become overexcited when something pleasant comes, nor disturbed when something unpleasant comes.
  13. 6.6When you master your mind, your mind becomes your friend. When you do not master it, the same mind behaves like an enemy and pulls you down.
  14. 6.22When a person attains this deep spiritual state, no other gain seems greater. Established in it, the person is not shaken even by great sorrow.
  15. 6.33Arjuna says that the yoga of equal vision sounds true, but he does not see how it can remain steady because the mind is so restless.
  16. 7.15Krishna says that people who are absorbed in harmful actions, foolishness, degraded conduct, knowledge stolen by maya, and an asuric attitude do not surrender to Him.
  17. 8.21Krishna says that the imperishable unmanifest is the supreme goal, and one who attains it does not return; it is His supreme abode.
  18. 9.29Krishna says that He is equal toward all beings and has no hatred or favoritism. But those who worship Him with devotion live in Him, and He also lives in them.
  19. 11.15Arjuna says that he sees all the gods, many kinds of beings, Brahma, Shiva, sages, and divine serpents within Krishna’s universal body.
  20. 11.44Arjuna bows down before Krishna and asks Him to be gracious, forgiving him as a father forgives a son, a friend forgives a friend, and a beloved forgives a beloved.
  21. 14.8Krishna says that tamas is born of ignorance and deludes all embodied beings; it binds through negligence, laziness, and sleep.
  22. 18.26Krishna says that a sattvic doer is free from attachment and ego, steady and enthusiastic, and balanced in both success and failure.
  23. 18.58Keep your mind fixed on Krishna, and by His grace you will cross all difficulties. But if you refuse to listen because of ego, you will be lost.
One verse in full

Chapter Two, Verse 48

योगस्थः कुरु कर्माणि

yoga-sthaḥ kuru karmāṇi

सङ्गं त्यक्त्वा धनञ्जय ।

saṅgaṁ tyaktvā dhanañjaya |

सिद्ध्यसिद्ध्योः समो भूत्वा

siddhy-asiddhyoḥ samo bhūtvā

समत्वं योग उच्यते ॥

samatvaṁ yoga ucyate ||

The Meaning Do your duty while staying established in yoga. Give up attachment to the result. Be balanced in success and failure. This balanced state of mind is called yoga.

Execute from steadiness, abandon attachment to outcomes, and maintain balance in success and failure.

In the book, this verse is followed by The Teaching and a Reflect question.

Every verse under this area, with its Teaching and its Reflect question, is in The Ethical Leader’s Gita. For copies for your leadership team, see corporate and bulk gifting.

All areas