Bhagavad Gita Chapter 2: The Yoga of Knowledge

Chapter 2 is the Gita in miniature — Krishna's first and fullest reply to Arjuna's collapse. He begins with what death can and cannot touch: the soul is never born and never dies (2.20); as a person discards worn-out garments for new ones, the embodied self exchanges bodies (2.22); weapons cannot cut it, fire cannot burn it (2.23). For what is born, death is certain — so grief over the inevitable is misplaced (2.27). Sensations of pleasure and pain come and go like seasons; bear them patiently (2.14).

Then the teaching turns practical. In its most famous line, Krishna gives the charter of karma yoga: you have a right to your action, never to its fruits (2.47) — and equanimity in success and failure is itself yoga (2.48). The chapter closes with Arjuna's question about the sage of steady wisdom, and Krishna's portrait of a mind free of longing, fear, and anger (2.56): undisturbed like the ocean that rivers flow into without swelling (2.70). Anger's famous chain — dwelling, attachment, desire, anger, ruin — is mapped in 2.62–63.