Bhagavad Gita
Bhagavad Gita on Failure and Setback
Failure in the Gita is not treated as a modern career metric. Krishna repeatedly asks Arjuna to act, and not to let success or failure become the meaning of the self.
Read the verses themselves. The framing here is only to help you find them.
Bhagavad Gita 2.47
Denies ownership of fruits while affirming the right to action.
You have the right to action only, never to its fruits. Do not be the cause of the fruits of action, nor let attachment to inaction arise in you.
Bhagavad Gita 2.48
Places success and failure on the same scale of evenness.
O Dhananjaya! Abandoning attachment and remaining equipoised in success and failure, perform action established in Yoga. This equipoise is called Yoga.
Bhagavad Gita 4.22
Describes a person who is content with what comes unsought and is free from envy amid success and failure.
He who is content with whatever comes of itself, who is beyond the pairs of opposites, free from envy, and equipoised in success and failure—such a man is not bound even by performing action.
Bhagavad Gita 18.66
Culminates in taking refuge, after all duties have been discussed—not as a slogan for giving up work, but as the Gita’s closing turn.
Abandoning all Dharmas, take refuge in Me alone; I shall free you from all sins; do not grieve.
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