The Bhagavad Gita ("The Song of the Lord", 4th–3rd century BC) is one of the most prominent literary and philosophical works of not only ancient India, but of all mankind. The Bhagavad Gita teaches that a person who is freed from passions and fear, having passed through the purifying flame of wisdom, reaches a state of merging with the Absolute, Brahman. In its artistic suggestiveness and power of thought, it is comparable to the Book of Job, Ecclesiastes, the Tao Te Ching, the letters of St. Paul, or Plato.

In the heart of every being

the great Lord dwells, Arjuna, –

He, like a potter – on a potter's wheel –

keeps them spinning by the power of Maya. 

XVIII.61