Krishna told Arjuna that having even one occult power would prevent him from realizing God.
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Hindu
Krishna
Hinduc. 3228 BCE (traditional) – c. 3102 BCE (traditional)Mathura, Uttar Pradesh, India639 quotes· 4 sources
Krishna is revered as the eighth avatar of Vishnu and one of the most beloved deities in Hinduism, celebrated as a divine cowherd, warrior, statesman, and the supreme teacher of the Bhagavad Gita. His teachings to Arjuna on the battlefield of Kurukshetra — covering duty, devotion, knowledge, and the nature of the self — form one of the world's most enduring spiritual texts.
Krishna was born in Mathura into the Yadava clan as the son of Devaki and Vasudeva, and his life story is narrated in the Bhagavata Purana, the Mahabharata, and the Harivamsa. His childhood in Vrindavan — marked by miraculous feats and the adoration of the gopis (cowherd women) — became the wellspring of India's devotional poetry and music traditions, from Jayadeva's Gita Govinda to Mirabai's bhajans. As a statesman and guide he played a decisive role in the Mahabharata war, serving as charioteer and counsellor to Arjuna and revealing the Bhagavad Gita's teachings on karma yoga, jnana yoga, and bhakti yoga. The Bhagavad Gita, comprising 700 verses of dialogue between Krishna and Arjuna, is widely regarded as one of the greatest philosophical and spiritual texts in world literature. Krishna is simultaneously honoured as the full and complete manifestation of Brahman and as the intimate, personal God accessible through love and devotion.
Wisdom
The Blessed Lord said: You grieve for those who are not worthy of grief, and yet you speak words that sound like wisdom. The truly learned mourn neither for the living nor for the dead.
Never was there a time when I did not exist, nor you, nor all these kings; nor in the future shall any of us cease to be.
Just as the embodied soul in this body passes through childhood, youth, and old age, so too it passes into another body. The wise person is not deluded by this.
O son of Kunti, the contacts of the senses with their objects give rise to cold and heat, pleasure and pain. They come and go; they are impermanent. Bear with them, O Bharata.
The person whom these do not trouble, O best among men — the one who remains steady in both pain and pleasure, who is resolute — that person is fit for immortality.
What is unreal has no existence; what is real never ceases to be. Those who see the truth have seen the nature of both.
Know that to be indestructible by which all this universe is pervaded. No one is able to bring about the destruction of the imperishable.
These bodies of the eternal, indestructible, immeasurable embodied soul are said to have an end. Therefore, O Bharata, fight.
One who thinks this is a slayer and one who thinks this is slain — both of them fail to perceive the truth. This neither slays nor is it slain.
It is never born and it never dies. It has not come into being, nor will it ever come to be again. It is unborn, eternal, ever-lasting, and ancient. It is not slain when the body is slain.
O Partha, one who knows this to be indestructible, eternal, unborn and imperishable — how does that person cause another to be slain, and whom does that person slay?
Just as a person casts off worn-out garments and puts on others that are new, even so the embodied soul sheds worn-out bodies and takes on other new ones.
Weapons do not cut this, fire does not burn it, water does not wet it, and wind does not dry it.
This cannot be cut, cannot be burned, cannot be wetted, cannot be dried. It is eternal, all-pervading, stable, immovable, and everlasting.
It is said to be unmanifest, inconceivable, and immutable. Therefore, having understood it thus, you ought not to grieve.
For one who is born, death is certain; and for one who has died, birth is certain. Therefore you should not grieve over what is unavoidable.
O Bharata, all beings are unmanifest in their beginning, manifest in their middle state, and unmanifest again at their end. What is there to lament in this?
Someone perceives it as wondrous; another speaks of it as wondrous; yet another hears of it as wondrous — and yet, even having heard, no one truly knows it.
O Bharata, the dweller in the body is eternally indestructible in every being. Therefore you ought not to mourn for any creature.