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Knowledge and Realization · 30 verses
Ask Krishna about this chapterThe Blessed Lord said: O Partha, with your mind attached to Me, practicing yoga and taking refuge in Me, hear how you shall know Me completely and without doubt.
I shall declare to you in full this knowledge along with realization, having known which nothing else remains here to be known.
Among thousands of men, scarcely one strives for perfection; and even among those who strive and have attained perfection, scarcely one knows Me in truth.
Earth, water, fire, air, ether, mind, intellect, and personality—this is the eightfold division of My manifested nature.
This is My inferior nature; however, O valiant one, know that distinct from this is My superior nature, which is the very life that sustains the universe.
Know that all beings have these two natures as their source. I am the origin and likewise the dissolution of the entire universe.
O Arjuna! There is nothing higher than Me; all is strung on Me like rows of pearls on a thread.
O Arjuna! I am the fluidity in water, the light in the sun and moon, the mystic syllable Om in the Vedic scriptures, the sound in ether, and the virility in man.
I am the fragrance of the earth, the brilliance of fire, the life force in all beings, and the austerity of ascetics.
Know, O Arjuna, that I am the eternal seed of being; I am the intelligence of the intelligent, the splendour of the resplendent.
I am the strength of the strong, devoid of desire and passion, and I am the desire in all beings that is not opposed to dharma, O best of the Bharatas.
Whatever be the nature of their life, whether it be pure, passionate, or ignorant, they are all derived from Me. They are in Me, but I am not in them.
The inhabitants of the world, misled by the natures engendered by the Qualities, do not know that I am higher than them all and that I do not change.
Verily, this divine illusion of phenomenon manifesting itself in the qualities is difficult to surmount. Only they who devote themselves exclusively to Me can…
The sinner, the ignorant, the vile, deprived of spiritual perception by the glamour of illusion, and he who leads a godless life—none of them shall find me.
Four kinds of virtuous people worship Me, O Arjuna: the distressed, the seeker of knowledge, the seeker of wealth, and the man of wisdom, O best of the Bharatas.
Of all these, he who has gained wisdom, who meditates on Me without ceasing, devoting himself solely to Me, is the best; for I am exceedingly beloved by the wise man,…
Noble-minded are they all, but the wise man I hold as my own self; for he, remaining always at peace with me, makes me his ultimate goal.
At the end of many births, the one endowed with knowledge surrenders unto Me, realizing that Vasudeva is all — such a great soul is exceedingly rare.
They in whom wisdom is obscured by one desire or another, worship the lesser powers, practicing many rites that vary according to their temperaments.
Whatever form a devotee wishes to worship with faith, I make that very faith of his firm and unwavering.
Endowed with that faith, he engages in the worship of that deity and obtains from it his desires, which are indeed granted by Me alone.
The fruit that comes to people of limited insight is, after all, finite. Those who worship the Lower Powers attain them; but those who worship Me come to Me alone.
The unintelligent regard Me, the unmanifest, as having come into manifestation, not knowing My supreme nature, which is imperishable and unsurpassable.
Veiled by Yoga-Maya, I am not manifest to all. This deluded world does not know Me, the unborn and imperishable.
I know the beings of the past, the present, and the future, O Arjuna, but no one knows Me.
O Bharata, O conqueror of foes, through the delusion of duality arising from desire and aversion, all beings fall into bewilderment at the time of their birth.
But those who act righteously, in whom sin has been destroyed, who are free from the infatuation of conflicting emotions, they worship Me with a firm resolve.
Those who make Me their refuge, striving for liberation from decay and death, realize the Supreme Spirit, which is their own real Self, and in which all action finds…
Those who know Me together with the Adhibhuta, the Adhidaiva, and the Adhiyajna — they, with minds united in Me, know Me even at the time of death.