The Holy Lord said:
With your mind intent upon Me,
Taking refuge in Me, now hear
How through the practice of yoga
You shall fully come to know Me. (1)
To you I shall explain in full
Knowledge and realization,
Which, being known, nothing further
Remains to be known in this world. (2)
Of thousands of human beings,
Scarcely one strives for perfection;
And of those adept in striving,
Scarcely any knows Me in truth. (3)
Earth, water, fire, air, ether, mind,
Intellect, ego-principle:
These are the eight divisions of
My prakriti, O Arjuna.1 (4)
Such is my lower prakriti,
Yet know my higher prakriti
Sustains all beings that exist
And the whole cosmos, Mighty Armed. (5)
These two Prakritis should be known
As the womb of all these beings.
Of this whole universe am I
The Origin and Dissolver. (6)
Higher than Me, Dhananjaya,
There is absolutely nothing.
All creation is strung on Me
Like strands of jewels on a thread. (7)
I am the taste within water,
The radiance of moon and sun;
I am Om in all the Vedas,
Sound in ether, manhood in men. (8)
I am the fragrance within earth,
And the brilliance within the fire;
The life in all beings, and the
Austerity of ascetics. (9)
Know me as the eternal seed
Of all beings; th’intelligence
Of the intelligent, and the
Splendor of the splendid am I. (10)
I am the strength of the strong, free
From all desire and from passion.
I am the desire in beings
That is according to dharma. (11)
States of being which are sattwic,
Rajasic and tamasic2–know
As proceeding from Me, yet I
Am not in them, but they in Me. (12)
All this world is deluded by
The states composed of the gunas.
Thus it perceives Me not, Who am
Eternal and higher than these. (13)
This divine illusion of Mine
Is difficult to go beyond.
Only those devoted to Me
Shall pass beyond this illusion. (14)
But those not devoted to Me–
Evil-doers, deluded, low–
Deprived by Maya of good sense,
Follow the way of the demons. (15)
These four kinds of virtuous men
Do worship Me, O Arjuna:
The distressed, seekers of welfare,
Seekers of knowledge, and the wise. (16)
Of them, the wise man, e’er steadfast,
Devoted to the One, excels;
Supremely dear am I to him,
And he is dear to Me, as well. (17)
All these indeed are exalted,
But I see the man of wisdom
As My Self. He, with mind steadfast,
Abides in Me, the Supreme Goal. (18)
At the end of his many births
The wise man takes refuge in Me.
He knows: “All is Vasudeva.3”
How very rare is that great soul! (19)
Others, deprived of their good sense,
By “this or that” desire or rite,
Devote themselves to other gods,
Impelled thus by their own natures. (20)
Whatever form a devotee
May seek to worship with full faith–
That faith of his is blessed by Me
To be steadfast, unwavering. (21)
Endowed with faith he then receives
His desires from that worshipped form
Because I have decreed that those
Desires should be granted to him. (22)
But temporary is the fruit
For those of small understanding.
To the gods go their worshippers;
My worshippers come unto Me. (23)
The unintelligent think Me
Manifest, though Unmanifest,
Not knowing My supreme state as
Unchanging and transcendental. (24)
Veiled by illusion born of the
Combinations of the gunas,
This deluded world knows Me not–
The Unborn, the Immutable. (25)
I know the departed beings,
Also the living, Arjuna,
And those who are yet to be born;
But none whatsoever knows me. (26)
By desire and hatred rising
Through duality’s delusion,
At birth all beings fall into
Delusion, O Scorcher of Foes. (27)
But those men of virtuous deeds,
They whose sin has come to an end,
Freed from the pairs of opposites–
They worship Me with firm resolve. (28)
Those men who take refuge in Me
Seek freedom from old age and death;
They know Brahman thoroughly, and
Know the Self and Karma as well. (29)
Those who know Me, the Primal One,
The Primal God, Chief Sacrifice,
They truly know Me with steadfast
Thought even at the time of death. (30)
Om Tat Sat
Thus in the Upanishads of the glorious Bhagavad Gita, the science of the Eternal, the scripture of Yoga, the dialogue between Sri Krishna and Arjuna, ends the seventh discourse entitled: The Yoga of Wisdom and Realization.
Read the next Chapter of the Bhagavad Gita: The Yoga of Imperishable Brahman
1) I have inserted “Arjuna” in this verse to fill out the meter, just as in the first verse of this chapter I had to omit “Son of Pritha” to maintain it. [Go back]
2) These three states will be discussed in Chapter Fourteen. [Go back]