Chapter 7: Knowledge and Wisdom
ज्ञानविज्ञानयोग · 30 verses. Lord Shri Krishna said: Listen, O Arjuna! I will tell you how you can know Me in my full perfection. Practice meditation with your mind devoted to Me and take Me as your refuge.
- 7.1 Lord Shri Krishna said: Listen, O Arjuna! I will tell you how you can know Me in my full perfection.
- 7.2 I will reveal this knowledge to you and how it can be realized; once accomplished, there is nothing else worth having in this life.
- 7.3 Among thousands of men, scarcely one strives for perfection, and even among those who gain occult powers, perhaps only one knows me in truth.
- 7.4 Earth, water, fire, air, ether, mind, intellect, and personality—this is the eightfold division of My manifested nature.
- 7.5 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.
- 7.6 It is the womb of all beings; for I am He by Whom the worlds were created and shall be dissolved.
- 7.7 O Arjuna! There is nothing higher than Me; all is strung on Me like rows of pearls on a thread.
- 7.8 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.
- 7.9 I am the fragrance of the earth, the brilliance of fire, the life force in all beings, and the austerity of ascetics.
- 7.10 Know, O Arjuna, that I am the eternal seed of being; I am the intelligence of the intelligent, the splendour of the resplendent.
- 7.11 I am the strength of the strong, those who are free from attachment and desire; and, O Arjuna, I am the desire for righteousness.
- 7.12 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.
- 7.13 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.
- 7.14 Verily, this divine illusion of phenomenon manifesting itself in the qualities is difficult to surmount.
- 7.15 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.
- 7.16 O Arjuna! The righteous who worship Me are grouped in stages: first, those who suffer, next those who desire knowledge, then those who thirst after truth, and lastly thos…
- 7.17 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, and…
- 7.18 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.
- 7.19 After many lives, at last the wise one realizes Me as I am. It is very difficult to find a man so enlightened that he sees God everywhere.
- 7.20 They in whom wisdom is obscured by one desire or another, worship the lesser powers, practicing many rites that vary according to their temperaments.
- 7.21 But whatever form of worship, if the devotee has faith, then I set My own seal upon their faith in that worship.
- 7.22 If he worships one form alone with real faith, then his desires shall be fulfilled through that alone; for thus I have ordained.
- 7.23 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.
- 7.24 The ignorant think of Me, who am the Unmanifested Spirit, as if I were in human form. They do not understand that My Superior Nature is unchanging and most excellent.
- 7.25 I am not visible to all, for I am enveloped by the illusion of the Phenomenon. This deluded world does not know Me as the Unborn and Imperishable.
- 7.26 I know, O Arjuna, all beings in the past, the present, and the future; but they do not know Me.
- 7.27 O brave Arjuna! Man lives in a fantastical world, deceived by the glamour of opposing sensations, infatuated by desire and aversion.
- 7.28 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.
- 7.29 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 its …
- 7.30 Those who see Me in the life of the world, in the universal sacrifice, and as pure Divinity, keeping their minds steady, they live in Me even in the hour of death's appro…