13.1
Arjuna said, “O Lord, I wish to know about the creative energy of nature and the pure consciousness of the soul. I wish to know about the divine field, and the knower of the divine field.”
13.2
Lord Krishna said:
This body of matter and energy is called the field. The Knower of the field is pure consciousness.
13.3
I am the Knower of all fields, and I am the fields. This creates knowledge.
13.4
Listen now and I will explain to you in brief the nature and properties of the field, how change takes place within it, and from whence it came. I will also tell you who the Knower of the field is, and what His powers are.
13.5
This knowledge has been described in many songs and writings, and is revealed with especially sound logic and evidence in the Brahma Sutra.
13.6
The field of activities is composed of the five great elements — earth, water, fire, air and ether — and also the ego, the mind, the unmanifested, and the ten sense organs — ears, eyes, nose, tongue, skin, mouth, feet, hands, rectum and genitals.
13.7
Desire, aversion, happiness, sorrow, life signs, vitality, sympathy, will, fortitude, and the persistent clinging to life, are also encompassed by the field.
13.8 / 13.9 / 13.10 / 13.11 / 13.12
Humility, sincerity, unpretentiousness, nonviolence, forbearance, tolerance, simplicity, devotion to a true spiritual teacher, purity, steadiness, self-control, non-attachment to sense-objects, indifference, absence of egoism, constant awareness of the problem of birth, disease, old age and death, non-identification with wife, family, and home, equipoise in both desired and undesired conditions, unswerving devotion to Me alone, a preference for solitude, philosophical pursuit of Absolute Truth, an aversion to mundane society, consistent longing for Self-Realization — these I call wisdom and knowledge. All else is ignorance.
13.13
I will now tell you what it is that must be known, and by its knowing, brings immortality: It is Brahman. He is without beginning. He is neither being nor non-being. He neither exists nor does not exist. He is beyond all that, and He is subject to Me.
13.14
His arms and legs, hands and feet are everywhere. Everywhere are his heads, with mouths that speak, and eyes that see, and ears that hear everything. He pervades and commands All.
13.15
He is the source of all senses but possesses none. He sustains all life but is attached to nothing. He is master of the gunas, yet transcends nature.
13.16
He is the inside and outside of all beings and things, moving and non-moving. He is subtle, incomprehensible, infinitely vast yet intimately close.
13.17
Although He appears as the multitude of separate forms, he is ever undivided, forever One. He is the creator, sustainer, and destroyer of all beings.
13.18
He is the source of light in all that is luminous. He is the darkness beyond darkness. He is knowledge. He is the goal of knowledge. He lives in the heart of everyone.
13.19
I have just described to you the nature of the field, the definition of knowledge, and the goal of knowledge. One who realizes this in himself, becomes as I Am.
13.20
Know that neither creative energy nor pure consciousness ever began. Know also that everything that changes is the product of the forces of nature.
13.21
Nature is responsible for cause and effect in the world. The soul is responsible for its sufferings and enjoyments.
13.22
The individual soul, embodied in energy-matter, lives a life created by the three gunas — the forces of nature. The degree of the soul’s attachment to them dictates the quality of its next birth.
13.23
Yet there is another enjoying life through the body. It is called Witness, Lord, Observer, Supersoul, Supreme, Self.
13.24
He who comes to realize in himself the One living through him, will not take birth again, regardless of his position in life.
13.25
Some realize Self through meditation, others through the yoga of knowledge, others by indifference to the fruits of their actions.
13.26
Others, not knowing the ways of spiritual practice, begin to worship the Supreme Lord upon hearing about Him from saints, and believing deeply in their authority. By such devotion to the words of great teachers, these souls also can gradually transcend the ocean of birth and death.
13.27
Whatever takes birth, moving or non-moving — even the most minute particle — is the union of energy-matter and consciousness.
13.28
He who sees Self in all beings — the deathless in the dying — knows that both the soul and the Supersoul are imperishable.
13.29
He who sees the Supersoul equally in all beings, does not allow his mind to degrade the vision. Thus he approaches the transcendental state.
13.30
He who sees that all actions of the body are performed by the forces of nature, and that the Self does nothing, truly sees.
13.31
He who no longer sees separate identities in material bodies, but perceives all beings as One, becomes Brahman.
13.32
The Supreme Soul has no origin. It never began and has no end. Though working through the body, it does not act or becomes entangled.
13.33
Just as space, due to its subtle nature, is not affected by objects, so the Self is not touched by the attributes of the body.
13.34
Just as the sun illuminates the earth with light, so does the Self illuminate the body with consciousness.
13.35
Those who perceive with the eyes of knowledge the difference between the body and the knower of the body, can also perceive the process of liberation from the bonds of material nature. In this way they shall attain the Supreme.