Gyaan Vigyana Yoga

Krishna said: Hear how, with your mind fixed on me, practicing yoga and taking refuge in me, you will know me fully and without doubt.

I will tell you this knowledge in full, together with realization. Once you know it, nothing else here remains to be known.

Among thousands of people, scarcely one strives for perfection. And among those who strive and succeed, scarcely one knows me in truth.

Earth, water, fire, air, space, mind, intellect, and ego: this is my material nature, divided eightfold.

This is my lower nature. Know that I have another, higher nature: the very life that has become individual beings and sustains this world.

Know that all beings have these two as their source. I am the origin of the whole universe, and its dissolution.

There is nothing higher than me. All this is strung on me like pearls on a thread.

I am the taste in water. I am the light of the moon and the sun. I am the syllable Om in all the Vedas, the sound in space, and the manhood in men.

I am the pure fragrance in the earth, and the brilliance in the fire. I am the life in all beings, and the austerity of ascetics.

Know me to be the eternal seed of all beings. I am the intelligence of the intelligent, and the splendor of the splendid.

I am the strength of the strong, free of desire and attachment. And in all beings I am the desire that does not go against dharma.

Whatever states there are of sattva, rajas, and tamas, know that they come from me alone. I am not in them; they are in me.

Deluded by these three qualities that are made of the gunas, this whole world does not know Me. I am beyond them, and imperishable.

This divine Maya of Mine, made of the gunas, is hard to cross. Those who take refuge in Me alone cross beyond it.

The evildoers do not take refuge in Me. They are deluded, the lowest of men, robbed of knowledge by Maya, and given to a demonic nature.

Four kinds of virtuous people worship Me, Arjuna: the distressed, the seeker of knowledge, the seeker of wealth, and the one who knows.

Of these, the one who knows excels, ever steadfast and devoted to Me alone. For I am very dear to the one who knows, and he is dear to Me.

All of these are noble. But the one who knows is My very Self. This is My view. Steadfast in mind, he is set on Me alone as the supreme goal.

At the end of many births, the one who knows comes to Me, realizing that Vasudeva is all. Such a great soul is very rare.

Those whose wisdom is carried away by one desire or another resort to other deities. Guided by their own nature, they follow this or that rite.

Whatever form a devotee wishes to worship with faith, I make that faith of his firm and steady.

Endowed with that faith, he engages in the worship of that form. And from it he obtains his desires, granted by Me alone.

But the fruits gained by these people of small understanding are finite. The worshippers of the gods go to the gods. My devotees come to Me.

The unintelligent think I have become manifest, having been unmanifest. They do not know My higher nature, which is imperishable and unsurpassed.

I am not manifest to all, veiled by yoga-maya. This deluded world does not know me, the unborn and imperishable.

I know all beings of the past, the present, and the future. But no one knows me.

From desire and aversion comes the delusion of the pairs of opposites. By it all beings fall into confusion at birth.

But those who act virtuously, whose sin has come to an end, are freed from the delusion of the pairs of opposites. Firm in their vows, they worship me.

Those who take refuge in me and strive for freedom from old age and death come to know Brahman, the Self, and action in its entirety.

Those who know me together with the field of beings, the field of the gods, and the field of sacrifice, with minds held steady, know me even at the hour of death.