Chapter 13 · opening_question
The Yoga of the Field and Its Knower
Kṣetra Kṣetrajña Yoga
- 13.1 I wish to know prakṛti and puruṣa, the field and its knower, knowledge and the Knowable — O Keśava!
- 13.2 ★ This body is called kṣetra (the field); the one who knows it is called kṣetrajña — the field-knower!
- 13.3 ☆ Know Me as the kṣetrajña in ALL fields — and the knowledge of field + knower is true knowledge!
- 13.4 Hear briefly from Me: what kṣetra is, its properties, its modifications, from what, and who the kṣetrajña is!
- 13.5 This has been sung by the rishis in many hymns, distinctly — and in brahma-sūtra passages, with clear reasoning!
- 13.6 Five elements, ego, intellect, unmanifest — plus ten senses, mind, five sense-objects: the kṣetra enumerated.
- 13.7 Desire, aversion, pleasure, pain, the body, consciousness, courage — all this with its modifications is the kṣetra!
- 13.8 Humility, non-pretension, non-injury, patience, uprightness, purity, steadiness, self-control — this is jñāna!
- 13.9 Dispassion toward sense-objects, no ego, and clearly seeing birth-death-age-disease as painful — this is jñāna!
- 13.10 Non-attachment + no identity-fusion with son/wife/home — and constant equanimity in good fortune and bad: this is jñāna.
- 13.11 Unswerving devotion to Krishna, love of solitude, aversion to crowds — these three close the 20 jñāna qualities!
- 13.12 Constant Self-enquiry + seeing the goal of true knowledge = THIS IS JÑĀNA; all else is ignorance.
- 13.13 The Knowable: Brahman — beginningless, beyond sat and asat — knowing this alone grants immortality.
- 13.14 Brahman: hands, feet, eyes, heads, mouths, ears everywhere — enveloping and pervading the entire universe.
- 13.15 Brahman: seems to have all senses yet has none; unattached yet upholds all; nirguṇa yet the enjoyer of guṇas.
- 13.16 Brahman: outside and inside all beings; unmoving yet moving; subtle beyond perception; far yet absolutely near.
- 13.17 One yet appearing divided in all; sustaining yet devouring; creating yet consuming — this is the Knowable.
- 13.18 ☆ Light of lights, beyond darkness — knowledge, the Knowable, reached through knowledge — dwelling in every heart.
- 13.19 The field, knowledge, and the Knowable stated — the devotee who grasps all three attains Krishna's own nature.
- 13.20 Prakṛti and Puruṣa are both beginningless — all modifications and the three guṇas are born of prakṛti alone.
- 13.21 Prakṛti is the cause of action; puruṣa is the cause of experiencing pleasure and pain in the field.
- 13.22 Puruṣa in prakṛti enjoys guṇas — attachment to guṇas is the cause of birth in good and evil wombs.
- 13.23 ☆ Witness, permitter, supporter, experiencer, Great Lord, Highest Self — the supreme Puruṣa in this body!
- 13.24 Whoever knows puruṣa and prakṛti with the guṇas — however they live — is never born again.
- 13.25 Four paths to see the Self: meditation / Sāṃkhya yoga / karma yoga / following tradition — all valid.
- 13.26 Others who simply worship as heard from others — they too cross beyond death, devoted to what they heard.
- 13.27 Every being born — moving or unmoving — arises from the union of kṣetra and kṣetrajña alone.
- 13.28 Who sees the Supreme Lord equally in all beings — the undying in the dying — TRULY sees.
- 13.29 Seeing the Lord equally everywhere, one does not harm the Self through the self — and reaches the highest.
- 13.30 Seeing all actions done by prakṛti alone and the Self as non-doer — that is true seeing.
- 13.31 When the yogi sees all diversity resting in the One and spreading from that One alone — he becomes Brahman.
- 13.32 Paramātmā: beginningless, nirguṇa, imperishable — dwelling in the body, yet neither acts nor is tainted.
- 13.33 As space pervades all yet is never tainted, so the ātman dwells in every body without being stained.
- 13.34 ☆ As the ONE sun illumines all this world, so the kṣetrajña-Light illumines the entire kṣetra — iti!