Vijnana Yoga

[Guest guest]

Bhagavad Gita

 

VII. VIJNANA YOGA

 

THE BLESSED LORD SAID:

 

1. With the mind intent on me, O Partha, practising Yoga and finding

refuge in Me, how in full without doubt thou shalt know Me, that do

thou hear.

 

2. I shall fully teach thee this knowledge combined with experience,

which being known, nothing more besides here remains to be known.

 

3. Among thousands of men, one perchance strives for perfection; even

among those who strive and are perfect, only one perchance knows me

in truth.

 

4. Earth, water, fire, air, ether, thought (Manas) and reason

(Buddhi), egoism (Ahamkara) - thus is My Prakriti divided eight-fold.

 

5. This is the inferior (Prakriti); but distinct from this know thou

My superior Prakriti, the very life, O mighty-armed, by which this

universe is upheld.

 

6. Know that all beings have their birth in these. So, I am the

source and dissolution of the whole universe.

 

7. There is naught else higher than I, O Dhananjaya; in Me all this

is woven as clusters of gems on a string.

 

8. I am the sapidity in water, O son of Kunti. I am the light in the

moon and the sun. I am the syllable Om in all the Vedas, sound in

ether, humanity in men.

 

9. And I am the agreeable odour in the earth and the brilliance in

the fire, the vitality in all beings and I am the austerity in

ascetics.

 

10. Know Me, O Partha, as the eternal seed of all beings; I am the

intelligence of the intelligent , the bravery of the brave.

 

11. And of the energetic am I the energy devoid of passion and

attachment; and in (all) beings I am the desire unopposed to Dharma,

O lord of the Bharatas.

 

12. And whatever beings are of Sattva or of Rajas or of Tamas, know

them to proceed from Me; still, I am not in them, they are in me.

 

13. Deluded by these three (sorts of) things composed of gunas, all

this world knows not Me as distinct from them and immutable.

 

14. Verily this Divine Illusion of Mine, made up of gunas, is hard to

surmount. Whoever seek Me alone, they cross over this Illusion.

 

15. Not Me do the evil-doers seek, the deluded, the vilest of men,

deprived of wisdom by Illusion, following the ways of the Demons.

 

16. Four kinds of virtuous men worship Me, O Arjuna - the distressed,

the seeker of knowledge, the seeker of wealth and the wise man, O

lord of the Bharatas.

 

17. Of them the wise man, ever steadfast and devoted to the One,

excels; for, excessively dear am I to the wise and he is dear to Me.

 

18. Noble indeed are all these; but the wise man, I deem, is the very

Self; for, steadfast in mind, he resorts to Me alone as the

unsurpassed goal.

 

19. At the end of many births, the man of wisdom comes to me,

(realising) that Vasudeva is the all: he is the noble-souled

(Mahatman), very hard to find.

 

20. Those whose wisdom has been led away by this or that desire

resort to other Gods, engaged in this or that rite, constrained by

their own nature.

 

21. Whatever devotee seeks to worship with faith what form so ever,

that same faith of his I make unflinching.

 

22. Possessed of that faith he engages in the worship of that (form);

thence he obtains his desires, these being indeed ordained by me.

 

23. That result indeed is finite, (which accrues) to those men of

small intellect. Worshippers of Gods (Devatas) go to Gods (Devatas);

My devotees come unto Me.

 

24. The foolish regard me as the unmanifested coming in

manifestation, knowing not My higher, immutable, unsurpassed nature.

 

25. I am not manifest to all, veiled (as I am) by Yoga-Maya. This

deluded world knows not Me, unborn and imperishable.

 

26. I know, O Arjuna, the past and the present and the future beings,

but Me nobody knows.

 

27. From the delusion of pairs caused by desires and aversion, O

Bharata, all beings are subject to illusion at birth, O harasser of

thy foes.

 

28. Those mortals of pure deeds whose sin has come to an end, who are

freed from the delusion of pairs, they worship Me with a firm resolve.

 

29. Whoever resorting to Me strive for liberation from decay and

death, they realise in full that Brahman, the individual Self and all

action.

 

30. Those who realise Me in the Adhibhuta (physical region), in the

Adhidaiva (the divine region) and in the Adhiyajna (region of

Sacrifice), realise Me even at the time of departure, steadfast in

mind.