Seventh discoure
VIJNANA-YOGA
*Realisation of the Lord by meditation
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.
How ?—Listen:
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.
*Evolution of the Universe out of Divine Prakriti
4.
Earth, water, fire, air, ether, thought (Manas) and reason (Buddhi), egoism (Ahamkara)—thus is My Prakriti divided eightfold.
5.
This is the inferior (Prakriti); but as 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.
Wherefore,
7.
There is naught else higher than I, O Dhananjaya: in Me all this is woven as clusters of gems on a string.
*The Divine Principle penetrating the Universe
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.
Moreover,
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.
*Maya : How to overcome it
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.
*Four classes of devotees
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 those; but the wise man, I deem, is the very Self; for, steadfast in mind, he resorts to Me alone as the unsurpassed goal.
The wise man is again extolled:
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.
*The ignorant worship inferior Gods
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 soever, 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 into 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. Nobody knows Me, except that one man who worships Me and seeks refuge with Me.
*The root of ignorance
27.
From the delusion of pairs caused by desire and aversion, O Bharata, all beings are subject to illusion at birth, O harasser of thy foes.
*Divine worship leads to realisation
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.
With what object do they worship?—Listen:
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.
END OF SEVENTH DISCOURSE
----------------------------------