Field and knower

This body, son of Kunti, is called the field (kshetra), and the one who knows it is called by those who know these things the knower of the field (kshetrajna).

Know Me also, descendant of Bharata, to be the knower of the field in all fields. The knowledge of the field and the knower of the field—that is what I consider knowledge.

What the field is, what its nature is, what changes it undergoes, what arises from what, and also who he is and what his powers are—hear that from Me in brief.

This has been sung by the seers in many ways, in various distinct meters, and in aphoristic passages about Brahman, full of reasoning and firmly established.

The great elements, egoism, intellect, and also the unmanifest; the ten senses and the one mind, and the five objects of the senses; desire, aversion, pleasure, pain, the bodily aggregate, consciousness, resolve—the field has thus been briefly described along with its modifications.

Absence of pride, absence of pretension, non-injury, patience, uprightness, service to the teacher, purity, steadiness, mastery over oneself;

Dispassion toward the objects of the senses, and also absence of egoism; seeing clearly the pain and defect in birth, death, old age, sickness, and suffering;

Non-attachment, not binding oneself to son, wife, home, and the like, and constant evenness of mind whether desirable or undesirable things occur;

Unwavering devotion to Me through yoga that turns to no other, resorting to solitary places, distaste for the company of people;

Constancy in knowledge of the self, and perceiving the aim of the knowledge of truth—this is declared to be knowledge, and whatever differs from it is ignorance.

I will describe that which is to be known, knowing which one attains immortality—the beginningless supreme Brahman, said to be neither being nor non-being.

With hands and feet everywhere, with eyes, heads, and mouths everywhere, with ears everywhere in the world—it stands pervading all things.

Shining through the functioning of all the senses, yet free of the senses; unattached, yet sustaining everything; without guṇas, yet the experiencer of the guṇas.

Outside and inside all beings, the unmoving and also the moving; because of its subtlety it cannot be known; it is far away and also near.

Undivided, yet it seems to exist as divided among beings; it is to be known as sustaining beings, and also as devouring and generating them.

It is called the light even of lights, said to be beyond darkness—knowledge, the object of knowledge, that which is reached by knowledge, seated in the hearts of all.

So the field, knowledge, and that which is to be known have been briefly stated. My devotee, understanding this, becomes fit to enter My own state of being.

Know that prakṛti and puruṣa are both beginningless, and know too that all modifications and guṇas are born from prakṛti.

In producing the body and its senses, prakṛti is said to be the cause; in the experiencing of pleasure and pain, puruṣa is said to be the cause.

Puruṣa, seated in prakṛti, experiences the guṇas born of prakṛti; attachment to the guṇas is the cause of his birth in good and evil wombs.

The supreme puruṣa in this body is also called the witness, the one who permits, the sustainer, the experiencer, the great lord, and the highest self.

One who thus knows puruṣa and prakṛti together with the guṇas is not born again, whatever way of life he follows.

Some, by meditation, behold the self within themselves through the self; others by the path of knowledge (sāṃkhya yoga), and others by the yoga of action (karma yoga).

Others still, not knowing this, worship having heard it from others. They too cross beyond death, holding fast to what they have heard.

Whatever being comes into existence, moving or unmoving, bull among the Bharatas, know it to arise from the union of the field and the knower of the field.

He truly sees who sees the supreme lord standing equally in all beings, undying within the dying.

Seeing the lord standing equally everywhere, he does not harm the self by the self, and so goes on to the highest goal.

He truly sees who sees that all actions everywhere are done by prakṛti alone, and that the self is not the doer.

When he sees the separate existence of beings as resting in the One, and their spreading forth from that One alone, then he attains Brahman.

Because it is without beginning and without guṇas, this supreme self is imperishable, son of Kunti; though it dwells in the body, it does not act, nor is it tainted.

As the all-pervading ether, because of its subtlety, is not tainted, so the self, though present everywhere in the body, is not tainted.

As the one sun illuminates this entire world, so the one who dwells in the field illuminates the whole field, descendant of Bharata.

Those who thus perceive, with the eye of knowledge, the distinction between the field and the knower of the field, and the liberation of beings from prakṛti, go to the Supreme.