The self’s own nature, called the metaself,
Makes beings become who they are.
Creativity is known as action.
{3}
The metabeing is the perishable creature.
The human spirit is the metagod.
Arjuna, best of the body-borne,
The metasacrifice is me, embodied here.
{4}
Whoever, when his time ends,
Gets free of his body
While remembering me goes on
To become me. There’s no doubt about this.
{5}
Whatever being he remembers
At the end, when he gives up his body—
That is where he goes, becoming
That being, son of Kunti, every time.
{6}
Therefore at all times
Remember me, and fight.
Devote your mind and intellect
To me. You’ll come to me without a doubt.
{7}
With his thinking yoked to yogic
Practice, never straying,
Contemplation takes him
To the highest human godhood.
{8}
Remembering the ancient poet, the ruler
Smaller than an atom, the supporter
Of all, the image unimaginable—
Suncolored, beyond dark—
{9}
At the time of his passing on, mind motionless,
Yoked to devotion with the strength of yoga,
Lifesbreath entering right between the eyebrows,
He approaches this highest human godhood.
{10}
Ascetics, free from passion, enter
What knowers of the Vedas call the Indestructible:
Wanting it, they follow lives that seek Brahman.
Briefly I will speak to you about that step.
{11}
All the gates secured,
Mind shut inside the heart,
Lifesbreath set inside the head,
Seated steadily in yoga,
{12}
Reciting Aum, the sole syllabic
Brahman, remembering me,
He goes out, goes on to the way
Beyond, his body left behind.
{13}
His never-deviating mind
Remembers me always.
For such a yogi, always yoked,
Partha, I’m easy to reach.
{14}
Approaching me, mahatmas
Gone to the highest perfection
Do not get reborn
In suffering’s ephemeral house.
{15}
Up to Brahma’s realm
People return again, but son
Of Kunti, once they come to me,
They never find themselves reborn.
{16}
Brahma’s one Day stretches
For a thousand aeons. After
A thousand aeons, Night ends. People
Who know this know the Day and Night.
{17}
From the Unmanifest, manifestations
All proceed, come Day;
Come Night, they dissolve,
Known from then on as unmanifest.
{18}
This crowd of beings—
Becoming, becoming, dissolved
Unwillingly come Night—
Will come to be again, come Day.
{19}
Beyond this being is another. More
Unmanifest than the Unmanifest,
Eternal in all creatures,
It doesn’t perish when they perish.
{20}
What is unmanifest they call
Imperishable, the way beyond.
Attaining it, no one returns.
My highest home is there.
{21}
Devotion, never deviating, gains
The highest human godhood, Partha,
That expands through all of this.
All beings stand inside it.
{22}
The time that yogis, when they
Pass on, go to places of
Return or no return—of this time,
Arjuna, I will speak.
{23}
Fire, brightness, day, the waxing moon,
Six months the sun is moving northward:
Passing on from there, the knowers
Of Brahman go to Brahman.
{24}
Smoke, night, the waning moon,
Six months the sun is moving southward:
From there the yogi, taking on
The brightness of the moon, returns.
{25}
These two ways, light and dark,
Are thought eternal in the universe.
By one he goes on, never to return,
While by the other he returns again.
{26}
Knowing these two paths
No yogi is deluded.
So be at all times
Yoked in yoga, Arjuna.
{27}
Vedic study, sacrifice, austerity,
And charity mete out fruits of merit.
The yogi, knowing all this, goes beyond them
To the highest state: his original one.
{28}
SESSION 9
Royal Wisdom, Royal Secret
Krishna, seeing that Arjuna does not scoff at him, promises to tell him a secret: He declares himself the origin of the cosmos and its living species, and says that he has originated and dissolved these many times. This great claim may be hard to believe about someone in a human body, and Krishna contrasts the “deluded people” who scorn him in his human body (the Kauravas among them) with the mahatmas who worship him through devotional work or the pursuit of knowledge.
Krishna expands on his own divine qualities and roles—one of which is as the universal recipient of worship, regardless of whether that worship is performed by “devotees of other Gods.” He accepts the offering of anyone striving with devotion. Because he is the same in all beings, anyone, including sinners and socially subordinate people, can achieve his state of being.
The Blessed Lord said,
But since you aren’t scoffing,
I’ll proclaim to you the utmost secret,
Knowledge together with discernment.
Knowing it will free you from misfortune.
{1}
A royal wisdom, royal secret,
This—the highest purifier,
Understood at first sight, dharmic,
Easy to enact, imperishable.
{2}
Men who put no faith
In dharma don’t attain me,
Arjuna, returning
To death and rebirth in a circular course.
{3}
I expand this whole
Cosmos, unmanifest in form.
All species have their stations in me,
But I don’t stay in them,
{4}
And nor do species stay in me—
You see my lordly yoga!
The sustenance but not the state of being,
I myself cause beings to be.
{5}
Consider: As the great winds,
Though they go all over,
Stay forever in the sky,
All species stay in
me.
{6}
All species, son of Kunti,
Come into my nature when an era’s
Made extinct. Then, at an era’s
Genesis, I reproduce them.
{7}
Established in my own nature,
I reproduce, again and again,
This entire throng of species
Powerless in my natural power.
{8}
And yet these actions
Do not bind me, Wealthwinner.
Though seated in these actions
I sit apart, detached.
{9}
With me for overseer, nature
Breeds what moves and doesn’t move.
This motive, son of Kunti,
Makes the world revolve.
{10}
Deluded people scorn me
In my haven of a human body,
Ignorant of my higher being
As the great God of Being.
{11}
Vain their hopes and vain their works,
Their knowledge vain, devoid of thought,
Their monstrous and demonic natures
Abide in their delusion.
{12}
Mahatmas, Arjuna, abiding
In a godly nature, worship
Single-mindedly, aware
Of being’s imperishable source.
{13}
Constantly glorifying me,
Striving, solid in their vows,
Bowing down, devoted to me,
Always yoked, they worship.
{14}
Sacrificing through the knowledge-
Sacrifice, still others worship me
As one and multiple,
Manifold, facing everywhere.
{15}
I am the rite, I am the sacrifice,
I am the offering, I am the herb,
I am the mantram, I am the ghee,
I am the fire, I am the libation.
{16}
I am the father of the universe,
Its mother, founder, grandfather,
The not yet known, the purifier, the syllable Aum,
The Rig, the Sama, and the Yajur Veda,
{17}
Path, scaffold, master, witness,
Home, sanctuary, friend,
Genesis, dissolution, base,
Treasury, imperishable seed!
{18}
I heat up; I hold in
And I send out the rain.
I am deathlessness and death,
Real and unreal, Arjuna.
{19}
Thrice-wise drinkers of Soma, rinsed of sins,
Worship me with sacrifices in the quest for heaven.
The virtuous get to the world of the chief of Gods.
They feast in the sky on the Gods’ divine delights.
{20}
Having enjoyed the expansive world of heaven,
Their virtue spent, they enter the world of mortals,
And thereby following the triple dharma,
They come and they go, wishing their wishes and getting them.
{21}
Men who sit close by me,
Yoked perpetually,
Their thoughts on no one else—
I bring them what they need for yoga.
{22}
Even the devotees of other Gods
Who sacrifice with faith
Sacrifice to me as well,
Though not according to the rules.
{23}
All their sacrifices
I alone enjoy and master.
They don’t recognize
The truth of me. And so they fall.
{24}
Devotees of Gods go to the Gods;
Devotees of forefathers go to forefathers;
Devotees of spirits go to spirits.
Those who sacrifice to me are sure to go to me.
{25}
A leaf, a flower, fruit, water
Offered, with devotion,
By a striving atman: That
Devoted offering I eat.
{26}
Whatever you do, whatever you eat,
Whatever you offer, whatever you give,
Whatever you burn for, son of Kunti,
Do that as an offering to me.
{27}
Freed from karmic bondage,
From its lucky or unlucky fruit,
Yoked to the yoga of renunciation,
Set free, you will come to me.
{28}
I am the same in all beings.
There is none I hate or favor.
Those who worship me devotedly
Are in me, as am I in them.
{29}
Even if a man who does wrong
Worships me, devoted to no other,
He should be considered good
And right in his resolve.
{30}
Swiftly he becomes a dharmic man
And goes to everlasting peace.
Arjuna, understand that
No devotee of mine is lost.
{31}
Partha, by taking refuge in me,
Women, merchants, even peasants
Though from sinful wombs
Go the highest route.
{32}
How much easier it is for virtuous
Brahmins, for devoted royal seers!
Having gotten to this brief, unhappy
World, devote yourself to me.
{33}
Mind on me, devoted to me,
Sacrifice to me and bow to me.
Yoking yourself like this, you’ll come to
Me, your passage beyond.
{34}
SESSION 10
Expansive Glories
Krishna’s self-revelation continues, prompted by his love for his friend. Arjuna asks to be told the ways the divine manifests in the world.
Krishna agrees, pointing out that he will limit himself to the main ones—as he must, being endless. Although present in all beings, divinity shines through most clearly in the preeminent one of each kind. Krishna describes himself in an extended litany that includes natural phenomena, abstract entities, animals, Gods, and people. At the end of it, he downplays his own litany—his sustaining power in the world is just “one fraction” of himself.
The Blessed Lord said,
Hear my highest word again,
Arjuna. Because I wish
Your welfare, I will tell it
To you, the one I love.
{1}
No crowd of Gods or visionaries
Knows how I have come to be.
I am the source of Gods
And visionaries everywhere.
{2}
Whoever knows me—no birth, no
Beginning, the world’s great Lord—
He alone is an enlightened mortal,
From all his sins released.
{3}
Knowledge, enlightenment, intellect,
Honesty, patience, composure, control,
Pleasure, pain, becoming and ceasing to be,
Fear and fearlessness,
{4}
Fairness, ahimsa, contentment,
Austerity, charity, infamy, fame….
Beings are the many ways
; They are because of me.
{5}
Seven ancient visionaries,
Four Manus, too,
Who peopled this planet:
I birthed them with my mind.
{6}
Whoever knows this truth
About my yogic immanence
By unswerving yoga
Will no doubt unite with me.
{7}
I bring it all to be,
And from me, all evolves.
The wise and meditative
Think this as they worship me.
{8}
Thoughts on me, living me and breathing
Me, each one enlightening another,
Always discussing me, they find
Contentedness and joy.
{9}
I give them intellectual yoga
By which they come to me
Constantly yoked
In loving worship.
{10}
Compassionately I destroy
The Dark of their unknowing.
From my place in their own beings,
I shine a lamp of knowledge.
{11}
Arjuna said,
Highest Brahman, highest home,
Highest purifier—You—
Spirit eternal and divine, Primal
God, birthless, all-pervading….
{12}
So all the seers call you—
The divine seer Narada,
Asita Devala, too, and Vyasa.
And you yourself say so.
{13}
All this you tell me, Krishna, blessed
Krishna, and I believe it’s true.
Nobody knows your revelation,
Not the Gods and not the demons.
{14}
You alone know yourself
Godsong Page 8
